"What a beautiful, healthy woman she is! And we have to be healthy in our bodies and normal in our longings if we would be healthy of soul, in the life of our bodies and our physical being."
On the evening after the excursion on the ice, they found each other again. The wind had lashed their blood to a warm glow, the exercise had sent it coursing through their veins. Love was reborn of their embrace until drowsiness overtook them. And Mathilde thought that she had found him again and Addie thought that he had found her again, because their kisses had sealed one to the other, because their arms had clasped one to the other, but they lost each other again at once, as ever and always, because Mathilde just did not know him in his two-sided soul and he never knew things for himself, whatever he might know for others, in the clarity of his knowledge; in any of the manifestations of the instinctive knowledge which he knew silently and blissfully in his soul's soul: the hidden spark, from which treasure shone.
Mathilde sat down quietly in a corner, sitting a little way from the others, to catch the light of a lamp on her book; and Addie remained for only a moment, saying that he had work to do. And, as he went out of the door, there was a sudden draught, so that the lamps flickered and smoked and nearly went out.
"There's something open," said Constance. "Where can that wind come from?"
"I'll look," said Addie, closing the door.
"You see," said Gerdy, pursing up her mouth and turning to Aunt Constance, "you see it's not alwaysmyfault when there's a draught."
Silence fell; there was not a sound but the hard tap of the dice on the backgammon-board and the rustle of the cards as they were played, while Constance, Adeline, Emilie and Mathilde read or worked, and the evening hours in the soft light of the sitting-room dozed away as with soft-trailing minutes and quarters, dull reflexions in the mirrors, faint lamplight on the furniture and the rhythmical ticking of the clock in the almost entire silence, broken only now and again by an occasional word, at the card-table, or when Guy said:
"It's blowing ... and thawing.... There'll be no skating to-morrow...."
A piercing scream rang through the house; and the scream so suddenly and unexpectedly penetrated the silence of the stairs and passages of the great house, outside the room in which they were sitting, that all of them started, suddenly:
"What's that?... What's that?..."
They all sprang up; the cards, thanks to Gerdy's fright, fell on the floor, and lay flat with their gaudy pictures. When Van der Welcke opened the door, there was no longer any draught; the maids were running into the hall, anxiously, through the open door of the kitchen. Everybody asked questions at once. They heard Addie come down a staircase; and the hurried creaking of his firm step on the stairs reassured the women. They called out to him, he to them; and, amid their confusion, they at last heard his voice, clearly:
"Help me!... Here!..."
"Where?..."
"On the stairs."
They ran up the stairs.
"On the back-staircase!" they heard him call.
And Constance saw that the partition door was standing ajar at the end of the long passage. She gave a cold shiver and she heard Mathilde suddenly say:
"Oh, nothing ... nothing will induce me to go up that staircase!"
But she forced herself and went; and the others followed her.
They found Addie on the small, narrow back-staircase; and he was carrying Marietje, Mary, in his arms. She hung against him unconscious, like a white bundle of clothes, with her nerveless arms hanging slack and limp.
"What happened?"
"I heard her call out.... The staircase-door above was open.... I expect she meant to go downstairs ... to fetch something ... and was taken ill on the stairs.... Help me, can't you?" he said, almost impatiently.
The women helped him carry Marietje upstairs. They all went up now, to their rooms; the maids, still pale and trembling, put out the lamps in the sitting-room; and silence and darkness fell over the house, as they went creaking up the stairs, with candles in their hands.
The wind outside increased in violence; and the dripping thaw pattered against the panes.
The three sisters were together in their bedrooms: Marietje and Gerdy in their room, Adèletje in her own room, with the door open between them. And they spoke very low, in whispering voices:
"I'm getting used to it," said Marietje, sensibly; "I'm no longer frightened."
"I heard it quite lately," said Gerdy.
And Adèletje answered:
"Yes, I hear it nearly every evening."
"Uncle and Aunt don't speak about it."
"No, it's better not to."
"It's always the same sound: like the dragging of heavy footsteps, in the garret, under the roof...."
"And then it goes downstairs."
"Yes ... then it goes downstairs."
"Uncle had the garret examined."
"Addie has been up there, with Guy."
"They found nothing."
"It can't be a rat."
"It's quite unaccountable."
"I'm getting so used to it," said Marietje.
"It sometimes comes down the little staircase."
"Aunt Constance is afraid of the little staircase."
"She doesn't like the house at all."
"But Uncle does and Addie does."
"Mathilde was so frightened!"
"Uncle and Addie wouldn't like to leave the house."
"And it's a nice house," said Gerdy. "I ... I'm frightened myself lately ... and yet I'm fond of the house."
"I love the house too," said Adèletje. "It's so brown, so dark ... like something safe and something very dear ... around us all. I should be very sorry to leave the house. I shall never marry—shall I?—because I'm ugly and delicate ... and I shall always remain with Uncle and Aunt...."
Gerdy took her in her arms.
"Youwon't," Adèletje went on. "You'll marry one day, Gerdy ... and so will Marietje."
"Oh, stop!" said Gerdy. "Do stop, Adèletje!... What are you talking about marriage!... I'm ugly as well; nobody likes me!"
"Listen!" said Marietje.
"What did you hear?"
"The sound ... I thought."
"I hear nothing."
"Listen!"
"Yes, listen!"
"It's trailing up the stairs."
"Oh, I'm frightened, I'm frightened!" said Gerdy.
The sisters all crept together.
"I'm not frightened," said Marietje. "I often hear it, like that."
"What is it?"
"The maids say...."
"What?"
"That it's...."
"Who?"
"The old man...."
"Hush!"
"Listen, listen!"
"They say the house is haunted."
"It may be nothing at all," said Marietje. "It may be the wind, making a draught."
"But everything's shut."
"Old houses have queer draughts sometimes, for all that."
"The furniture's old too."
"Listen, it's trailing!"
"That's the wind."
"There's the same trailing sound in the wind sometimes, blowing round the house. I'm getting used to it," said Marietje.
"Yes," said Adèletje, "one gets used, one gets used to everything.... I shall always remain in this house, with Uncle and Aunt. I love them."
"They never talk about it."
"That's by far the best way."
"Mathilde, how frightenedsheis!"
"Listen, listen! It's going upstairs!"
"It's the wind ... taking the draught upstairs."
"In an old house ... it's as though the old wood were alive."
"And the furniture."
"What can have been the matter with Mary?"
"Can she ... have seen anything?"
"No."
"No, no."
"She wanted to fetch something.... She fainted.... She's very ill, I believe, very weak."
"Addie says that she's not so very ill."
"Listen!"
"Could it really be ... the old man?"
"And, if it were the old man ... what then?" said Adèletje. "I ... I shall remain in the house. I shall die, here, I think, at Uncle and Aunt's."
"Oh, do hush, Adèletje!" said Gerdy, limply, nestling in her sister's arms.
"I'm not afraid of dying."
"Oh, Adèletje, do hush, do hush! You mustn't talk of dying."
"Listen! I hear it again!"
"But now it's trailing away."
"Like a draught sucking in the air."
"Yes," said Adèletje, "I expect it's the old man."
"Why should it be he?"
"He can't tear himself away from the house."
"He was always implacable...."
"To poor Aunt Constance."
"The old woman was different."
"Yes, she was different."
"No, it's the draught, it's only the draught.... And the house, creaking."
"It's nothing."
"It's nothing."
"But perhaps we imagine ... because we hear...."
"We all feel ... a sort of fear ... because we hear."
"Mary saw something, I expect."
"Come, girls, let's go to bed."
"Do you dare sleep alone in your room, Adèletje?"
"Yes, Gerdy ... but leave the door open between us."
"Yes, that's nicer."
"Good-night then, darlings."
"Adèletje ... you won't think any more of dying, will you?" said Gerdy, moist-eyed. "Perhaps I shall be dead before you are."
"Hush, darling! How can you talk like that?... I'm delicate and ugly.... You're strong, you're pretty."
"I may be dead first, for all that!" said Gerdy, sobbing.
"Gerdy, don't excite yourself so," said Marietje. "That's because we've been talking about it. Now you won't sleep all night."
"I dare say I shall be frightened to-night," said Gerdy. "If so, I'll wake you, Marietje, and creep into bed beside you."
"Very well, do.... And don't worry...."
"Good-night, then...."
"Good-night...."
"Good-night...."
Round the house the thaw wept; and in the night the sinewed grain of the ice broke and melted in weeping melancholy, with the added melancholy of the west wind blowing up heavy clouds, the west wind which came from very far and moaned softly along the walls and over the roof, rattling the tight-closed windows of the night....
Inside the house reigned the darkness of repose and the shadow of silence; and the inmates slept. Only Gerdy could not fall sleep: she lay thinking with wide-open eyes, as she listened vaguely to the wind blowing and the thaw pattering, thinking that she hated ... and loved ... that she hated Mathilde ... and loved ... him ... Johan....
"Yes," said Paul, as he followed Constance out of her own sitting-room, while she, with her key-basket over her arm, went down the stairs with Marietje and Gerdy, "yes, I'm not ashamed to confess it: I've come to see how the country suits me. The Hague is becoming so dirty that I can't stand it any longer. What a dirty place a town is! It's much cleaner in the country.... You're fortunate, you people. But I daresay I should have stayed on at the Hague—I'm not really a man for the country—if my landlady wasn't getting so old, if she wasn't always changing the servants, if those servants weren't so unspeakably slovenly and dirty.... She produced such specimens lately that I gave her notice.... I'd had those rooms fourteen years.... It'll be a great change for me.... But I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to see to everything myself; and I'm getting too old for that.... Yes, I still do my wash-hand-stand myself.... But look here, Constance, when it came to making my bed—because the servant's hands were dirty and my sheets one night smelt of onions—you know, that was really too much to expect. I'm no longer a young man: I'm forty-six. Yes, that's right, you young baggages, laugh at your old uncle! I'm forty-six, forty-six. Lord, what a lot of dirt I've seen in those years!... As the years go by, filth heaps itself around you like a mountain: there's no getting through it. Politics, people, servants, bedclothes, everything you eat, everything you touch, everything you do, say, think or feel: it's a beastly business, just one sickening mass of filth.... The only pure, unsullied thing that I have found in the world is music. Ah, what a pure thing music is!..."
"Paul, I must just go down to the store-room and have a talk with my cook about the filth which I'm to give you this evening," said Constance; and the girls laughed.
"All right, I'll come with you ... I sha'n't be in the way. Ah, what a pure thing music is!" he continued, in the store-room, while the cook opened wide eyes. "Look at painting, for instance, how dirty: oil-colours, turpentine, a palette, paint-brushes, water, all equally messy. Sculpture: clay and damp cloths; literature: what's more loathsomely dirty than ink, the oceans of ink which an author pours forth?... But music: that's tone, that's purity, that's sheer Platonism.... Oh, no, since they've taken to building public conveniences at the street-corners in the Hague, I can't go on living there!"
"Paul!" said Constance, warningly; but he was too much worked up to understand that she was rebuking him. "Run away now, with the girls and leave me with Keetje.[1]Look at her, staring at you and not minding a word I say.... Keetje, listen to me, I want to order the dinner; and you, Paul, ajo,[2]be off!"
"Come away, Uncle!" said Marietje, "Keetje, at Driebergen, isn't accustomed to hear everything called so dirty."
"Keetje's proud of her kitchen, aren't you, Keetje?" said Gerdy.
"Oh, well," said Keetje, "I expect meneer doesn't mean all he says."
"Not mean all I say!" Paul shouted at the servant, who stood calmly with her arms akimbo. "Not mean all I say!"
"One can do a lot with scrubbing, sir, to keep things nice and clean."
"And I tell you," Paul blazed out, "that everything's dirty, except music...."
"And except my kitchen!" said Keetje, greatly offended. "I don't know what sort of servants meneer's had. But we're good cleaners here, aren't we, ma'am?... Yes, I know, old Mie[3]is very old and mevrouw only keeps her on out of kindness ... and we've got young help besides.... But dirty!" shaking her head energetically. "There's no dirt here ... though it is an old house ... and a big family...."
"Girls! Paul!" cried Constance, in despair. "I've no time to stand in my store-room arguing about what's dirty and what not in the world or in Keetje's kitchen.... Get out of this!... And you, Keetje, listen tomeand answerme."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Uncle, come along!" said Gerdy. "We'll show you Keetje's kitchen."
"Well, meneer can inspect that with pleasure!" said Keetje, by way of a last shot.
The girls dragged Paul off to the kitchen, where they were joined by Adèletje and even by Marietje van Saetzema; and they screamed with merriment when Paul examined the pans one after the other:
"But look, Uncle ... they're shining like silver and gold!"
"Well, wecanhave our dinner out of them to-night.... Still, children, music, music is the only pure thing in the world!"
"Provided it's not false."
"Of course it mustn't be false.... Have you a good piano here?"
"Yes, Uncle, Mathilde has hers upstairs and here's mine, in the conservatory," said Gerdy. "I'm the only one who plays."
Paul sat down at the piano, struck a few chords:
"The tone is fairly good.... Ah, music, music!..."
And he played. He playedWotan's Farewell,followed by theFire Magic.... He played very well, by heart: his pale, narrow features became animated, his long fingers quivered, his eyes lit up. In the conservatory the old mother listened, heard merely a flow of soothing sound. At her feet, Klaasje listened, playing with her toys. Mathilde came from upstairs; after her came Guy, deserting his books. Paul played, went on playing ... he had forgotten all about them. Suddenly he stopped:
"You mustn't think," he said abruptly, "that I am an unconditional Wagner-worshipper. His music is delightful; his poetry is crude, childish and thin; his philosophy is very faulty and horribly German and vague.... Proofs? You ask for proofs?... Take the Rheingold: did you ever see such gods? With no real strength, no real marrow in their coarse thieves' souls, their burglars' souls full of filth.... Is that the beginning of a world? No, a world begins in a purer fashion.... And so childishly and crudely: the world's treasure, the gold, the pure gold guarded by three dirty Lorelei, with their hair full of sea-weed, who, the moment they set eyes upon a dwarf, start giggling and making fun.... Are those the pure guardians of the pure gold? But the music in itself, the purity of tone: oh, in that purity of tone he is a master!..."
And he played the prelude to the Rheingold, played it twice consecutively. Suddenly he stopped once more:
"Oh, Gerdy, how dusty your piano is!... Does no one ever wipe the keys?... Where can I wash my hands?"
"Uncle dear, do go on playing!"
"And my fingers black with dust? No, look here, Keetje's pans may shine like silver and gold, but your piano is a sounding-board of dirt. Where can I wash my hands?"
"Here, at the tap."
She led him to the hall.
"Well, first find me a clean towel."
"The towel is clean, sir," said Truitje, who happened to be passing.
"No, I want a towel fresh from the wash, folded in nice, clean folds."
And it was great fun: Marietje ran hunting for Constance, to get the keys of the linen-press.
"So you've come to live here?" said Van der Welcke, who came down while Paul was washing his hands.
"Yes, I had a sudden, irresistible impulse to move to Driebergen. I was feeling a little lonely at the Hague," he confessed. "I am growing old and lonely. And it's cleaner in the country; the air is less foul, though I'm not lucky with this thaw. The road outside was one great puddle. But I have found two airy rooms, in a villa.... It's strange, I should never have believed that I could ever come and live at Driebergen ... and in the winter too!..."
He inspected his hands, which were now clean:
"Imagine," he said, "if there were no water left! I should be dead next day!"
Paul really brightened up. He was a great deal at the house, very soon got into the habit of dining there every evening and, because he felt scruples at always taking his meals at Van der Welcke's expense, he made handsome presents, as a set-off for his sponging, he said, so that in the end it cost him more than if he had dined every day at home. He ordered fine flowers and fruit from the Hague; on Van der Welcke's birthday, he gave him a case of champagne; on Constance' birthday, a parcel of caravan tea, because he came and had tea with them every afternoon. In this way he contributed generously to the house-keeping and relieved his scruples. He brightened up considerably, after his recent years of loneliness, talked away lustily, broached his philosophies, played Wagner; and even Mathilde accepted him as a pleasant change, with a touch of the Hague about him.
Constance would rebuke him at times and say:
"Paul, I won't have you constantly ordering that expensive fruit for me from the Hague."
"My dear Constance," he would answer, "I'm saving the cost of it on my ties; for my dandyism is gradually wearing away."
In the evening, in the great sitting-room—while the wind blew round the house and the dice fell hard on the backgammon-board and the gaudy colour of the cards flickered in the hands of the bridge-players—Paul's music came as a new sound, driving away the grey melancholy, tinkling in drops of silver harmony. He played everything by heart; and the only thing that his attentive audience couldn't stand was his habit of suddenly breaking off in the most delightful passages to defend some philosophical thesis which no one at that instant was thinking of attacking, with which everyone agreed at the time. Nevertheless, despite his playing and his new-found cheerfulness, he felt old, lonely and aimless. Whenever he had an opportunity of talking quietly to Constance for a moment, without having to run after her downstairs, to the store-room, he would say, sadly:
"I? I'm an old bachelor, an old boy. I'm a typical old bachelor."
"You ought to get married, Paul," she said, one day.
He gave a violent start:
"Constance," he said, "if ever you try to lay a trap for me, I swear I'll run away and you shall never set eyes on me again!... Where should I find a wife who would be as tidy as I? And then I'm so difficult to please that the poor child would have a terrible life of it.... Sometimes, yes, sometimes I do cherish the illusion ... of marriage with a very young girl, one whom I could train according to my ideas, my philosophy, my ideas and philosophy of purity ... of which the loftiest is the idea of purity in soul and life...."
"That's a regular old bachelor's idea, Paul: getting married to a very young girl, training her in your ideas. A fine woman of thirty or over: that's better."
"As old as that!" exclaimed Paul.
"A woman of thirty is not old for a man of forty-six."
"No, Constance, don't trouble your head. Marriage is a desperate affair. No, it's a good thing that I never got married.... But I do feel lonely sometimes. I'm glad I came to live here.... It's you who are providing, the family-picture now.... Poor Mamma! She still knows me quite well. But she thinks that I am still very, very young.... Yes, the family-picture is with you now, not on Sunday evenings, but every day of the week.... Now that I'm growing old, I feel myself becoming more pastoral than I used to be. Do you remember how I used to abuse the family and deny family-affection and how angry poor Gerrit used to get? Now I'm growing very idyllic and I'm throwing back and longing for the family in the desert.... I'm glad that your house has become a centre for the family, Constance. But for that, there would be nothing to keep us together. Oh, it's a melancholy thing to grow so old, lonely as I am! What have I to live for? Nothing.... Well, with you, I am still at least a sort of rich uncle, one from whom the children may have expectations: I dare say I shall leave each of my nephews and nieces a trifle. I must have a talk with my solicitor one day. It won't be much for them, but I'll leave them enough to buy a clock, or some other ornament for their mantelpiece..... And your old friend Brauws is back at the Hague, you know.... Oh, didn't you know? Hasn't he written? He's sure to soon.... I met him the other day: the fellow's grown old. He always had an old face: wrinkles are things that need looking after; they want massage.... I used to massage mine, but I've given it up: my personal vanity has gone. As you see, I wear the same tie always. I'm fond of this tie. I have it steamed from time to time: that keeps it fresh. It's a nice tie; but I no longer have such a collection as I used to.... Yes, the family no longer cling together at the Hague. Karel and Cateau still do nothing but eat good dinners by themselves. For years and years they have done nothing but eat good meals together. Lord, Lord, what a disgusting pair to find their pleasure in that!... Saetzema and Adolphine: that's a sad case; you people have been very kind to Marietje.... Otto and Frances have a heap of children now and that good Louise looks after them, while Frances makes a scene one day and embraces her the next with a great display of emotion and loads of tears. And that has lasted for years too.... Yes, the years pass. I simply couldn't bear it any longer, especially with those sluts of servants whom my landlady started engaging lately. I yearned for cleanliness and ... for my family. It's a sign that I'm growing very old, Constance.Mydotage is always marked by that idyllic longing.... That's why I take so much pleasure in immersing myself amid you all in family-affection. It's a great thing that none of you quarrel; even you and your husband don't quarrel any more. It's become the golden age."
[1]Kate, Kittie.
[1]Kate, Kittie.
[2]Malay: clear out!
[2]Malay: clear out!
[3]Mary.
[3]Mary.
And the hard-braced north-east winds, which had brought the nipping frost with them, came no more; they had passed; and it was no longer the strong, boisterous winds, but the angry winds, the winds that brought with them the clouds of grey melancholy, in eternal steady-blowing sadness, as though in the west, yonder, there were a dark realm of mysterious sorrow, whence blew huge howling cohorts of gigantic woes, titanic griefs, overshadowing the small country and the small people. The sky and the clouds now seemed bigger and mightier than the small country and the small people; the sky now seemed to be the universe; and houses, roads, trees and people, horizons of woods and moors, lastly, human souls all seemed to shrink under the great woes that drowned the small country and the small people from horizon to horizon. Curtains of streaming water cloaked the vistas and a damp fog blurred the distant wavering line of trees; a rainy mist washed out the almost spectral gestures, the silent, despairing movements of the windmill-sails; and the low-lying world, feeble, small, sombre and bowed down, endured the crushing, oppressive force of rain and wind lasting night and day and all day long.
Constance and Brauws were sitting once more in her own sitting-room, which was a replica of the little boudoir in the Kerkhoflaan at the Hague. Along the curving folds of the curtains, through the grey, clouded panes, they watched the grey rain falling, now in vertical streaks, now aslant, driven by the raging wind.
"I so well remember this weather," he said, "in the old days, when I used to sit chatting with you at the Hague, in your room which was so like this room."
"Yes," she said.
"I would come late in the afternoon, find you sitting in the dark and scold you because you had not been out; and we used to talk about all sorts of things...."
"It's a long time ago."
"The years fly past. Do you remember, we used to fight a little, both of us, against the years that were overtaking us, against the years that would make us old?"
She laughed:
"Yes," she said. "We no longer fight against them now. We are old now. We have grown old."
"We are growing old. And yet what an amount of youth a human being possesses! As we grow older, we always think, 'Now we are growing old.' And, when we are older than when we thought that, we feel ... that we have always remained the same as we were from a child."
"Yes ... a person doesn't change."
"Only all his joys and all his sorrows change and become blurred; but we ourselves do not."
"No, we don't change. Then why should there be joy and sorrow ... when, after many years, we have remained the same as we were from childhood?"
"Because we remain the same ... and yet do not remain the same."
"Yes," she said, smiling. "I understand what you mean. We remain the same from childhood ... and yet ... yet we change. It is like a game of riddles. I ... I am the same ... and I am changed."
"I too. My soul still recognizes in itself my former child's soul ... and yet ... yet I am changed.... Tell me: I believe things are running smoothly with you...."
"Sometimes."
"Not always?"
"No."
"I am so glad to see ... that things are going well as between you and Henri."
"We are growing so old ... Everything gets blunted."
"No, it's not only that."
"No, not only."
"You have grown used to each other...."
"Without talking about it."
"You set store by each other by now...."
"Perhaps.... Gradually...."
"Hans is a good sort."
"Yes, he's just simply that."
"And you appreciate this now."
"I think I do."
"You both have full lives."
"Yes. Who would ever have thought it?"
"You have so much to make you happy: Addie always with you...."
"My poor boy!"
"Why do you say that?"
"I am frightened...."
"What of?"
"I don't know. On days like the last few days, I am sensitive to every sort of fear, I always have been."
"Have the fears been justified?"
"Sometimes."
"What are you afraid of?"
"I have sad thoughts."
"That is sheer melancholy."
"A melancholy which is a presentiment ... on days like these...."
"And everything is well."
"Only the material things."
"Be happy in that your life is so richly filled, both yours and Hans'.... It's a life of the richest security ... with all that you do."
"With all that we do? We do nothing!"
"You do a great deal ... for people who are small!" he smiled.
"For small souls!... Do we do enough?"
"You do a great deal."
She shook her head:
"I don't.... Hans does: he is good."
"Just simply good.... Tell me, is it merely because of the weather that things don't seem to run smoothly?"
"No, material things aren't everything."
"Is it because of Addie?"
"Perhaps. I can't say. I feel an oppression, here." She put both her hands to her heart. "It's always liable to come, a day...."
"Yes."
"A day of sorrow, illness, wretchedness ... of misfortune ... of disaster."
"Why should you think that?"
"I often think it: now there's a misfortune coming, a disaster.... I sit and wait for it.... Oh, I've been waiting for it for months!... The children look at me, ask me what's the matter, whether anything has happened ... with Mathilde.... No, nothing ever happens.... There is no sympathy between us ... but I, I am calm and I wish her every good ... my son's wife...."
"You must get over that oppression."
"It can't be argued away."
"You must be happy. I have been here for some days now. I see nothing but love all around you."
"From her side?"
"Well, perhaps not from hers."
"She always remains a stranger."
"Then win her to you."
"It's very difficult, when there is no sympathy."
"But, apart from that, there is nothing but love around you. Really, you are wrapped about with silent happiness."
She shook her head:
"They are fond of me ... but there are things slumbering...."
"There are always slumbering things. Happiness without shadow doesn't exist. And one even doubts whether it ought to."
"No, perhaps not ... for later, for later. But ... there are things that slumber, silent, sorrowful things."
"I see you can't overcome it."
"No. I am glad to see you again."
"After so many years. And I too am glad to see that things are going so well with you ... even though there are sorrowful things that slumber."
"There are many good things."
"There is much love ... and much living for others."
She laughed softly:
"So simply ... with no great effort!"
"When we are not great ... why should we act as though we were? We are small; and we act accordingly. If we do good in a small way ... isn't that a beginning?"
"A striving...."
"For later."
"Yes, for later."
"I, I can't even say ... that I am doing good in a small way."
"Tell me about yourself."
"There is nothing to tell. Thinking, living, seeking ... always seeking.... There has been nothing besides."
"Then do as we do," she laughed, softly. "Do good in a small way ... as you say that we do."
"I shall try.... But I am disheartened. I admire you and I envy you."
"I ... I am disheartened. I am sometimes quite dejected. I should like to live quietly, with a heap of books around me. I ... I'm giving it up."
"The struggle?"
"Yes, the struggle to seek and find. Little by little, it has conquered me. Can you understand me? You ... you have conquered it."
"What have I conquered?"
"You understand."
"You rank that conquest too high.... And you, why are you conquered?"
"Because ... because I have never achieved anything.... I may sometimes have found, but never, never achieved.... And now I want to rest ... with a heap of books around me ... and, if I can, follow your example ... and do good in a small way."
"I will help you," she said, jesting, very sadly.
They were silent; and between her and him the room was full of bygone things. The furniture was the same, certain lines and tones were the same as years ago.... Out of doors, the unsparing night of the clattering rain and raging wind was the same as years ago. Life went on weaving its long woof of years, like so many grey shrouds. They both smiled at it; but their hearts were very sad.
And the melancholy of bygone things seemed to swell on the loud moaning of the wind during the following days, when the rain poured down; the house these days seemed full of the melancholy of bygone things. They were days of shadow and half-light reflected around the old, doting woman in the conservatory; Adeline, the silent, mournful mother; Emilie, a young woman, but broken ... like all the greyness exuding from human souls that are always living in the past and in the melancholy of that past; and now that Brauws also saw it as a thing of shadows and twilight round Alex—because the boy could never forget the horror of his father's death—he also understood within himself that bygone things are never to be cast off and that they perhaps hang closer in clouds of melancholy, around people under grey skies—the small people under the great skies—than in bright countries of mountains and sunshine and blue sky. And that there were sorrowful things of the soul that slumbered: did he not see it in Addie's knitted brows, in ailing Marietje's dreamy stare, in Mathilde's glances brooding with envy and secret bitterness and malice? Did he not see it in the sudden melancholy moods of Gerdy, usually so cheerful? And did he not understand that in between their young lives there was weaving a woof of feelings that were most human but exceedingly intense, perhaps so intense because the feelings of small souls under big skies can be deeply sorrowful between the brown walls of a house, between the dark curtains of a room, which the grey daylight enters as a tarnish of pain, mingling its tarnish with the reflexion which lingers from former years in dull mirrors, as though all feeling and all life were quiveringly mirrored in the atmosphere amid which life has lived and palpitated?
Brauws was now living at Zeist and he had collected his heap of books around him and lived there quietly, conquered, as he said. But he was with them a great deal and was hardly surprised when, one morning, intending to come for lunch, he heard unknown children's voices in the hall, saw in the hall a young woman whom he did not know at first, heard her say in a very soft voice of melancholy, with a sound in it like a little cracked bell of silvery laughter:
"Don't you recognize me, Mr. Brauws?"
She put out her hand to him:
"Do you mean to say you really don't know me? Aunt Constance, Mr. Brauws doesn't know me; and yet we used to have so many disputes, in the old days!"
"Freule ... Freule van Naghel ... Freule Marianne!" Brauws stammered.
"Mrs. van Vreeswijk," said Marianne, correcting him, gently. "And here are my children."
And she showed him a little girl of eight and two boys of seven and six; and he was hardly surprised, but he felt the melancholy of the past rising in the big house when Van der Welcke came down the stairs and said:
"Ah, Marianne! Is that you and the children?"
"Yes, Uncle, we have been to Utrecht to look up Uncle and Aunt van Vreeswijk: they are so fond of the children.... Charles may come on this afternoon ... but he wasn't quite sure."
And, turning to Brauws, she continued, very, easily:
"We are living near Arnhem. Won't you come and see us in the summer? Vreeswijk would be very glad, I know."
She spoke quite easily and it was all very prosaic and ordinary when they all sat down round the big table in the dining-room and Marianne quietly chatted on:
"And Marietje—Lord, what a lot of Marietjes we have in the family—ourMarietje is soon coming to introduce her young soldier to you."
"Is it settled then?" asked Constance. "I thought Uncle van Naghel didn't approve."
"He's given in," said Marianne, shrugging her shoulders. "But the dear boy hasn't a cent; and we none of us know how they're going to live on his subaltern's pay. And Marietje who always used to swear that she would only marry a rich man! ... And we have good news from India: Karel is really doing well...."
How prosaic life was! How prosaically it rolled along its steady drab course, thought Brauws, silently to himself, as he looked on while Guy carved the beef in straight, even slices.... And, prosaically though it rolled, what a very different life it always became from what any man imagined that his life would be, from the future which he had pictured, from the illusion, high or small, which he had gilded for himself, with his pettily human fancy ever gilding the future according to its pettily human yearning after illusions.... Oh, if the illusion had come about which, in the later life reborn out of themselves, he and Constance had conceived, without a word to each other, in a single, brightly glittering moment, oh, if Henri's illusion had come about and that of this young woman, now the little mother of three children, would it all have been better than it now was? Who could tell? Who could tell?... And, though the dreamy reflecting upon all this brought back all the melancholy of the past, yet this melancholy contained an assurance that life, as it went on, knew everything better than the people who pictured the future to themselves.... There they all were, sitting so simply round the big table at the simple meal for which Constance apologized, saying that Marianne had taken her unawares; and Brauws was but mildly astonished to find that Marianne was married to Van Vreeswijk: he had not heard of it and it was a surprise to him to see her suddenly surrounded by children; he was but mildly astonished to see her and Hans talking together so simply, as uncle and niece, as though there had never been a shred of tenderness between them; he was but mildly astonished when he himself talked to Constance so simply, while he felt depressed about Addie, whose eyes looked so dark and sombre. When Addie was still a child, he had conceived an enthusiasm for him, perceiving in him a certain future which he himself would never achieve. And he had also suffered, because he felt Addie's jealousy for his father's sake, when he, Brauws, used to sit for hours with his mother in the half-dark room, whispering intimate words so quickly understood, so sympathetically felt....
Now the years had passed; sorrow had faded away and sorrow was being born again perhaps, for life cannot exist without sorrow, laid up as an inheritance for one and all; and yet sorrow was so very little and became so small in the measureless life entire. There was nothing for it but to smile, later, much later, at all the disappointment, even that of seeking and not finding and not achieving....
It was very noisy because of the children: the three little Vreeswijks after lunch playing with Jetje and Constant; and, as the girls were staying with the children, Constance, with her arm round Marianne's waist, went upstairs to her own room:
"Let's sit here quietly for a bit," she said.
Marianne smiled:
"You've always got your hands full, Auntie."
"I don't know why, dear.... We live so quietly here, at Driebergen ... and yet ... yet my hands are always full. I do sometimes crave to be quite alone.... But the craving never lasts long ... and it seems impossible.... However, it's all right as it is...."
"What awful weather, Auntie!... I remember how often it used to rain like this when I came to see you in the Kerkhoflaan.... How long ago it is, years and years ago!... Here, among all your old knicknacks it looks to me suddenly and strangely as though everything had remained the same ... and yet changed. Auntie ... Auntie...."
Obeying a sudden impulse, she dropped on her knees beside Constance and seized her hand:
"Do you remember, do you remember?... I used to come and see you in this sort of rain and stay on ... and I could not bear that you should be unhappy with Uncle..... And, you know, I talked about it ... I said tactless things ... I asked you to try and be happy with Uncle ... Do you remember, do you remember?... And now, Auntie, it appears to me as if a great deal has been changed, though much has remained the same, and as if things had become much better ... between you and Uncle ... between you and Uncle Henri...."
"Dear, we have grown older; and everything has become more mellow; and Uncle ... Uncleisvery good."
"Yes, he is good."
"He is just simply good."
"You see that now."
"Yes, I see it now, I admit it."
"Oh, I am so glad!... Yes, we have grown old."
"Not you."
"Yes, I too," she said, laughing softly. "I am young, but I am older than my years.... And, Auntie, tell me, do you remember before we went to Baarn, you came and called one day—we were just busy moving—and you sent for me and asked me ... you told me ... that Charles was fond of me ... and I refused him ... do you remember, do you remember?"
"I should think I did remember, darling!... And now you've got him after all; and it's all for the best, isn't it?"
"Yes, Auntie, we get on very well indeed.. and I have my children.... Do you remember, do you remember how you came to Baarn one day? I was very low-spirited; and you took me in your arms and pressed me to you and told me ... a fairy-tale, about the small souls ... which passed through vanity ... to ecstasy. Do you remember?... And, when the ecstasy died out ... then the little soul found a grain ... a mere grain ... which was big enough, however, because the soul itself was so small. Do you remember, Auntie, do you remember?"
"Yes, dear, I remember.... It was just a few tiny words to console and cheer you a little ... And now the little soul has found the grain, hasn't it?"
"I think so, Auntie ... but under ... under all these small, everyday things ... a great deal of melancholy remains.... Perhaps it's wrong; perhaps it oughtn't to be so...."
"But, if there are things in one's past, if we have lived before, dear, then there is always a certain melancholy and we all have our share of it ... just because we feel deeply, very deeply perhaps, under our dark skies ... and because our feeling always remains ... and our melancholy too...."
"Perhaps so, Auntie.... And so it goes on and we drift on.... You see, there are good things in life.... Tell me, doesn't it occur to you that you have found...."
"What?"
"What you came to look for, years ago, in Holland ... after you had been abroad so long, Auntie, and felt so home-sick for your own country and for warmth ... the warmth of family-affection.... Tell me, Auntie, doesn't it occur to you that you have found itnow: the country, our grey, dark country ... and everything that you used to long for?... Are we not all round you: even we, though we live some way off?... Are we not all, nearly all of us around you?"
"Yes, dear."
"And are you happy now?"
"Yes, dear."
"I hear something in your voice that contradicts your words. Tell me, what is it?"
"I'm frightened ... I'm frightened."
"And you have found so much, you have found everything! What ... what are you frightened of?"
"I'm frightened ... I feel so anxious...."
"What about?"
"About things ... that may happen."
"Where?"
"In our house."
"What can happen?"
"Things, sad things."
"Auntie, this is nonsense!"
"I can't help it, dear.... I'm frightened ... I'm frightened...."
"Tell me, Auntie, you don't like the house, do you?"
"It's not that."
"But the house oppresses you."
"No, it's not that, child.... Uncle and Addie like the house.... And I'm getting used to it...."
"Tell me, Auntie: they say...."
"What?"
"That the house is...."
She looked at Constance meaningly.
"Darling, darling, it's not that.... It's an old house.... We never talk of that...."
"But it may be just that that depresses you."
"It did at first ... but I'm getting used to it.... Addie is so very calm and communicates all his calmness to us.... What appears inexplicable ... is perhaps quite simple.... But that's not it.... I'm frightened ... frightened of...."
"Of what?"
"Of what I fear ... will happen."
"And what do you fear?"
"Things that I can't put into words ... some great sorrow."
"Why, Auntie? Why should it happen?... And then, if sorrow comes, won't you be strong?"
Constance suddenly gave a sob:
"I shall be weak!"
"Auntie, Auntie, why are you so overwrought?"
"I shall be weak!"
"No, Auntie, you won't. And you mustn't be so frightened. There is nothing but love all around you ... and they will all of them, all of them help you."
"I am frightened ... and I shall be very weak...."
"No, Auntie.... Oh, Auntie, do stop crying! ... What are you afraid of? And what could happen now?... For whom are you afraid?"
"For Addie ... for my boy ... for Mathilde."
"But why, Auntie, why?... Oh, don't be so frightened!... Everything's all right between them ... and Addie ... Addie is so calm, so practical, so simple in his way of acting and thinking...."
"Perhaps.... Oh, if he is only strong!"
"Isn't he always?"
"Perhaps he is.... Oh, my dear child, I am so frightened!..."
"Hush, Auntie, hush!... Don't cry any more.... Lie still, now; lie still in my arms.... Even if we have sorrow to go through, even if we have sad things to experience, even then you should remember that everything ... that everything comes right again ... in the end.... If we all have our share, why shouldn't they have theirs?... And perhaps—who knows?—your anxiety is exaggerated, Auntie ... because you have been a little overwrought ... lately."
"It may be that."
"Is it all ...a little too much for you sometimes?"
"I am so seldom alone."
"I dare say you feel tired sometimes."
"It may be that."
"You mustn't think about it any more Tell me, Auntie: Gerdy isn't very well...."
"What makes you say that?"
"I thought she looked pale ... and rather sad."
Constance passed her hand over her forehead:
"Oh, Marianne," she said, "I wish that I could talk it all away, think it all away!... But I can't.... I'm frightened, I keep on being frightened...."
And she sobbed gently on Marianne's shoulder, while the younger woman knelt beside her.
The rain fell in vertical streaks. The carriage took Marianne and her children to the station through a deluge.
Since that first time, Mathilde was pricked with continual jealousy; and in the mornings, when Addie went upstairs to Marietje van Saetzema's room, she always followed him and stole into the wardrobe-closet next door, always with her keys in her hand, so that, if she happened to be caught, she might appear to be looking for some article of dress in one of the presses. She listened at the partition and understood what they were saying sometimes but not always, because Marietje spoke very low and Mathilde could not always hear what she answered. But, as her eyes glanced mechanically along the big flowers that formed the pattern of the wall-paper, she suddenly noticed a broad crevice, where the wood had split and the paper cracked and torn; and, with her heart leaping to her throat, she peeped and peeped.... She had to squeeze between two cupboards, she banged her head against the partition and was terrified lest they had heard; but they heard nothing or else the noise did not strike them, for the sound of their voices went on.... Mathilde now put her eye to the crevice and was able, though with difficulty, to see into the room, saw Marietje sitting with Addie sitting beside her, saw her hand resting in his:
"Why does he hold her hand so long?" she thought. "Need he feel her pulse as long as that?"
But he did not let go of Marietje's hand; and Mathilde became impatient, also because she could not catch what they were saying:
"How softly they are talking and how confidential it all is!" she thought.
And, when Marietje lifted her head a little, as with the movement of a lily on its slender stem, Mathilde saw her smiling, saw her eyes gleaming softly, saw the words taking birth as it were smiling on her lips; and it seemed as though those words added a touch of colour to the pale lips and a blush to the pale cheeks....
"How very much better she looks than when she came!" thought Mathilde, though she wanted to call out to Addie and tell him to let go Marietje's hand. "They are about the same age," she thought. "I am much younger than she is."
And yet Marietje, though twenty-six, had a certain youthfulness, as of a very young girl; and Mathilde could not get rid of the thought:
"They are—very nearly—the same age. It's ridiculous: a young doctor like Addie ... with a young woman, a young girl like her. It's ridiculous.... Why is he wasting his time on her now?"
She now saw the smile fade from Marietje's lips, saw the girl, on the contrary, look very serious, tell a long and serious story:
"What can she be telling him?" thought Mathilde.
And she saw their faces come nearer to each other: it was as though Addie were reassuring Marietje, explaining things; and now, now he laid his hand on Marietje's head and she ... she lay back on the sofa.
"It's absurd," thought Mathilde, "this hypnotizing ... and that they should be alone together for so long."
Soon the hypnotism took effect. Marietje fell asleep and Addie quietly left the room. Mathilde waited a few minutes and also stole away, meeting no one on the stairs....
What she had seen through the slit in the wall-paper was nothing; and yet ... and yet she could not help constantly brooding over it.... She now also noticed, at lunch, that Marietje was much more cheerful, that her movements were much less languid, that she laughed with the other girls; and she noticed that, after lunch, she helped Adèletje with the plants in the conservatory, that she was beginning to join in the life of the others, that she no longer went straight back to her room as she used to do at first.... And constantly too, downstairs, in the conservatory, she was struck by an intimacy between Marietje and Addie.... Mathilde was quite sensible, though she was jealous of her husband; she was jealous of all his patients; she was quite sensible and thought:
"A certain affection between a young girl and a doctor, a young doctor, who obviously has a good influence upon her, as Addie has, is easy enough to understand."
And she wanted to go on thinking so sensibly, she, a woman of sound, normal sense, but it was difficult, very difficult.... For Addie went out and she at once saw Marietje's smile disappear, saw her happy vivacity sink as it were ... and Marietje soon went upstairs, until she came down again with Aunt Constance and Adèletje to go for a walk, as they did every afternoon when the weather was not too bad.... Mathilde remained upstairs, played the piano, looked out upon the sad, misty road.... Oh, she loved her husband, she even loved him passionately and she was living here for his sake; but wasn't it awful, wasn't it awful? In Heaven's name wouldn't it be better just to move to a small house at the Hague ... and accept the pinch of poverty?... She went to the next room, to her children: they had been out and were playing prettily, while the nurse sat at the window sewing; and now she did not know what to do next.... What an existence, in the winter, in a village like this, in a big house, a house full of sick people and mad people! As it happened, through the window she saw Uncle Ernst walking along the road, with his back bent under his long coat, talking to himself as he returned to his rooms in the villa where he was being looked after: what an existence, oh, what an existence ... for a young and healthy woman like herself! She was never susceptible to melancholy; but she felt a twilight descending upon her from the unrelieved sky overhead. She could have wept.... And yet she could have stood it all, if only she had possessed Addie entirely.... If only she could win him entirely, she thought, suddenly; and suddenly it occurred to her that she did possess him ... but not entirely, not entirely.... He escaped her, so to speak, in part.... They had love, they had fervour in common; they had the children in common; they had bonds of sympathy, physical sympathy almost. She felt happy in his arms and he in hers; but for the rest he escaped her. Something of his innermost being, something of his soul, the quintessence of his soul, escaped her, whereas she gave herself wholly to him and did not feel within herself those secret things which refused to surrender themselves.... She felt it, she understood it now; suddenly, under the grey melancholy of the skies, as though she suddenly saw clearly in that twilight; she understood it: their love was merely physical! Oh, he escaped her; and she did not know how she was ever to win him entirely, so as to have him all to herself, all to herself!... Perhaps if she began to take an interest in his patients, to share his life in them? But she was jealous of those patients, who took Addie from her for hours and days together; and she was jealous, very jealous of Marietje.... But what then? How was she to win him?... And in this rich-blooded woman, whose senses bloomed purple and fierce, there shot up as with a riot of red roses the thought of winning him more and yet more with her kisses, with her whole body, with all that she would give him, with all that she would find for him, to wind tendrils round him and bind him to her for ever and for ever.... And then, then also to make him jealous of her, as she was jealous of him, by disturbing his unruffled calm, the calm of a young, powerful man, with painful suspicions, which would yet bring him wholly to her, so that she might win him entirely....
Oh, wasn't it awful, wasn't it awful? As it was, she sat here the livelong day and possessed her husband only in the evening, only at night, as though she were food for nothing else. It went against the grain; and suddenly, intuitively, she felt her jealousy of Addie's long talks with Marietje more sharply than before. What need had he to talk to her at such length? Oh, he ought not to neglect his wife so, he ought not to think her good only for that: he ought to talk to her also, for hours at a time, earnestly, strangely, gazing into her eyes, as he talked to Marietje! Why did he not talk to her, his wife, like that? What were these talks? What had those two to talk about? It was not only about being ill and about medicines and not even only about hypnotism: of that she was convinced. There existed between the two of them secret things, about which they talked, things which they two alone knew.... Oh, how she felt her husband escape her, as though she were stretching out her fingers at him covetously and as though she did indeed grip him in her hot embrace ... only to lose him again at once!...
Her days passed in constant monotony. She was a healthy, superficial, rather vain, very young woman, with a few vulgar aspirations; and she suffered in her surroundings because she had an undoubted need for healthy and superficial affection. She would have been happy leading a simple, very carnal, very material married life, with plenty of money, plenty of enjoyment, with children around her; and then she would have laughed with pride and been good, as far as she was able. As it was, she felt that, except physically, she was hardly the wife of her husband and, despite her children, hardly accepted by his family and hardly suffered in their house. And she peevishly blamed them all, thinking that they were not kind to her, and she failed to perceive that what separated her from them all was a lack of spiritual concord, of harmony, of sympathy, because she had nothing that appealed to them and they had nothing that appealed to her, because the emanations from her soul and theirs never reached each other but flowed in two directions, because everything that they understood in one another, even without words, she did not understand, even though it were explained to her in words, because she looked upon them as sick, mad, egoistical and nerve-ridden, because they looked upon her as shallow and vulgar. It was an antipathy of blood and of soul: nobody was to blame; and even that she did not understand. The only one to blame, perhaps, was Addie, because, when taking her for his wife, he had not listened to the soul within his soul and had allowed himself to be led only by instinct and by his material philosophy of regeneration:
"She is a healthy, simple woman. I want healthy, simple children. That's how we ought all to be: healthy and simple as she is."
Were those not the ideas which had made him introduce her into the midst of them all, as an object lesson, without listening to the still, slumbering voices of his soul's soul?... And scarcely had those voices awakened before he had been roused out of himself with the thought:
"After all, I found her. Why should I lose her now? Who am I, this one or the other? And, if I am both those whom I feel within me, how can I unite them and compel them into a single love for my wife, for the woman who gives me healthy, simple children?"
And, every day that passed, he had known less for himself, whatever he might know for all of them whom he approached and benefited by strange influence, knowing less and less daily, until he saw himself plainly as two and gave up the struggle, let himself go, allowed his soul to drift at the will of the two streams that dragged him along, in weakness and surrender and lack of knowledge for himself, whereas he sometimes knew so clearly for others. Self-knowledge escaped him.... And, if Mathilde had been able to see this, in her husband, she would have shrunk back and been dismayed at what, all incomprehensible to her, existed secretly in the most mystic part of him. She would have been shocked by it as by a never-suspected riddle, she would have turned giddy as at a never-suspected abyss down which she gazed without knowing where it ended, a bottomless depth to her ignorant eyes and quite insusceptible instincts. She would not have understood, she would have refused to understand that there was no blame but only self-insufficiency and inconsistency of soul, in silent antagonism and antipathy, because Addie felt himself to be two. She would have wanted to blame ... them, all of them, because "they were not nice to her," but not her husband, for she loved him because of his sturdy young manliness, because of his older earnestness and thoroughness, in which she failed to see the soul of his soul. And she now wanted, unhappy as she was, to continue feeling like that, neglected, offended, underrated, by all of them in that large, gloomy house, in which everything, down to the dark oak doorposts, was hostile and antagonistic to her, until she felt frightened of mysteries in or upon which they hardly ever touched in speaking, mysteries which were even almost welcome to the others and not too utterly unintelligible in their communism of soul, from which she was irrevocably excluded.