That night, Marietje van Saetzema had a dream which was like a nightmare. She was running down a sloping mountain, deep as an abyss; she rushed and rushed and Addie came rushing after her and Mathilde after Addie, rushing with delirious screams. After Mathilde, Johan Erzeele came rushing and, last of all, Gerdy; and before any one of them reached the other, Marietje, who was running in front, plunged into the deep abyss; and they all plunged after her. The echoing fall, in the black depths, made Marietje wake with a start to find the darkness of her bedroom quivering all around her, the strange inner darkness of the night; and she was cold and clammy and sat up wide-eyed, while the wind blew fiercely outside. Her first impulse was to get up and run out of the room for help, to Aunt Constance, to Addie. But, growing calmer, though her head and heart were still throbbing, she let herself fall back upon her pillows and controlled her fears. She would stay quietly in her room.
A month ago, she would never have done as much; at the Hague, after this sort of dream, she would utter cries, go running through the house, scream aloud. Now she did not scream, but lay where she was and drove the feverish thoughts in front of her. Yes, feverish she was; but she speedily recovered a sense of calmness, as soon as she began to think of Addie. Hadn't he said so himself:
"Marietje, when you feel overstrung ... think of me!"
And she thought of him; and things began to smile and to grow very calm around her.... She gave a deep sigh.... She recalled the words which he used when hypnotizing her:
"The body is growing heavy.... The hand is growing heavy.... You can't lift your hand...."
And, though she did not fall asleep, she became very quiet and smiled contentedly. True, she knew that he said the same thing to all the patients whom he hypnotized:
"Think of me, whenever you feel your nerves give way."
But she, when she thought of him ... was she in love with him? Perhaps; she didn't know: perhaps she did love him, deep down within herself, in the chastest recesses of her soul; perhaps she had been in love with him for years, ever since he used to talk to her so kindly—he a small boy, she a rather bigger girl, but about the same age—when her brothers were so rough to her and Mamma, Floortje and Caroline used to snub her, as they always did. In the noisy, uproarious, vulgar house, she had grown up quietly, like a little pale plant, humble, oppressed, as it were hiding herself, until suddenly some impulse in her blood had made her scream the house down with neurotic cries. They all asked whether she had gone mad; and she had locked herself up since, hidden herself, in her room.... And, after these attacks, she would remain behind as in a dream, seeing nothing, hearing nothing around her, just staring. And, when she saw that her condition at last made an impression, she at once became proud of that impression, lifted herself out of the Cinderella humility, became the interesting figure at home, now that she aroused her father's fears, her mother's pity, her sister's annoyance. And she had grown proud of her neuroticism; she let father, mother and sister feel fear, pity and annoyance, with a sort of vindictive satisfaction. Yet she had a vague feeling of deep unhappiness, because her soul was sinking as into an abyss, her hands groping vaguely in the terrible void.... She would spend days in tears. Then Aunt Constance had come, so kind, so gentle, so sensible; and she had resisted, because perhaps she was very fond of Addie and always had been, in obedience to some modest dread, did not wish to live where he lived. But Aunt Constance had insisted and she had yielded; and Addie, Addie was now curing her: oh, he cured her when he merely pressed his hand softly on her forehead! And she confessed to him the wicked, arrogant pride in her illness, which at last created an agitation in the paternal house where Marietje had never counted....
He had listened so earnestly, telling her that this was very wrong, that it was the worst of all and that, with such wicked feelings she would never get well. And, after that, he talked for days, oh, so earnestly! And she listened to him in ecstasy, as though her soul were rocking on his deep, soothing voice. And gradually, gradually, she had discovered in him—oh, no affection for her, no ordinary affection or love, for she was plain and thin and without charm, while Mathilde was so handsome: a beautiful woman!—but a real harmony between some of his feelings and views with what she, in her silent life as a lonely, down-trodden little girl, had thought about all sorts of people, animals, things, about everything which had aroused her compassion in her youthful earnestness and hypersensitiveness: about the wind lashing the leaves; about a driver ill-treating a horse; about Aunt Adeline, Granny, Emilie, little Klaasje; about poor people whom she would sometimes go and visit with Aunt Constance and Adèletje. And thus, slowly, out of all these small, simple feelings something had thrilled in unison with his feelings, had roused kindred feelings in him, until they had talked of all sorts of strange presentiments and dreams, of existence before life and after death, of an invisible world and life crossing their threads with the visible world and life. And, when sometimes she had been a little fanciful, Addie had always understood her, but at the same time, with all his restfulness and strength, his seriousness and smiling earnestness, had quieted her in her hypersensitiveness and hyperimagination, in her dread and surmise, until she now discussed all those questions with him so quietly, in words that quickly understood one another, so that, even in these conversations, which might easily have made her more neurotic, he satisfied her and lulled all the anxious thrills of her sick girlish nerves and soul. There was a mystic force in his voice, in his glance, in the pressure of his hand, so that, even after these conversations, she remained lying in a deep and blissful sleep and, after half an hour, woke from it as though rising refreshed out of a wide, still bath on strangely rarefied air, like cool water, which gave her an incomprehensible, blissful sense of spiritual well-being.
And that peaceful life of sympathy was healing to her, whereas it vexed Mathilde. She thought that it would always keep flowing on like this; and she was greatly surprised when she suddenly heard of a ball at Utrecht to which they were all invited.
"Which of you want to go?" asked Constance. "I shall stay at home, but Uncle will chaperon you."
Mathilde loved the idea, even though Addie did not give it a thought. Of the girls, however, only Gerdy cared about it; but Guy would go with her.
"So none of you: Adèletje?... Mary?... Marietje?"
No, they did not feel inclined, even though Aunt Constance urged them, said that they very seldom had any fun, that they ought really to go, now that the chance offered. But the girls didn't want to; and Aunt Constance said:
"Well, then, you and Uncle will just make four; so you can go in the carriage."
But Mathilde preferred to dress at Utrecht, in an hotel, because her dress would get creased in the carriage; and she decided to go in the afternoon, with a box.
On the evening of the ball, Constance grumbled at Adèletje, Mary and Marietje, because they took no pleasure in dancing, and said that, if this went on, they would move to the Hague, because the girls were growing so dull in the country. Constance' nerves were raw; and she said angry, unreasonable things; her eyes filled with tears.
"But, Auntie," said Marietje, "we're all so happy here together! Why talk about the Hague? What do we care about a dance?"
"That's just it. I think it unnatural."
"Listen to it blowing!" said Adèletje.
"And raining!" said Marietje—Mary.
"That's what Uncle and Gerdy and Guy are driving through," said Adèletje.
"The poor horses!" said Marietje—Mary.
The others laughed.
"Yes, the horses will get wet, poor things!" said Marietje—Mary.
"Dirk'll look after them," said Constance. "The horses are taken out so seldom."
"But when they are ... they are taken out in the rain!" said Mary, reproachfully.
Paul was there, playing softly on the piano. Ernst was there; and it was very strange to see the friends which he had silently made with Klaasje. Together they looked in her picture-books: the unnaturally old queer man and the unnaturally young child.
"I can read now," said the backward girl of thirteen, very proudly.
"Really?" said Uncle Ernst.
"Yes, Uncle Addie is teaching me to read. Look, in these books, with pretty letters, blue, yellow, red. That's violet. And that, Uncle Addie says, is purple. That's purple: a lovely colour, purple. Uncle Addie teaches me to read."
And laboriously she spelt out the highly coloured words.
"So Uncle Addie teaches you to read with coloured letters?" asked Ernst.
"Yes, I don't like black letters. And look at my books: all with beautiful pictures. That's a king and a queen. It's a fairy-tale, Uncle. This is a fairy. The king and queen are purple ... purple; and the fairy—look, Uncle, look at the fairy—is sky-blue. Uncle Addie says it's a-zure."
She drew out the word in a long, caressing voice, as though the names of the colours had a peculiar meaning for her, rousing in her strange memories of very early colours, colours seen in gay, faraway countries, down, down yonder....
"Mr. Brauws won't come," said Emilie.
"No, it's raining too hard," said Adeline. "He won't come this evening."
"He's become so much one of the family."
The evening passed quietly; the old grandmother and Klaasje were taken and put to bed; but, because Aunt Constance was sitting up till the carriage returned from Utrecht, they all wanted to sit up.
"What an idea!" said Constance, with nervous irritability. "Why don't you all go to bed?"
But they were gathered round her so pleasantly and they stayed up: Addie, Emilie, Adeline, Marietje; but Addie sent Adèletje and Mary to bed.
And they sat waiting downstairs in the night. It was three o'clock when at last they heard the carriage; and Van der Welcke, Gerdy and Guy entered.
"Mathilde is spending the night at the hotel," said Van der Welcke.
"And Uncle made a very sweet chaperon," said Guy, chaffingly.
But Gerdy did not say much, looked tired, very pale, constrained. They went upstairs, to their rooms, and Gerdy kissed her mother. But, without the others seeing it, she followed Adeline to her room and suddenly, unable to contain herself, burst into a paroxysm of tears.
"Darling, darling, what is it?"
And the mother, long since broken, took the girl, now breaking, into her arms and it was as though she suddenly wakened from her apathy and felt herself very much a mother.... Oh, she knew that she could not do much for her children, that she was not capable, never had been since Gerrit's death, that without Van der Welcke, Constance and Addie she could not have made anything of her children! Nevertheless, they remained her children; and, if she did not know how to guide her sons in their careers, she did know how to sympathize with her poor Gerdy's sobs.
"Darling, darling, what is it?"
And, dropping into her chair, while Gerdy knelt before her in the folds of her white-tulle frock, she held the pale little face against her and compelled the child to speak, to speak....
"It's nothing," said Gerdy, through her sobs. "I didn't enjoy myself."
"You didn't? Why, what happened?"
"I hardly danced at all."
"Why not?"
"Mamma, it's better to tell you plainly. I'm so unhappy! It's about Johan...."
"Erzeele? Has he proposed to you?"
Gerdy shook her head:
"No, but...."
"But what?"
"In the winter ... skating ... I thought he was fond of me.... It's my own fault: it was silly of me, it was silly.... It wasn't anything.... He was just the same to me as to other girls; and I thought, I thought ... It's nothing, Mamma, it's my own fault, but I thought ... Mamma, I oughtn't to take it so much to heart ... but it makes me very unhappy.... He danced with me, once.... But he danced with Mathilde the whole time.... He was always with her.... People were talking about it.... It was just as if she was mad, as if she didn't think ... that she oughtn't to behave like that ... with Johan.... It struck Uncle Henri too: I could see it by his face. They were together the whole evening and ... you understand.... He paid her attentions ... shamelessly ... the way he does to married women.... With girls he's different.... I hated him for a moment. But then he came and asked me, for that one dance ... and then I thought ... I oughtn't to have thought it. It's my own fault. I'm very unhappy, Mamma.... Uncle Henri was very angry too ... with Mathilde ... because she wouldn't come back with us to Driebergen.... He gave way and let her stay, to avoid unpleasantness.... But it was ridiculous of her: the carriage is big enough and she would not have been so badly creased.... Oh, she looked lovely, she looked lovely!... She is quite lovely, dressed like that, at a ball.... Addie ought to have come with us.... She was really beautiful, but not—it's wrong of me to say it, I know—not likeus."
"How do you mean, dear?"
"Not like Aunt Constance and Emilie and you.... She didn't ... she didn't look well-bred.... She looked beautiful, but she looked coarse.... If Addie had come, perhaps she would have restrained herself, not worn her dress so low. She was the only one in such a very low frock.... You see, there was something about her ... that repelled me even more than usual: I can't say what and it's very wrong of me, because after all she's Addie's wife and we must be fond of her; but really, she didn't look a lady; and I could see it in people's faces: they thought her very handsome ... but not ... not well-bred.... And ... after that ... when she did nothing but dance with Johan ... then ... oh, Mamma, then she looked at me ... and looked at me with a sneer ... as if she were looking down on me!... I knew that I was not at my best, that I looked pale and thin; my shoulders are not good; and Johan behaved so oddly to me, in such a queer, mocking way: oh, Mamma, he was almost cruel!... I do believe, oh, Mamma, I do believe, that I ... that I'm in love with him! But I oughtn't to tell you and I oughtn't to be like this ... I oughtn't to cry so; but I couldn't help it, I couldn't help it!... I did my best, Mamma, not to show it before Uncle Henri and before Guy, but, oh, Mamma, the whole dance ... the whole dance was a torture!"
Adeline mingled her sobs with Gerdy's:
"My darling, my poor, poor darling!"
"Mamma! Oh, Mamma!"
"What is it, my poor dear?"
"Listen, Mamma!"
"What?"
"Don't you hear? The sound ... upstairs!"
"Hush!... Hush!... The sound...."
"Is dragging itself...."
"Downstairs. It's like a footstep. It's always like that."
"Oh, Mamma, I'm frightened!"
"It's nothing, dear: the wind, a draught, a board creaking...."
"Oh, but I'm frightened!"
"It's nothing.... I opened the door once ... to look."
"You dared to?"
"Yes. It was nothing."
"There was nothing to see?..."
"No. It was only very draughty."
"And everything's closed!"
"It's nothing, it's nothing, dear."
"Now it's dragging itself away ... down below."
"It's the draught.... Oh, my poor, poor darling!"
"Oh, Mamma, I'm unhappy ... and I'm frightened, I'm frightened, I'm frightened!..."
When Mathilde returned next morning, she seemed to perceive a certain displeasure, a coldness in her husband, in her mother-in-law and in all of them; but she decided that perhaps she was mistaken: she was tired, she was unstrung; and, after she had been to see the children, she kept to her own room, where she knew that no one would disturb her, now that Addie had gone out to his patients. And it was not the surmised displeasure, the unwonted fatigue after the ball that made her nervous, as though she was infected by a nervous thrill from all who surrounded her: it was particularly because of Johan Erzeele that she was now walking restlessly round her room, sitting down at the window, getting up again, going in to the children, coming back again, sitting down to the piano, looking over her ball-programme and suddenly tearing it up.... Now, suddenly, she reproached herself with all sorts of things that had happened the night before: for dancing with Johan so often, even though she had known him all her life as a young girl at the Hague, where he was a subaltern in the grenadiers, while his people lived at Utrecht; for flirting with him in so marked a way at supper; for allowing him to speak like that, with his brazen, sensual fashion of making love to her; for knowing and deliberately encouraging his brazenness; lastly, for scarcely preventing him from escorting her on foot—because it was so near—to the hotel, where she had reserved a room.
She had lost her temper, refused, asked for a carriage, and ridden alone to the hotel where she had spent the night; but his offer and the words in which he had couched it had shocked her, had frightened her all through that night, that short night, so that she had not had a moment's sleep. And now she was angry with herself for not summoning up her usual sound sense, so that he had seen how frightened and shocked she was and had laughed at it, with the caressing laugh of his well-shaped mouth. And, because she was angry with herself, all sorts of nervous excuses went whirling through, all her grievances, great and small, came surging up, as though to defend her against herself, against her own self-reproach. Why couldn't Addie have gone too? Why must he leave her to her own devices like that? Why was she only good for the one thing? Why did he hold such long conversations, full of strange intensity, with that ailing Marietje? Why did she sometimes, through his kisses, feel a strange chill come out of him and freeze her, so that the spontaneous word grew still and lifeless on her lips and she no longer knew what to say: she only knew that she was losing him, again and again and again, while all the others, down below, were winning him, winning him for themselves! Oh, how the grievances whirled up, fighting against her self-reproach, until at last she burst into tears, sheer nervous tears, such as she had never shed before! And, as though the grievances were winning, she suddenly laid the blame on Addie, on all of them, on her husband's whole family, on Driebergen, on the house full of lunatics and invalids, on the eerie, haunted house where she could not breathe, while they all, down below, found living there so delightful. She blamed them all, blamed the whole house for it, that she was losing her sound sense and had allowed Johan to say all sorts of things to her which otherwise she would never have allowed. And, in her tears, while still blaming him—because she did not see that there was no blame, that no one was to blame for anything, while she was casting about to whom to impute the blame—she longed for her husband, felt that she was still very much in love with him, that she would have liked to embrace him, to clasp him close to her, to weep out her sorrows on his heart, to hear his deep, young, earnest voice, to look into his deep, young earnest eyes, so that she might grow calm again and happy, far away, with him and her children! Now she longed for him to come back; now she looked out down the road; and, when she saw him—the bell was ringing for lunch, because Truitje downstairs had also seen him coming up the road—she ran down and was just in time to kiss him in the morning-room and to whisper:
"Addie, Addie, you do love me?"
"Why, of course, darling!" he answered, gravely and, she thought, almost sadly.
And now, sitting silent at table, feeling all sorts of reproaches around her, she asked herself, was it not his fault, was it not his fault? What she really imagined to be his fault she did not clearly see, for it was all whirling through her mind; she kept on thinking of Johan Erzeele, kept on feeling her self-reproach; and the grievances surged up, like lances, more numerous than before, to defend her against that self-reproach.
Gerdy had not come down to lunch: she was tired, Adeline said. The tone of the conversation was forced; and Mathilde reflected that it was always so when she was there, when they would look at one another askance, in a silent understanding against her, against her....
Lunch finished, the children, Jetje and Constant, went out, after Addie had first played with them. Yes, he was fond of the children, but was he fond of her, of his wife?...
"Addie, Addie, you do love me, don't you?"
She had found another opportunity of asking him; and he answered:
"Why, of course, dear."
"Stay with me to-day."
"Very well. What would you like to do? Shall we go for a walk? It's fine."
"Yes, Addie, I'd like to."
And they went out together and roamed along deserted paths; she took his arm:
"I am so glad to be with you.... You ought to have come yesterday...."
"I don't care for dancing ... but, if you had asked me...."
"You would have refused."
"Perhaps not."
"Yes, you would.... I sha'n't go again, without you. I want to dance with you, with you."
"I like skating better."
"There, you see, you're refusing already!"
"No, I won't refuse: I shall come with you, next time."
"I'm happy when I'm with you.... Addie, couldn't we go and live alone, with our children?"
"Whenever you like, darling."
"Yes, but you're attached to the house."
"Yes, I'm attached to it."
"It would be a sacrifice for you."
He made a vague gesture:
"Only you'd have to be economical at the Hague."
"You would soon have a fine practice there."
"But I'm not aiming at ... a fine practice."
"Ah, that's just it!"
He yielded to a slight sense of impatience:
"It's a pity, Tilly, that you find it so difficult to adapt yourself here.... Very well, we'll go to the Hague."
"But, if you're obstinate ... and refuse to earn an income," she said, impetuously.
"We shall have enough."
"How much?"
He made a brief calculation:
"Say, five thousand guilders, no more."
"But I can't live on that ... with two children."
"It ought to be enough, Tilly."
"But it's nonsense, trying to live at the Hague on five thousand guilders a year ... with two children."
"Then what do you want?" he asked, bluntly.
"I want you to get a practice.... You have only to wish it: you would become the fashion at once."
He was silent.
"Why don't you answer?"
"Because we don't understand each other, Tilly," he said, sadly. "I can't give up the practice which I have in order to become a fashionable doctor."
"Why not, if it pays?"
"Because it conflicts with all ... with everything inside me."
"I don't understand."
"I know you don't."
"Then explain it to me."
"It can't be explained, Tilly. It can only be felt."
"So I have no feeling?"
"Not for that ... no fellow-feeling ... with me...."
"Why did you marry me?" she asked, curtly.
"Because I love you."
"Because you love me!" she echoed, curtly. "Because I'm good enough ... for that!"
Her eyes flashed.
"Tilly!" he implored.
It was as though a sudden terror blinded him, as though a spectre of guilt suddenly loomed up out of all the black self-insufficiency of the last few years, his years of married life.
"Because I'm good enough ... to bear you children. Because you want to have children by me, healthy children, children different from your family, your mother's family."
"Tilly!"
"Addie!" she entreated. "Love me! Love me!"
"I do love you, Tilly!" he cried, in despair. "Love me altogether!"
"I do love you altogether!" he lied, in anguish for her sake.
"No, you love me ... half!"
"That's not so!"
"Yes, it is, you know it is!... I want to be loved by you altogether and not only...."
"Hush, Tilly," he entreated, in dismay. "Tilly, don't let us spoil our happiness!"
"Our happiness!" she laughed, scornfully.
"Aren't we happy then?"
And he tried to force her to say yes, but she was suffering too much and exclaimed:
"No, I am not happy! When I embrace you...." she clutched her fingers. "When I have embraced you," she went on, "it's over, it's over, it's over at once; I feel that you are far away from me again; that you don't love me."
"I do love you, I do love you!"
"Then talk to me."
"I do."
"No, talk to me as you talk to Mary."
"But, Tilly, I talk to her ... to calm her."
"That's a lie!"
"Tilly!"
"It's a lie!... You talk to her ... you talk to her because you're in love with her!"
"Tilly, stop that!"
"Not as you are with me ... but differently."
Suddenly he grasped her wrist. She knew his sudden bursts of anger. They were very rare; but she knew them. And, because he was dazzled by the sudden light that shone from her, because from all the gloom of his self-insufficiency a consciousness of guilt came looming up to frighten him:
"And now, silence!" he cried, shaking her arm. "Silence! I command it!"
He no longer knew things. Life whirled dizzily before him, deep as a black abyss.
He stood in front of her on the lonely road; and it was as though his grey eyes flashed lightning, shooting blue spark after blue spark of rage and pain. His whole face quivered, his body quivered, his voice quivered with rage and pain. She felt a furious resistance rise within her ... together with black despair. She felt an impulse to rush into his arms, to sob out her sorrow on his heart. But she did not want his caresses: she wanted the thing that escaped her. It was escaping her now; and, when she said it, when she said it straight out, he commanded her to be silent, not to say it. Wasn't it his fault, wasn't it his fault? Wasn'tsheright?
She released her hand:
"You don't love me," she said, curtly.
"No. When you speak to me like that, I don't. I'm not in love with Marietje. I'm sorry for her."
His voice was very calm and full of feeling; and she, also grown calmer, answered:
"You feel for her."
"I do."
"Well, then...."
"But you have no right to bring that up against me. I don't grant you that right ... because, Tilly...."
"Right, right? What rights have I? I have no rights!.. I live in your house on sufferance."
"Tilly, be careful!"
"Why should I?"
"You're destroying our happiness."
"It doesn't exist."
"Yes, it does ... if...."
He passed his hand over his head. There was a cold wind blowing; and the beads of perspiration stood on his forehead.
"If you would be reasonable."
"And share you?"
"Share me?... With whom?" he roared.
"Not with her, perhaps," she resumed, frightened, "but with ... with...."
"With whom?"
"With them all."
"All whom?"
"Your family ... all of them ... whom you love more than me."
"I don't love them more."
"No, but you feel with them ... and not with me."
"Then feel with me!" he implored, as though to save both her and himself. "Feel, Tilly, that I can't be a fashionable doctor, but that I have a large practice, a number of patients to whom I am of use."
"They don't pay you."
His mouth involuntarily gave a twist of contempt.
"They don't pay you," she repeated. "You are wearing yourself out ... for nothing."
"Try and feel, Tilly, that I am not wearing myself out for nothing ... just because I am not making money."
"Then teach me to feel it."
He looked at her in despair.
"Teach me!" she entreated. "For your sake, because I love you, I will try to learn, try to feel ... I love you, I love you, Addie!"
"Dear," he said, gently, "I'll do my best ... to teach you to feel it. Come with me."
"Where?"
"There ... to those little cottages."
"Who lives in them?"
"Poor people ... sick people ... whom I attend."
"Addie ... no, no ... no!..."
"Why not?"
"I'm not prepared for it.... You know I can't stand that...."
"You're a healthy woman; your nerves are strong: come with me."
She went with him, not daring to refuse.
"Tilly," he said, gently, as they walked on and approached the cottages, "I will try to have understanding for both of us.... If you are to be happy in yourself ... with me ... happy the two of us ... then...."
"Well?"
"Then you must learn to understand me ... to understand me very deep down, as I am. Then you must try to understand ... all of us; to love us all: my father, my mother.... Tilly, Tilly, can you?..."
She did not answer, trembling, frightened, looking deeper into things, after all that he had said. Her fine eyes gazed at him despairingly, like those of a wounded animal in its pain. She could have embraced him now, just ordinarily, clasping him warmly and firmly to herself. But he led her on as he might lead a child. He knocked, opened the little door and led her in. A sultry heat of mean poverty struck her in the face like a blow; and it was nothing but misery, wherever he took her. It seemed to her as if she herself carried that misery with her, in her soul, which had never yet thrilled as it did now.
Oh, he was to blame, he was to blame, he was to blame! He saw suddenly, in a sort of despair, that the only answer to the question which he sometimes had to ask in vague, black self-insufficiency was the assenting yes, yes, yes!... Because he had not known it for himself, entirely for himself, for the two personalities which he so clearly felt himself to be, he was to blame, because he loved his wife with only half of himself. Was she to blame in any way? Was she not what she always had been? No, she had changed, she had refined herself, as if her soul, despite the antipathy of her environment, had yet become transformed and grown more like the people and things that surrounded her! And it was his fault: he had brought her into this environment, in which no sympathy was created and which had given her nothing beyond a refinement of soul, senses and nerves, so that she now suffered through that which he had always thought that she would never perceive. With what sudden clearness, in her simplicity, she had seen it all, almost unconsciously, and was now flinging it at his feet! He wrung his hands and felt desperate at the thought of it all. Of an evening now, alone in his study, in the soft light of his reading-lamp—the table with Guy's books and maps standing in one corner—he would walk up and down, up and down, wringing his hands, glancing deep into that despair, while the self-insufficiency was no longer vague, but soul-torturing in self-dissatisfaction, because he saw himself at fault in that great action of his life, which was still so very young, his marriage: at fault towards himself, at fault towards his wife. To let her marry him, because she was healthy and simply normal, with that idea of setting an example—see, that is what we ought all to be: normal, simple and healthy—oh, to love her, yes, but to love with only the half of himself, without ever giving her anything of the deep—things of the soul, things which he gave to all with whom he felt a soul-relationship, without counting, in a lavish prodigality: howcouldhe have done it, he who knew things for others I More clearly than ever he perceived that he had never known them for himself; and he clearly perceived that others, his father, his mother, had suspected that he did not know for himself, that he had not known when he brought Mathilde to them as his wife: into their midst, into their house. And now, in his emotion, in this lonely silent contemplation, there awakened within him the energy to redress, oh, to redress if possible: to redress everything, everything for her!...
Now, suddenly, he went to her room, where she was spending a moment after dinner, before tea was brought in, where he often found her when he wished to be alone with her for a minute; and he found her now. She was sitting listlessly in a chair; and the room was dark: the children were already asleep next door. He lit the gas and looked at her with all the energy that leapt up within him like springs, the energy to redress, to redress. And, without any preamble, he said:
"Tilly ... we'll go to the Hague."
"What do you mean?" she asked, in surprise.
"We shall go and live at the Hague. I shall do what you suggest: I shall look for a practice at the Hague."
She had him to herself now, for the first time after their talk that afternoon, and suddenly, sobbing, she threw her arms around him, pressed him to her:
"Love me!" she implored.
"I do love you.... It won't do for us to stay here.... It's better that you should be quite by yourself, in your own house, your own mistress."
"We've talked about it so often!" she sobbed.
"There will be money enough, Tilly; I shall make money."
"You said five thousand guilders."
"No, there will be more. Don't be afraid, have no care, there will be enough ... and you can do as you please. I promise, I promise."
"But it's a sacrifice for you...."
"To leave the house?"
"Yes."
"I'm fond of the house ... but it's better that we should go to the Hague."
"Your parents ... they will all miss you."
"Now don't make difficulties, Tilly."
"No, Addie, no...."
"How do you mean, no?"
"I won't go to the Hague."
"Why not?"
"It's too late.... It wouldn't alter a thing.... It's too late."
"What's too late?"
She sobbed and embraced him. She clutched him to her, she covered his lips with glowing kisses.
"Oh, let it be!" she said, in between her kisses; and her voice sounded utterly discouraged.
"Why, Tilly? Why? I want to see you happy.... It's decided now: we're going to the Hague. I'll look out for a house."
She shook her head.
"Tell me, Tilly: why do you refuse?"
She shrugged her shoulders:
"I don't know," she said.
"You love me, surely?"
"I love you, I dote on you, I'm mad on you!... Let us stay here and ... and ... love me a little."
"But, Tilly, I do love you. You know I love you!"
He kissed her, very tenderly; and she accepted his kisses, with her eyes closed, and lay limply, as though tired, in his arms. Suddenly she thrust him away:
"Let me be," she said, rising to her feet.
"Tilly...."
"Let me be ... stop kissing me."
"Why mayn't I kiss you?..."
"I don't want you to."
"And you say you love me!"
"Yes, but ... don't kiss me any more."
He looked at her in perplexity; and she said:
"It's not only kissing...."
"Tilly!" he said, stretching out his arms. "Whatever it is, we shall find it for each other ... with each other...."
"Yes...."
"You think so, don't you?"
"Yes."
"You believe it? When we are at the Hague ... alone ... in our own home?"
"Yes, yes, I believe it."
"And will you then be happy?"
"Yes ... when we have found it."
"And we shall find it."
"Yes."
"Come and sit with me, in my study.... I have work to do: come and sit with me. I sha'n't go downstairs for tea. I have some reading to do: come with me ... and stay with me this evening: will you?"
"Yes."
"Then it will be as if we were already at home ... in our own home ... at the Hague...."
She went with him, pale, tired, listless, with his arm round her waist.
Easter was at hand; spring brought a new balminess to the wind, a new softness to the rain, a new warmth to the air, which hung low in a heavy grey canopy; and much had changed during the past few weeks. The big house, full though it was with all of them, seemed very quiet now that Addie and Mathilde had moved to the Hague, though their rooms were always kept ready for them because Van der Welcke had said that Addie must always have his rooms ready for him whenever he chose to come home, though it were only for a day. And so the bedrooms and the nursery always remained in mute expectation, with silent furniture and closed doors; and only in Addie's big study, one of the best rooms of the house, formerly the old man's library, Guy now sat and worked at the window. And it was as though, in spite of the restfulness induced by Mathilde's absence, they were all gloomy because Addie was gone, as if they had all lost him. True, he came regularly, twice a week in fact, especially because of Marietje—Mary; but even then he had so much to do outside that they scarcely saw him except at meals. And it was as if they could all have put up with Mathilde, rather than lose Addie. Klaasje no longer pushed her chair away, Gerdy no longer spilt the milk, at evening tea—those small, almost ridiculous vexations with which Constance had had to put up so often—as soon as Mathilde entered; but, now that all vexation was gone, Addie also was gone and seemed lost for all time. And they lived on in a sort of grey harmony, still and peaceful but now, regularly, without many words, in a dull resignation which mourned in all their eyes and voices, while Gerdy now silently, silently pined and pined; and it was only Guy and Van der Welcke who, once in a way, indulged in loud and forced merriment. Paul also had his melancholy days: sometimes he would not put in an appearance for a week, said that he was ill, remained in his rooms, lying on a sofa with a book in his hands, not thinking it worth while to talk brilliantly or to play the piano. But they looked him up, Constance, Brauws, the girls; they drove him out of his rooms and out of his mood of depression; and he returned, like a victim, grumbled that Gerdy's piano was always dirty, asked for a duster, scrubbed the keys and submissively played Grieg, the melodies dripping slackly from his fingers. And, though everything was grey, in the somewhat sultry spring air, still it was strangely happy with a harmony felt in silence, a family concord, which sometimes brought the tears to Constance' eyes when she sat talking to Brauws in the twilight upstairs in her own sitting-room, in whispered interchange of quick half-words, which at once understood one another. Then, when Addie arrived, he brought with him a certain gleam, a light, a sudden glory; and yet his eyes too were full of sombre greyness, but they were all so glad to see him that they saw only glory in them. He was happy at the Hague, he said. He had a good practice, everything was going well. Mathilde was very cheerful; the children were well. He asked them all to come down sometime, for, though they had all been once, to see the house, they did not come again, withdrawing themselves from him as it were ... He saw it and was hurt by it; his eyes seemed to roam through the dear brown rooms, as if this big house remained his house; and, when Constance embraced him, she felt in her son's heart a difficult struggle and a swelling of great sorrow. He never spoke of it; he hypnotized Marietje; he regularly kept up Klaasje's reading-lessons and the books with the coloured letters gleamed into the child's awakening imagination; he talked, on Saturdays, at great length with Alex or sat with old Grandmamma and always thought of something to say to her that made her nod her head with soft, smiling satisfaction; he found a moment for his father, for his mother, for all of them: also for the poor sick people on the silent country roads; once he interested himself in an old sick horse which caused Marietje—Mary—great sorrow, when she saw it tortured, and bought it for her and let it run about, for her sake, in a meadow belonging to a farmer whom they knew. And his regular visits were what they all looked forward to, once a week, as to a delightful day; and the other days dragged on, in grey harmony, amid the quiet family life, in which they all recognized the same loss in one another.
Easter arrived; and the three, Constant, Jan and Piet, came home for the holidays. And it was one great emotion, not only for Adeline, but also for Constance and also for Addie, when he came down, an emotion which bound them still more closely together, an emotion aroused by the future of all those boys, an emotion felt over the examinations which they had passed or were about to pass. Constant, now seventeen, was to be transferred this year from the Secondary School at the Hague to the School of Agriculture at Wageningen; Jan, now fifteen, was still at a boarding-school at Barneveld, preparing to go up for his naval examination next year; Piet, now fourteen, was at the Hague, at the Secondary School, with a view to the Polytechnic. At the Hague, Constant and Piet lived with a tutor; and Addie was almost glad that he himself was now living at the Hague and seeing more of the boys, for the tutor was not satisfied: the boys did their lessons badly, not because they were unwilling, but because they had no head for books, for working, for studying, any more than Alex, any more than Guy. The three yellow-haired younger ones were even worse feather-heads than their two elders: Constant was something of a dreamer, Jan the most solid, Piet the cleverest of the three, but none of them workers. They all displayed the same incapacity for perseverance, with the different shades of their different characters: Alex, true, doing his best for Addie's sake at the Merchants' School at Amsterdam, but full of a secret dread of life, struck as a child with that dread since, staring through open doors, he had seen his father's dead body, in that single moment of horror and blood; Guy, kindly, genial, merry and light-hearted; Constant, inwardly sombre, morose, with a strange deep look of suspicion in his eyes; Jan, a boy for games; and Piet—the youngest except Klaasje—no doubt the most enlightened intellectually, but delicate, shy, girlish and reminding Constance most of the flaxen dolls of the old days: the merry, careless children, romping round the dining-room in the Bankastraat, while Gerrit, in his uniform and riding-boots, stood tall and wide-legged in the midst of their fun. And now, now the boys were no longer careless: it was their reports, it was their careers opening yonder in the future that as it were compelled them to think of serious things; and it was as though they none of them developed with the blossoming of their years, as though they, Alex, Guy, Constant and Jan, remained feeble, light-hearted, sombre and rough and Piet so shy and delicate, while cruel life opened out before them, society, in which they had to conquer a place for themselves, when none of them could persevere in the youthful studies which prepared their future. It was a great source of anxiety for Addie; and, if the boys had not all been so fond of him, the anxiety would have been greater than he could cope with. Was it not he who had really chosen their career for them, because they did not know, because they had no preference, all of them perhaps shuddering with dread of having to take their place in human society, such as Alex felt it most deeply in the melancholy of his dejection, as though their father's suicide, of which they all knew, had cast a shadow over all of them, a twilight over their childish souls? And Addie, like an elder brother, like a young father, had had, in consulting them, to choose for them, had had to discuss the matter with them at length. The Indian Civil Service appealed to none of them; Addie thought that not any of them had the brains for college; and so it was decided: Alex, army training-college, but that had not been a success and he was doing better now at the Commercial School; Guy, the Post Office; Constant, Wageningen; Jan, the Navy; and Piet, in whom Addie saw the brightest intelligence of all, he had stimulated to enter for the Polytechnic. But it was not only Alex: Guy also was a source of trouble to him, plodding with gloomy resignation at his maps and books; Constant, sombre and morose, was doing his best; but the competitive examinations for Willemsoord might prove very difficult, Addie thought, for Jan later; while Piet ... But the boy was still a child, clinging so dependently to Addie, with his rather girlish affection, with his shyness, which placed confidence in Addie only.... Yes, thought Constance, now that she saw them all together, they would long be a great trouble, they would still be a great burden to Addie; and Adeline, poor Adeline could never unaided have made men of her boys.
It was Easter; and it was strange how much at home they all were in the big house at Driebergen, which they regarded as their paternal house, regarding Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance next to their mother as parents also, regarding Addie as an elder brother, as their youngest father, on whom everything really depended. No one ever opposed this view; and in everything, down to the least thing, it was quite natural for them to say:
"I'll ask Addie."
They thought their cousin much older in spirit than in years and all looked up to him naturally and with unquestioning confidence, as though he must know things, as though he would be sure to make life smooth for them, that future of career beside career which opened before them like a battlefield. However much they might differ in character, in this they felt alike, quite naturally, as though they could not do otherwise; and, when a stranger sometimes expressed surprise that Addie fathered them so, their eyes would glance up in astonishment, as though to ask:
"What do you expect? Of course, Addie does everything for us!"
And they were very grateful, almost unconsciously, to Uncle Henri, who paid the bills, to Aunt Constance, who took care of them in so many ways, to Addie, who would make life smooth for them; but still they thought it very natural, because it had always been like that, for the girls too: Marietje, Adèletje, Gerdy and Klaasje. There it was: Uncle, Aunt and Addie looked after them, because Mamma was so sad and not very capable and devoid of energy. They had been used to it ever since they were very young and small; and it was like that; and it could never have been different.
Now, when he came down from the Hague, Addie talked to all of them seriously; and they listened with serious faces, looking up at him, accepting what he said, promising to work better in future, to show better reports next time, to give him more reason for content in all respects.... Then he would shake hands with them; and that handshake conveyed a promise which they would be glad to keep, to please Addie, because Addie, after all, was bearing the entire responsibility for their lives and their futures. They left it all to him, but they began to see more and more clearly that they must make it easier for him. He spoke to Piet in particular:
"Mr. Veghel's not satisfied, Piet."
This was the tutor with whom Constant and Piet boarded.
The boy blushed, with a quick flow of colour to his round, girlish cheeks; his eyes glanced up shyly and timidly.
"You must work harder, Piet: you can when you like; and therefore, if you don't, you can't possibly go to Delft.... And you're cut out for a civil engineer. That's what you want to be, isn't it?"
"Yes, Addie."
"Well, see that you get your remove before the summer holidays. You won't get your remove, Piet, if you go on like this."
"I'll do my best, Addie."
Then the boy became very restless, because Addie was not satisfied; and inwardly he wished that Addie did not see him so clearly, so clever and capable if only he liked; and Piet thought the Polytechnic a very difficult affair:
"It'll never come off," he thought, in his secret heart.
But he did not say so, because, in spite of himself, he hoped that it would, if only because Addie wanted it to and because it was such a long way off, the Polytechnic, and because Addie lately had worn such a wrinkle in his forehead, as though he were disappointed ... possibly in him.
"We're a great trouble to you, Addie, what?"
"If only you work hard, Piet ... then it won't be such a trouble and things will look after themselves."
But Piet was not the only one to see it: they all saw it, the boys and girls alike, and wondered if it was because of them only or because of something quite different—himself, or Mathilde—that his forehead wrinkled so and his grey eyes grew so sombre....
At the Hague, Mathilde felt a certain gratification, a satisfaction; and the bustle of the early weeks gave her a pleasant feeling of excitement and made her forget the despairing thoughts of the last few weeks spent at Driebergen. They had an attractive little new house in a side-street off the Bezuidenhout itself. It was freshly painted, bright in colouring; and she found it delightful to be able to furnish the house, now that summer was approaching, with light, modern furniture which looked and suggested a doll's house, with the small rooms and the abundance of light-coloured muslin in the drawing-room and conservatory, which she thought looked nice and cheerful. The first spring light entered hard and shrill; and the new colours of the wallpapers showed up in the first sunny days, crying out at Addie when he returned from his visits in his smart little brougham. And she displayed a certain solicitude that above all he should be nicely dressed, that he should look very well-groomed: she insisted on his ordering a couple of new suits. He had not a large practice yet, but that was sure to come: she was full of hope. In the afternoons, she would go out, rejoicing in the shopping-streets, in all the errands which she had to do, in the old-acquaintances whom she met, people whom she had known in her parents' house—they were both dead now—and occupying a somewhat lower social scale than her own at present. And she loved especially to show herself to her relations—a few uncles and aunts and cousins in her elaborate new dresses: Baroness van der Welcke.... And, in her gratification, in her satisfaction, in her new environment, created by herself in sympathy with her commonplace illusions, it was as though she had suddenly wiped all Driebergen out of her life, as though they had never existed, the nearly three crowded early years of her marriage yonder, in the melancholy, rainy village, in the sombre house, the haunted house full of lunatics and invalids. A newness, fresh and commonplace as the paint of her house, reigned all around her; she inhaled newness and was grateful to Addie; but that which, despite herself, had begun to grow refined in her, through her intercourse with antagonistic but yet finer natures than her own, now became blunted at once; and the days of real misery which she had undergone now, in her superficial thoughts, seemed very far away, as though they had been never lived but only dreamed, as read in a book, but never felt. The feeling had not burst forth from her, like a plant that buds, but had moved slowly around her, like a wind that blows or a drifting cloud. It had moved her, but had not metamorphosed her. Now, in her own atmosphere, she was blossoming up, fully, like a flower transplanted to the earth which it needed in order to blossom entirely.
And yet, though she recovered herself, she was not quite herself again. Even though she no longer craved to know and to receive that which escaped her in Addie, yet she continued to know that something in him did escape her; and, however eagerly, in her simple entreaty, she had begged that he would love her, now, even though she uttered the same request, almost with a childish plaint—"Addie, youdolove me, don't you?"—she had to admit to herself that she now saw him really very far above herself, not only in that which escaped her, but also in that which she understood: the daily sacrifice which he was making by living at the Hague, by acting as she had asked, seeking to establish a practice as she wished, by shifting the tenor of his life, as with a strong grip of the hand, in the direction which would make her happy, her, the woman who no longer loved him as she had done ... as she had done when she felt him akin to herself, in the healthy normal life of physical natures.... He was that still, but he was also different; and that different thing was not akin to her, nor was the superiority with which he sacrificed himself. The superiority, the sacrifice oppressed her.... She soon forgot; and, when she was out of doors, going along the shops, meeting acquaintances who admired her, she was happy. When she came home, waiting with her two children for Addie's return, she suddenly felt oppressed:
"I grew melancholy at Driebergen," she would think.
But now she was in her new, freshly-painted house; and she was oppressed and felt unattractive; she dragged with her something that she could not shake off. She often wept, sobbed, as at Driebergen, but there, she knew, it was only about Marietje van Saetzema, whereas here she did not know what she was sobbing for.... At meals, sitting with him alone, she was silent, or else spoke harshly, without intending to. She did not sit with him when he was working, though he asked her to. When he wanted to kiss her, she drew back. At night she often locked herself in, pretended to be asleep.... Only in the children did she feel in harmony with him, did she agree with him, with his system of feeding them, of sending them out every day in all weathers. The children united them, now and then, for a few moments.... When the children were in bed, their life together became strangely unreal, as though both were asking themselves why, why? And it grew worse daily. He was now living exactly as she wished; and it seemed to him as if he had no life of his own. The keeping up of his reading, in the evenings, became mechanical; and mechanically he went once, sometimes twice, a week to Driebergen, remaining there for half the day. They saw him looking strange, unsettled, old, with wrinkles in his forehead and a gloom of despair in his eyes.
"My dear old chap," Van der Welcke said, one day, "I can see that things are not going well with you. Do you remember how your father, not so very long ago, with the only bit of wisdom that ever fell to his share, advised you to seek your own life for yourself?... You're seeking it less and less ... for yourself. Things are not well with you down there ... at the Hague."
"Father, I have so little right to seek my own life for myself."
"And yet we all do it."
"There was a time, once, when you didn't. You then gave up your life for me."
"I did that quite naturally. I don't know what's happening inside you ... but it looks to me as if you were forcing yourself. Here you're at home, here you feel a man: you love this house, you love the work you used to do here...."
"I don't belong to myself any more."
"You never did belong to yourself. As a child, you belonged to your silly parents ... who got the better of you entirely; and now you belong to your wife. I expect it's your fate."
"If it has to be...."
"I should so much like to see you happy, Addie. Bless my soul, old chap, we should all like to see it. We're all suffering on your account. Your poor mother's suffering."
"Does she talk about it to you?"
"No, we never talk much together, as you know, but still...."
"Do you understand each other better?"
"No, but that's not the question. The question at this moment is your happiness...."
"Father, I am not unhappy. Things are really all right with me."
"You've got that cold, distant voice, my boy, which I know so well in you, which you put on when you're hiding yourself and not facing things. I never mistake it."
Van der Welcke got up, walked restlessly across the room, all blue with smoke, walked back again and suddenly stopped in front of Addie and took his son's head in his two hands:
"My boy, why was it necessary that your fate should be the same as your father's, an unhappy marriage?"
"Father...."
"Don't deny it. Why should you? Aren't we two friends who have always known all about each other? As a child, you were my friend. We were always like brothers. Why must your fate be the same as your father's, an unhappy marriage? You, who are so clever where others are concerned."
Addie suddenly clutched hold of his father. Van der Welcke continued:
"Why must you always know so little that will help yourself?... At the time, I raised no objection. You were fond of the woman; you always knew your mind with such certainty; I thought that you knew things for yourself; I let you have your way. I was jealous because you were getting married; so was your mother; we should have been jealous of any woman. We didn't like the girl you brought us; we thought, 'It's our jealousy that makes us not like her. She's Addie's wife; she's taking our boy from us.' We had no right to think like that. We tried to stifle our jealousy. We received Mathilde, hoping, almost knowing for certain, that you were finding your own happiness in her, because you always knew your mind.... You didn't know it in your own case.... You knew everything so positively in ours.... You also knew so positively, so plainly, that the profession which I tried to urge upon you was not the thing for you: you found your own vocation. You were a small boy; and you know it all so clearly and positively.... When you grew up and became a man, you no longer knew things. Isn't that so?... Why should your fate be the same as your father's? I was a ne'er-do-well, when I made my mistake; you were a calm, serious man...."
It was as if his father were depriving Addie of all his strength, but he merely said, in his almost cool, even, restrained tones:
"Dear Father, really ... things are all right between Mathilde and me. Even Mamma understood, in the end, that she did not feel happy here, at home; and Mamma agreed that she would feel more at home and happier in her own house, however small...."
"But I'm not speaking of Mathilde's happiness, I'm speaking of yours...."
"That goes with it, that must go with it, Father...."
And so it always remained: he spoke out no more than that, gave no more of himself than that and was outwardly almost cold with chill shuddering and repellant when spoken to about himself. That he had made a mistake, that he had not known things for himself he clearly perceived; but all his efforts were directed towards the attempt to repair what he had managed, through his ignorance where himself was concerned, to spoil or destroy in his wife's life.
Because he knew that she soon forgot things, he thought that he would succeed, if he devoted himself to her entirely, if he lived with a view to her happiness and ceased to live with a view to his own higher instincts, his own sympathies, his own vocation and activities. And, even if she did not forget everything at once, he would hope that, if he persisted, she would end by forgetting entirely.
On days when she was bright and cheerful, he was satisfied, in silence and with a certain inward sombreness, because things were going as he was compelling them to go. On days when she was snappish and locked herself into her room and was evidently unhappy and no longer knew how to explain her melancholy, he suddenly saw his young life before him as a dismal ruin, as a desolate block of masonry in a dark night, as a desperate climbing and climbing in the dusk, with no goal of light ahead. Then he would look at his young, crowing children and wonder whether one day—and that perhaps soon—they would comfort him and her, their parents, even as he had comforted his. He did his work listlessly, visited his patients listlessly, even though no one ever noticed anything in him. He would ride through the streets of the Hague in his smart little brougham; and his eyes looked dully before them and he longed for his bicycle and the Driebergen roads, the silent, gloomy roads, sodden with rain and weighed down under by the heavy skies where his sick poor awaited him in their mean little dwellings, in vain, seeing him only for a single moment once a week. He was filled with bitterness: with a listless sneer at himself he reflected that he might just as well have satisfied his parents' wishes and Grandmamma's wishes, in the old days, and become a diplomatist. It would have been nearly the same as what he was doing now: putting himself forward as a young fashionable doctor who practised hypnotism and who was sought after, especially by the ladies, because he was good-looking and a baron.
He sank into deeper and deeper dejection and felt roused only for a moment when treating a serious patient.