Chapter 3

[1]A Dutch title of nobility, ranking below that of baron.

[2]A half-caste.

[3]The Walloon Protestants are a branch of the French Calvinists imported into the Netherlands at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They differ from the general body of Dutch Calvinists only in the use of the French language and the Geneva Catechism. They are gradually dying out as a separate body.

[4]The title borne by the unmarried daughters of Dutch noblemen.

[5]Dak bungalow.

[6]Mosquito-curtain.

[7]Native robber-bands.

[8]The young gentleman.

[9]Mem-sahib.

[10]From the Dutchoppasser: overseer, watchman.

[11]A title of an independent native prince, equivalent to rajah.

[12]Business, fuss, bother.

[13]Compound.

Lot Pauws was sitting in his room, writing, when he heard the voices of his mother and of her husband, Steyn, below. Mamma Ottilie's voice sounded shrill, in steadily rising anger; and Steyn's calm, indifferent bass voice boomed with short, jerky sentences and egged on Mamma's words till she stuttered them out and almost choked in the panting effort.

Lot put down his pen with a sigh and went downstairs. He saw the old servant-maid listening eagerly at the kitchen-door, but she disappeared when she heard Lot's footstep on the stair.

Lot entered the room:

"What's the matter?"

"What's the matter? What's the matter? I'll tell you what's the matter: I was a fool when I married, I was a fool to bring my property into settlement. If I hadn't, I could have done as I pleased! Aren't they my children, my own children? If they want money, can't I send it to them? Must they starve, while he ... while he ..."

She pointed to Steyn.

"Well, what?" said Steyn, challenging her.

"While he blows my money on women, his everlasting, low women ..." "I say, Mamma!"

"Well, it's true!"

"Hush, Mamma, for shame: don't talk like that! What's it all about, Steyn?"

"Mamma has had a letter from London."

"From the Trevelleys?"

"From Hugh. He asks for money."

"And can't I send my son money if I want to?" cried Mamma to Lot. "Isn't Hugh my child, isn't he my son? It's bad enough of you to object to my seeing much of them, but am I to break with them altogether? If Hugh is without an appointment for the moment, can't I send him some money? Isn't it my money? Steyn hashismoney, his pension. I don't ask him for his money!"

"Look here, Lot," said Steyn. "Mamma can do as she likes, of course. But there is hardly enough as you know, for our regular expenses. If Mamma goes and sends Hugh fifty pounds, I don't know how we shall manage. That's all; and for the rest I don't care what Mamma says."

"You blew my money on low women, for you're low yourself and always have been!"

"Mamma, stop that! And be quiet. I can't stand quarrelling and scolding. Be quiet. Be quiet, Mamma. Let me see Hugh's letter."

"No, I sha'n't let you see it either! What do you imagine? I'm not accountable to my son! Are you also siding with that brute against your mother? You'd both of you like me to break with my own children, my own flesh and blood, my darlings, myd-dar-lings, because it suits your book! When do I see them? When? Tell me, when? Mary, John, Hugh: when do I see Hugh? Suppose Iwasmistaken in their father, aren't they my own children, just as much as you and Ottilie? I can't let my boy starve!"

"I know quite well that Hugh abuses your kindness, your weakness ... not to speak of the two others."

"That's right, don't you speak of them! Just break with your brothers and sisters! Just think that there's nobody in the world but yourself and that your mother has no one but you; and go and get married and leave your mother alone with that fellow, that low fellow, who sneaks out at night to his women! Because he's still young! Because he's so young and his wife is old! But, if he has to go to his women and if you get married, I promise you I won't stay in the house alone and I swear I'll go to Hugh. My own dear boy, myd-dar-ling:when do I see him? When do I see him? I haven't seen him for a year!"

"Please, Mamma, keep calm and don't scream so. Talk quietly. You make me so dreadfully tired with that screaming and quarrelling and scolding: I can't stand it ... I won't ask you to show me Hugh's letter. But Steyn is right; and, from what I know of our present financial position, it would be folly to send six hundred guilders to Hugh, who never has more than some vague 'appointment' in the City. You can't do it."

"Yes, I can, selfish brute that you are! What do you know about your mother's money? I always have money when I want it!"

"Yes, I know: you lose it and then you find it again in your cupboard...."

"And, though I don't find it in my cupboard this time and if Steyn keeps the money locked up, I shall just go to the bank and ask for it and they won't refuse me. And I'll have it sent by the bank. There, you see, Icando it, grasping, selfish brutes that you both are! I'll put on my hat and go. I'll go at once, I'll go to the bank; and Hugh ... Hugh shall have his money to-morrow or next day, any day. I should do it for you, Lot, or for Ottilie; and I shall do it for Hugh. I am his mother and I shall do it: I shall, I shall, sothere!"

She stammered and choked with rage; and a prick of jealousy, because Lot had defended Steyn and because Steyn cared more for Lot than for her, drove into the flesh of her heart and caused her such suffering that she no longer knew what she was saying and felt like boxing Lot's ears and felt that ... that she could have murdered Steyn! And she flounced out of the room, pale with passion, knocking against the furniture, slamming the door, and rushed upstairs. She could have sobbed with that pricking pain.... Steyn and Lot heard her moving and stamping overhead, putting on her things and talking to herself and scolding, scolding, scolding.

Steyn's hard features, rough but handsome under his beard, were suddenly twisted to softness by a spasm of despair.

"Lot, my dear fellow," he said, "I've stood this for nearly twenty years."

"Now then, Steyn!"

"For nearly twenty years. Screaming, scolding, wrangling.... She's your mother. We won't say any more about it."

"Steyn, she's my mother and I'm fond of her, in spite of everything; but you know I feel how you must suffer."

"Suffer? I don't know. A chap gets dulled. But I do think sometimes that I've thrown away my life in a most wretched way. And who's benefited by it? Not evenshe."

"Try to look upon her as a child, as a tempersome, spoilt child. Be nice to her, once in a way. A kind word, a caress: that's what she needs. She's a woman who lives on petting. Poor Mamma: I know nobody who needs it as she does. She leans up against me sometimes, while I stroke her. Then she's happy. If I give her a kiss, she's happy. If I tell her she's got a soft skin, she's happy. She is a child. Try to look upon her as that; and be nice to her, just once or twice."

"I can't, any longer. I was mad on her, madly in love with her, at one time. If she hadn't always quarrelled and been so impossibly unreasonable, we could still be living together amicably. Though she is older than I, we could still have got on. But she's impossible. You see it as well as I do. There's no money; and, because she doesn't discover any in her cupboard this time, she simply goes and draws it from the bank to send to Hugh. It's those letters from the Trevelleys which cause scenes at regular intervals. They bleed her in turns; and the shabbiest part of it, you know, is that the father's at the back of it."

"Is that quite certain?"

"Yes. Trevelley's always at the back of it. He influences those children. We are getting into debt for Trevelley's sake.... Lot, I've often thought of getting a divorce. I wouldn't do it, because Mamma has been twice divorced already. But I sometimes ask myself, am I not throwing away my life for nothing? What good am I to her or she to me? We are staying together for nothing, for things that are past, for a passion that is past: one moment of mad, insensate blindness, of not knowing or caring, of just wanting.... For things that are past I have been throwing away my life, day after day, for twenty years on end. I am a simple enough chap, but I used to enjoy my life, I enjoyed the service ... and I have taken a dislike to everything and go on wasting my life day after day.... For something that is quite past I ..."

"Steyn, you know I appreciate what you do. And you're doing it purely for Mamma's sake. But, you know, I have often said to you, go your own way. Barren sacrifices make no appeal to me. If you think you will still find something in life by leaving Mamma, then do so."

But Steyn seemed to have recovered his indifference:

"No, my boy, what's spoilt is spoilt. Twenty years wear out a man's energy to make something more of his life. I felt at the time that I oughtn't to desert Mamma, when she was left all alone, not wholly through my fault, perhaps, but still very much so. To leave her now, when she is an old woman, would be the act of a cad: I can't do it. I take that line not as a barren sacrifice, but because I can't help it. I don't allow my life to be made a hell of. I go my own way when I want to, though Mamma exaggerates when she pretends that I go to a woman at night."

"Mamma is naturally jealous and she's still jealous of you."

"And she's jealous of you. She's an unhappy woman; and the older she grows the unhappier she will be. She's one of those people who ought never to grow old.... Come along, Jack, we're going for a walk.... But, Lot, if Mamma goes on like this, we shall have to have her property administered for her. There's nothing else for it."

Lot gave a start: he pictured Mamma with her property transferred to an administrator; and yet Steyn was right. He thought that he had better have a quiet talk with Mamma. For the moment, there was nothing to be done: Mamma was exasperated, was behaving like a lunatic and would send Hugh the fifty pounds.

Lot went back to his room and tried to resume his work. He was writing an essayOn Art, proving that art was entertainment and the artist an entertainer. He did not know whether he agreed with everything that he was saying, but that didn't matter and was of no importance. It was a subject to fill a few brilliant pages, written with all his talent for words; and it would catch the public, it would be read: it would rouse indignation on the one side and a smile on the other, because there really might be a good deal in it and because Charles Pauws might be right in what he said. He lovingly fashioned his sentences out of beautiful words, making them seem convincing through their brilliancy.... But in between the sentences he thought of poor Mamma and suddenly found that he could not go on writing. He pitied her. He felt for Steyn, but he pitied poor Mamma.... He rose and paced his room, which was full of spoils of Italy: a few bronzes, a number of photographs after the Italian masters. A good fellow, Steyn, to let him have this room next to Mamma's and to go up to the top floor himself. But he pitied his mother, who was such a child. She had always been a child: she could not help being and remaining a child. She had been so very pretty and so seductive: a little doll always; and he remembered, when he was already a boy of seventeen, how perfectly charming Mamma used to look: so young, so extraordinarily young, with that adorable little face, those blue childlike eyes and that perfect, plump figure. She was thirty-eight then, without a sign of age; she was a pretty woman in the full bloom of her attractiveness. He had no need to look at Mamma's photographs as she was in those days and earlier: he remembered her like that; he remembered her looking like a young girl in a low, creamy-white lace dress, which she did not even take the trouble to put on very neatly, looking above all things charming, so intensely charming; he remembered her in a brown-cloth frock trimmed with astrakhan, with a little astrakhan cap on her frizzy hair, skating with him on the ice, so lightly and gracefully that people believed her to be his sister.... Poor Mamma, growing old now! And yet she still looked very nice, but she was growing old; and she had nothing—he was sure of this—she had nothing but her faculty for love. She had five children, but she was not a mother: Lot laughed and shook his head at the thought. He had educated himself; Ottilie had very early become aware of her great talent and her beautiful voice and had also educated herself; the Trevelleys had run more wild.... No, Mamma was not a mother, was not a woman of domestic tastes, was not even a woman of the world: Mamma had nothing but her faculty for love. She needed love, probably no longer needed passion, but still needed love; and what she needed most, needed mortally, was petting, like a child. And nobody petted her more than he did, because he knew that Mamma was mad on petting. She had once said to him, pointing to a photograph of his half-brother Hugh Trevelley, a good-looking lad turned twenty:

"Lot, it's eight months since I had a kiss from him!"

And he had seen something in Mamma as though she were craving for Hugh's kiss, though he sometimes treated her so roughly and cavalierly. Of course, this was also a motherly feeling on Mamma's part, but it was perhaps even more a need to have this lad, who was her son, caress her, caress her sweetly.... And were they to put her under any kind of restraint? Perhaps it would have to come! It would be perfectly horrid: that dear Mummy! But she was so silly sometimes! So stupid! Such a child, for such an old woman!... Oh, it was terrible, that growing old and older and yet remaining what you were! How little life taught you! How little it formed you! It left you as you were and merely wore off your sharp and attractive irregularities!... Poor Mamma, her life was made up of nothing but things that were past ... and especially things of love!... Aunt Stefanie spoke of hysteria; and a great streak of sensual passion had run through the family; but it did not come from the Derckszes, as Aunt Stefanie pretended: it came from Grandmamma herself. He had always heard that, like his mother, she too had been a woman of passion. People talked of all sorts of adventures which she had had in India, until she met Takma. There was a kind of curse on their family, a curse of unhappy marriages. Both of Grandmamma's marriages had turned out unhappily: General de Laders appeared to have been a brute, however much Aunt Stefanie might defend her father. With Grandpapa Dercksz, so people said, Grandmamma was exceedingly unhappy: the adventures dated back to that time. Grandpapa Dercksz was drowned by falling at night into the swollen river behind apasangrahanin the Tegal mountains. Lot remembered how that had always been talked about, how the rumours had persisted for years. The story, which dated sixty years back, ran that Grandpapa Dercksz had shown kindness to a woman in thekampongand that he was stabbed by a Javanese out of jealousy. It was mere gossip: Dr. Roelofsz said that it was mere gossip.... A curse of unhappy marriages.... Uncle Anton had never been married; but in him the streak of passion developed into a broad vein of hysteria.... Uncle Harold, human but inscrutable, had been unhappy with hisfreule, who was too Dutch for an Indian planter.... Uncle Daan, in India—they were on their way to Holland at this moment—was to outward appearances not unhappy with a far too Indian wife, Aunt Floor: they were now old and staid and sedate, but there was a time when the fatal streak had run through both of them, developing in Aunt—a Dillenhof, belonging to Grandmamma's family—into the vein, the broad vein. Well, that was all past: they were old people now.... Aunt Thérèse van der Staff had become a Catholic, after an unhappy marriage; they said that Theo, her son, was not the son of her husband.... And his own poor mother, thrice married and thrice unhappily!

He had never looked at it like this before, throughout and down the generations, but, when he did, it was terrible: a sort of clinging to the social law—of marriage—which was suited to none of those temperaments. Why had they married? They were all old people now, but ... if they had been young now, with modern views, would they have married? Would they have married? Their blood, often heated to the point of hysteria, could never have endured that constraint. They had found the momentary counterparts of their passion, for not one of them—with the exception perhaps of Uncle Harold—had married for other than passionate reasons; but, as soon as the constraint of marriage oppressed them, they had felt their fate, the social law which they had always honoured, thoughtlessly and instinctively, and which did not suit them; they had felt their family curse of being married and unhappy.... And he himself, why was he getting married? He suddenly asked himself the question, seriously, as he had once asked his mother in jest. Why was he getting married? Was he a man for marriage? Did he not know himself only too well? Cynical towards himself, he saw himself as he was and was fully aware of his own egotism. He knew all his little vanities, of personal appearance, of a fine literary style.... He smiled: he was not a bad sort, there were worse than he; but, in Heaven's name, why was he getting married? Why had he proposed to Elly?... And yet he felt happy; and, now that he was seriously asking himself why he was getting married, he felt very seriously that he was fond of Elly, perhaps fonder than he himself knew. But—the thought was irrepressible—why get married? Wouldheescape the family curse? Wasn't Ottilie at Nice really right, Ottilie who refused to marry and who lived unbound with her Italian officer—she herself had written to tell him so—until they should cease to love each other? Was the streak continued in her or ... was she right and he wrong? Was she, his sister, a woman, stronger in her views of life than he, a man?... Why, why get married? Couldn't he say to Elly, who was so sensible, that he preferred to live unbound with her?... No, it was not feasible: there remained, however little it might count with them, the question of social consideration; there was her grandfather; there were people and things, conventions, difficulties. No, he could not put it to Elly; and yet she would have understood it all right.... So there was nothing for it but to get married in the ordinary way and to hope—because they loved each other so thoroughly and not only out of passion—that the curse would not force its fate upon them, the yoke of an unhappy marriage....

Those people, those uncles and aunts, had been unhappy, in their marriages. They were now growing old; those things of other days were now all passing.... They were passing.... Would they come to him, who was still young? Must they come around him, now that he was growing older? Oh, to grow older, to grow old! Oh, the terrible nightmare of growing old, of seeing the wintry-grey vistas opening before him! To be humbled in his conceit with his appearance did not mean so very much; to be humbled in his conceit with his literary gifts hurt more; but to be humbled in his whole physical and moral existence: that was the horror, the nightmare! Not humbled all at once, but slowly undergoing the decay of his young and vigorous body, the withering of his intelligence and his soul.... Oh, to grow as old as Grandmamma and as Grandpapa Takma: how awful! And those were people who hadlivedfor their ninety years and more. An atom of emotion still seemed to be wafted between the two of them, an atom of memory. Who could tell? Perhaps they still talked ... about the past.... But to grow so old as that: ninety-seven! Oh, no, no, not so old as that: let him die before he decayed, before he withered! He felt himself turn cold with dread at the thought and he trembled, now that he realized so powerfully the possibility of growing as old as that: ninety-seven!... O God, O God, no, no!... Let him die young, let it be over, in his case, while he was still young! He was no pessimist, he loved life: life was beautiful, life was radiant; there were so many beautiful things in art, in Italy, in his own intellect: in his own soul even, at present, that emotion for Elly. But he loved young and vigorous life and did not want decay and withering. Oh, for vigour, vigour always, youth always! To die young, to die young! He implored it of That which he accepted as God, that Light, that Secret, which perhaps, however, would not listen from out of Its unfathomable depths of might to a prayer from him, so small, so selfish, so unmanly, so cowardly, so vain, so incredibly vain! Oh, did he not know himself? Did he pretend not to see himself as he was? Could he help seeing himself as he was?

He paced his room and did not hear the door open.

"And the fifty pounds is in the post!"

He started. His mother stood before him, looking like a little fury: her blue eyes blazed like those of a little demon and her mouth was wide open like a naughty child's.

"Oh!... Mamma!"

"Lot!... What's the matter with you?"

"With me?... Nothing...."

"Oh, my boy, my boy, what's the matter with you?"

He was shivering as in a fever. He was quite pale. He tried to master himself, to be manly, plucky and brave. A dark terror overwhelmed him. Everything went black before his eyes.

"My dear, my dear ... what is it?"

She had thrown her arm round him and now drew him to the sofa.

"Oh, Mamma!... To grow old! To grow old!"

"Hush, darling, be still!"

She stroked his head as it lay on her shoulder. She knew him like that: it was his disease, his weakness; it returned periodically and he would lie against her thus, moaning at the thought of growing old, of growing old.... Ah, well, it was his disease, his weakness; she knew all about it; and she became very calm, as she would have done if he had been feverish. She fondled him, stroked his hair with regular strokes, trying not to disorder it. She kissed him repeatedly. She felt a glow of content because she was petting him; her motherly attitude was bound to calm him.

"Hush, darling, be still!"

He did keep still for a moment.

"Do you really think it so terrible ... to grow old ... perhaps ... later on?" asked Ottilie, melancholy in spite of herself.

"Yes...."

"I didn't think it pleasant either. But you ... you are so young still!"

He was already regaining his self-control and feeling ashamed of himself. He was a child, like his mother, an ailing, feeble, hysterical child at times. That washishysteria, that dread of old age. And he was looking for consolation to his mother, who was not a mother!...

No, he regained his self-control, was ashamed of himself:

"Oh, yes ... I'm young still!" he made an effort to say, indifferently.

"And you're going to be married: your life is only just beginning ..."

"Because I'm getting married?"

"Yes, because you're getting married. If only you are happy, dear, and not ... not as your mother ..."

He gave a little start, but smiled. He regained his self-control now and at the same time regained his control over his mother, to whom he had looked for a moment for consolation and who had always petted him. And he fondled her in his turn and gave her a fervent kiss:

"Poor little creatures that we are!" he said. "We sometimes act and think so strangely! Wearevery ill and very old ... even though we are still young.... Mamma, I must have a serious talk with you some day ...serious, you know. Not now, another time: I must get on now with my work. Leave me to myself now and be calm ... and good. Really, I'm all right again.... And don'tyougo on behaving like a little fury!"

She laughed inwardly, with mischievous delight:

"I've sent off the fifty pounds for all that!" she said, from behind the open door.

And she was gone.

He shook his head:

"I am sorry for her!" he thought, analysing his emotions. "And ... for myself! Even more for myself. We poor, poor creatures! We ought all to be placed under restraint ... but whose? Come, the best thing is to get to work and to keep working, strenuously, always...."

Old Takma was just coming from the razor-back bridge by the barracks, stiff and erect in his tightly-buttoned overcoat, considering each step and leaning on his ivory-knobbed stick, when Ottilie Steyn de Weert, arriving from the other side, saw him and went up to him:

"How do you do, Mr. Takma?"

"Ah, Ottilie, how do you do?... Are you going to Mamma's too?"

"Yes...."

"It was raining this morning and I thought I shouldn't be able to go. Adèle was grumbling because I went out after all, but it's fine now, it's fine now...."

"I think it'll rain again presently though, and you haven't even an umbrella, Mr. Takma."

"Well, you see, child, I hate an umbrella: I never carry one.... Fancy walking with a roof over your head!"

Ottilie smiled: she knew that the old man could not lean on his stick when holding up his umbrella. But she said:

"Well,ifit rains, may I see you home?... That is, if you won't have a carriage?"

"No, child, I think a carriage even more horrid than an umbrella."

She knew that the jolting of a cab caused him great discomfort.

"The only carriage in which I'm likely to drive will be the black coach. Very well, child, if it rains, you shall bring me home ... and hold your little roof over my head. Give me your arm: I'll accept that with pleasure."

She gave him her arm; and, now that he was leaning on her, his stiff, straight step became irregular and he let himself go and hobbled along like a very old, old man....

"How quiet you are, child!"

"I, Mr. Takma?"

"Yes."

"You notice everything."

"I could hear at once by your voice that you were not in good spirits."

"Well, perhaps I am worried.... Here we are."

She rang at old Mrs. Dercksz': old Anna, inside, came hurrying at a great rate to open the door.

"I'll just take breath, Anna," said the old gentleman, "just take breath ... keep on my coat, I think ... and take breath for a moment ... in the morning-room."

"It's getting coldish," said old Anna. "We shall start fires soon in the morning-room. The mistress never comes downstairs, but there's often some one waiting; and Dr. Roelofsz is a very chilly gentleman...."

"Don't start fires too soon, don't start fires too soon," said the old man, querulously. "Fires play the dickens with us old people...."

He sat down, wearily, in the morning-room, with his two hands on the ivory knob of his stick. Anna left them to themselves.

"Come, child, what is it? Worry?"

"A little.... I shall be so lonely.... The wedding's to-morrow."

"Yes, yes ... to-morrow is Lot and Elly's wedding. Well, they'll be very happy."

"I hope so, I'm sure.... But I...."

"Well?"

"I shall beunhappy."

"Come, come!"

"What have I left? Not one of my children with me. I sometimes think of going to England. I have John and Hugh there ... and Mary is coming home from India."

"Yes, child, as we grow older, we are left all alone. Look at me. Now that Elly is marrying, I shall have no one but Adèle. It's lucky that I can still get out ... and that I sometimes see Mamma ... and ... and all of you ... and Dr. Roelofsz.... But, if I were helpless, what would there be forme?... You, you're young still."

"I? Do you callmeyoung?..."

"Yes, child, aren't you young?..."

"But, Mr. Takma, I'm sixty!"

"Are you sixty?... Are yousixty?... Child, do you mean to tell me you're sixty?"

The old man cudgelled his brains, fighting against a sudden cloud in his memory that hazed around him like a mist. And he continued:

"No, you must be mistaken. Youcan'tbe sixty."

"Yes, really, Mr. Takma, really: I'm sixty!"

"Oh, Lietje, my child, are you really ... as old ... as that!"

He cudgelled his brains ... and closed his eyes:

"Sixty!" he muttered. "More than sixty ... more than sixty years ..."

"No, sixty exactly."

"Yes, yes, sixty! Oh, child, are you really sixty? I thought you were forty or fifty at most ... I was dreaming.... The old man was dreaming.... Sixty!... More than sixty years ago!..."

His voice mumbled; she did not understand what he meant:

"Were you a little confused?"

"When?" he asked, with a start.

"Just now."

"Just now?..."

"When you thought ... that I was forty."

"What do you say?"

"When you thought that I wasforty."

"Yes, yes ... I hear what you say.... I can still hear very well.... I have always heard very well ... too well ... too well ..."

"He's wandering," thought Ottilie Steyn. "He's never done that before."

"So you're sixty, child!" said the old man, more calmly, recovering his voice. "Yes, I suppose you must be.... You see, we old people, we very old people, think that you others always remain children ... well, not children, but young ... that you always remain young.... Ah ... and you grow old too!"

"Oh, yes,veryold! And then there's so little left."

Her voice sounded ever so sad.

"Poor girl!" said old Takma. "But you oughtn't to quarrel so with Pauws ... I mean ... I mean, with Trevelley."

"With Steyn, you mean."

"Yes, I mean, with Steyn ... of course."

"I can't stand him."

"But you could, once!"

"Ah ... when one's in love ... then...!"

"Yes, yes, you were able to stand him at one time!" said the old man, obstinately. "And so the wedding is to-morrow?"

"Yes, to-morrow."

"I can't be there: I'm very sorry, but ..."

"Yes, it would tire you too much.... They're coming to take leave of Grandmamma presently."

"That's nice, that's nice of them."

"It'll be a tame affair," said Ottilie. "They are so tame. There'll be nothing, no festivity. They refuse to be married in church."

"Yes, those are their ideas," said the old man, in a tone of indifference. "I don't understand it, that 'not being married in church;' but they must know their own business."

"Elly hasn't even a bridal dress; I think it so odd.... Elly is reallyveryserious for so young a girl. I shouldn't care to be married like that, when you're married for the first time. But, on the other hand, what's the use of all that fuss, as Lot says? The relations and friends don't really care. And it runs into money."

"Elly could have had whatever she liked," said the old gentleman, "a dinner, a dance or anything.... But she refused."

"Yes, they're both agreed."

"Those are their ideas," said the old man, with indifference.

"Mr. Takma ..." said Ottilie, hesitatingly.

"Yes, child?"

"I wanted to ask you something, but I dare not...."

"What are you afraid of, child? Do you want something?"

"No, not exactly, but ..."

"But what, child?... Is it money?"

Ottilie heaved a great sob:

"I hate asking you!... I think it's horrid of me.... And you mustn'tevertell Lot that I ask you sometimes.... But, you see, I'll tell you frankly, I've sent Hugh some money; and now ... and now I have nothing left for myself.... If you hadn't always been so immensely kind to me, I should never dare ask you. But you've always spoilt me, as you know.... Yes, you know: you've always had a soft place in your heart for me.... And, if you don't think it horrid of me to ask you and if you could ... let me have ..."

"How much do you want, child?"

Ottilie looked at the door, to see if any one was listening:

"Only three hundred guilders...."

"Why, of course, child, of course. Come round to-morrow, to-morrow evening ... after the wedding.... And, when you want anything, ask me, do you see? Ask me with an easy conscience.... You can ask me whenever you please...."

"Youareso good to me!..."

"I have always been very fond of you ... because I'm so very fond of your mother.... So ask me, child ... ask me whenever you please, only ... be sensible ... and don't do ..."

"Don't do what, Mr. Takma?"

The old man suddenly became very uncertain in his speech:

"Don't do ... don't do anything rash....."

"What do you mean?.

"Sixty years ... sixty years ago ..."

He began to mumble; and she saw him fall asleep, sitting erect, with his hands on the ivory knob of his stick.

She was frightened and, stealing noiselessly to the door, she opened it and called:

"Anna ... Anna...."

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Come here.... Look.... Mr. Takma has fallen asleep.... We'd better stay with him till he wakes up, hadn't we?"

"Oh, the poor soul!" said the maid, compassionately.

"He isn't...?" asked Ottilie, in the voice of a frightened child.

But Anna shook her head reassuringly. The old man slept on, stiff and straight in his chair, with his hands resting on his stick.

The two women sat down and watched.

There was a ring; and Ottilie whispered:

"Do you think that's Mr. Lot and Miss Elly?..."

"No," said Anna, looking out of the window, "it's Mr. Harold."

And she went to the front-door. Ottilie came out to her brother in the passage.

"How are you, Ottilie?" said Harold Dercksz. "Is there no one with Mamma?"

"No. I met Mr. Takma just outside the door. Look, he's fallen asleep. I'm waiting here till he wakes."

"Then I'll go up to Mamma meanwhile."

"You're looking poorly, Harold."

"Yes. I do not feel well. I'm in pain ..."

"Where?"

"Everywhere. Heart, liver: everything's wrong.... So to-morrow is the great day, Ottilie?"

"Yes," said Ottilie, mournfully, "to-morrow.... They're so unenterprising. No reception and no religious marriage."

"Lot asked me to be one of his witnesses."

"Yes, you and Steyn, with Dr. Roelofsz and D'Herbourg for Elly.... Anton declined...."

"Yes, Anton doesn't care for that sort of thing."

He went upstairs slowly, knocked, opened the door. The companion was sitting with the old woman and reading something out of the paper in a monotonous voice. She rose from her chair:

"Here's Mr. Harold, mevrouw."

She left the room; and the son bent over his mother and gave her a very gentle kiss on the forehead. As it was dark, the lined porcelain of the old woman's face was hardly indicated in the crimson twilight of the curtains and the tall valance. She sat on the chair, in the cashmere folds of her wide dress, straight upright, as on a throne; and in her lap the frail fingers trembled like slender wands in the black mittens. A few words were exchanged between mother and son, he sitting on a chair beside her, for no one ever took the chair by the window, which was kept exclusively for Mr. Takma: words about health and weather and the wedding of Elly and Lot next day. Sometimes a look of pain came over Harold's parchment-coloured face; and his mouth was drawn as though with cramp. And, while he talked about Lot and about health and weather, he saw—as he always saw, when sitting here beside or opposite Mamma—the things that passed and dragged their ghostly veils over the path rustling with dead leaves: the things that passed so slowly, years and years to every yard, until it seemed as though they never would be past and as though he would always continue to see them, ever drawing out their pageant along the age-long path. While he talked about health and weather and Lot, he saw—as he always saw, when sitting beside or opposite Mamma—the one thing, the one terrible Thing, the Thing begotten in that night of clattering rain in the lonelypasangrahanat Tegal; and he heard the hushed voices: Baboe's whispering voice; Takma's nervous-angry voice of terror; his mother's voice of sobbing despair; himself a mere child of thirteen. He knew; he had seen, he had heard. He was the only one who had heard, who had seen. All his life long—and he was an old, sick man now—he had seen the Thing slowly passing like that; and the others had heard nothing, seen nothing, known nothing.... Had they really not known, not seen, not heard? He often asked himself the question. Roelofsz must surely have seen the wound. And Roelofsz had never mentioned a wound; on the contrary, he had denied it.... Rumours had gone about, vague rumours, of a woman in thekampong, of a stab with a kris, of a trail of blood: how many rumours were there not going about! His father was drowned in the river, one sultry night, when he had gone into the garden for air and been caught in the pelting rain.... The Thing, the terrible Thing was passing, was a step farther, looked round at him with staring eyes. Why did they all live to be so old and why did the Thing pass so slowly?...He knew: he had known more ... because of rumours which he had heard; because of what he had guessed instinctively in later years, when he was no longer a child: his father hearing a sound ... a sound of voices in his wife's room.... Takma's voice, the intimate friend of the house.... His suspicions: was he right? Was it Takma? Yes, it was Takma.... Takma in his wife's room.... His rage, his jealousy; his eyes that saw red; his hand seeking for a weapon.... No weapon but the kris, the handsome ornamental kris, a present which Papa received only yesterday from the Regent.... He steals to his wife's room.... There ...there... he hears their voices.... They are laughing, they are laughing under their breath.... He flings himself against the door; the bamboo bolt gives way; he rushes in.... Two men face to face because of a woman.... Their contest, their passion, as in primeval days.... Takma has snatched the kris from Harold's father.... No longer human beings, no longer men, but male animals fighting over a female.... No other thoughts in their red brains and before their red gaze but their passion and their jealousy and their wrath.... His father mortally wounded!... But Harold Dercksz does not see his mother in all this: he does not see her, he does not know how she behaves, how she behaved during the struggle between these two animal men.... He does not see how the female behaved: that never rose up before his intuition, however often he may have stared after the Thing that passed, however often, for years and years, again and again he may have sat beside his mother, talking about health and weather. And to-day it is much stronger than his whole being; and he asks the very old woman:

"Was your companion reading the paper to you?"

"Yes."

"Does she read nicely?"

"Yes. She sometimes finds it difficult to know what to choose."

"Politics don't interest you?"

"The war does: it's terrible, all that loss of human life."

"It's murder ... on a large scale...."

"Yes, it's murder...."

"Does she read you the serial story?"

"No, no; I don't care for serials."

"No more do I."

"We are too old for that."

"Yes, we old people have our own serial stories...."

"Yes.... A quiet life's the best...."

"Then you have nothing to reproach yourself with...."

He sees the slender, wand-like fingers tremble.Hasshe anything to reproach herself with, more than her infidelity to the man who was her husband? He has never seen it for himself; and yet the Thing has always and always dragged its ghostly veils rustling over dead leaves....

"Hasn't she been reading about that murder?"

"What murder?"

"In England, the woman who ..."

"No, no, she never reads me that sort of thing...."

Her words are almost an entreaty.... How old she is, how old she is!... The toothless mouth trembles and mumbles, the fingers shake violently. He is full of pity, he, the son, who knows and who suspects what he does not know, because he knows the soul of that mother, her soul now dulled and blunted in waiting for the body's death, but her soul also once a soul of passion, of temper, an amorous creole soul, capable at one moment of forgetting all the world and life itself for a single instant of rapture ... or perhaps of hate! He knows that she hated his father, after first adoring him; that she hated him because her own passion expired before him in a heap of ashes.... This had all been made clear to him, gradually, year after year, when he was no longer a child but grew into a man and was a man and understood and looked back and reflected and pieced together what he had understood and looked back upon.... He suspects, because he knows her soul. But how blunted that soul is now; and how old she is, how old she is! A pity softens his own soul, old, old, too, and full of melancholy for all the things of life gone by ... for his mother ... and for himself, an old man now.... How old she is, how old she is!... Hush, oh, hush: let her grow just a little older; and then it will be over and the Thing will have passed! The last fold of its spectral veil will have vanished; the last leaf on that endless, endless path will have rustled; and, though once a rumour, vaguely, with a dismal moaning, hovered through those trees, it never grew into a voice and an accusation and, from among those trees, no one ever stepped forward with threatening hand that stayed the Thing, the sombre, ghostly Thing, dragging itself along its long road, for years and years and years....

The front-door bell made old Takma wake with a start. And he knew that he had been to sleep, but he did not allude to it and quietly acted as though he had only been sitting and resting, with his hands leaning on his ivory-knobbed stick. And, when Dr. Roelofsz entered, he said, with his unvarying little joke:

"Well, Roelofsz, you don't get any thinner as the years go by!"

"Well-well," said the doctor, "d'you think so, Takma?"

He came rolling in, enormous of paunch, which hung dropsically and askew towards his one stiff leg, which was shorter than the other; and, in his old, clean-shaven, monkish face, his bleared little eyes glittered behind the gold spectacles and were angry because Takma was always referring to his paunch and he didn't like it.

"Harold is upstairs," said Ottilie Steyn.

"Come, child," said Takma, rising with an effort, "we'd better go upstairs now; then we'll drive Harold away...."

They went up slowly. But there was another ring at the front-door.

"There'ssucha bustle some days," said old Anna to the doctor. "But the mistress isn't neglected in her old age! We shall soon have to start fires in the morning-room, for there's often some one waiting here...."

"Yes-yes-yes," said the doctor, rubbing his short, fat, fleshy hands with a shiver. "It's coldish, it's chilly, Anna. You may as well have a fire...."

"Mr. Takma says fires are the dickens."

"Yes, but he's always blazing hot inside," said Dr. Roelofsz, viciously. "Well-well-well, here are the children...."

"Can we go up?" asked Elly, entering with Lot.

"Yes, go upstairs, miss," said Anna. "Mr. Harold is just coming down; and there's no one upstairs but Mamma ... and Mr. Takma."

"Grandmamma's holding a court," said Lot, jestingly.

But his voice hesitated in joking, for a certain awe always oppressed him as soon as he entered his grandmother's house. It was because of that atmosphere of the past into which he sometimes felt too hyperimaginative to intrude, an atmosphere from which bygone memories and things constantly came floating. The old doctor, who had something of a monk and something of a Silenus in his appearance, was so very old and, though younger than Grandmamma, had known her as a young and seductive woman.... Here was Uncle Harold coming down the stairs: he was much younger, but a deep and mysterious melancholy furrowed his faded face, which moreover was wrung with physical pain.

"Till to-morrow, till to-morrow, children," he said, gently, and went away after shaking hands with them. "Till to-morrow, till to-morrow, Roelofsz...."

That voice, broken with melancholy, always made Lot shudder. He now followed Elly up the stairs, while the doctor remained below, talking to old Anna:

"Yes-yes-yes, well-well-well!"

The ejaculations pursued Lot as he mounted the stairs. Each time that he came to the house he became more conscious of finding himself on another plane, more sensitive to that atmosphere of former days, which seemed to drag with it something that rustled. A whole past lay hidden behind the joviality of the voluble doctor. Oh, to grow old, to grow old! He shivered at the thought on that first autumnal day.... They now entered the room: there they sat, Grandmamma, Grandpapa Takma and, in between them, so strangely, like a child, Lot's mother. And Lot, walking behind Elly, modulated his tread, his gestures, his voice; and Elly also was very careful, he thought, as though she feared to break that crystal, antique atmosphere with too great a display of youth.

"So you're to be married to-morrow? That's right, that's right," said the old woman, contentedly.

She raised her two hands with an angular gesture and, with careful and trembling lips, kissed first Elly and then Lot on the forehead. They were now all sitting in a circle; and a few words passed at intervals; and Lot felt as if he himself were a child, Elly quite a baby, his mother a young woman. She resembled Grandmamma, certainly; but what in Grandmamma had been an imposing creole beauty had been fined down in Mamma, had become the essence of fineness, was so still. Yes, she was like Grandmamma, but—it struck him again, as it had before—she had something, not a resemblance, but a similar gesture, with something about the eyes and something about the laugh, to Grandpapa Takma.... Could it be true after all, what people had whispered: that the youngest child, Ottilie, had been born too long after Dercksz' death for his paternity to be accepted, for the paternity to be attributed to any one but Takma? Were they really sitting there as father, mother and child? He, was he Takma's grandson? Was he a cousin of Elly's?... He didn't know it for certain, nothing was certain: there were—he had heard them very long ago—those vague rumours; and there was that likeness! But, if it was so, then they both knew it; then, if they were not quite dulled, they were thinking of it at this moment. They were not in their dotage, either of them, those old, old people. It seemed to Lot that some emotion had always continued to sharpen their wits; for it was wonderful how well Grandmamma, despite her age, understood all about everything, about his marriage now, about the family:

"Uncle Daan and Aunt Floor are on their way from India," said Grandmamma. "I can't imagine what they are coming for ... with the winter so near. Aunt Floor won't like it, I know.... I only wish thatIhad remained in India, instead of coming here.... Yes, I've been sitting here for years now, until ... until ..."

She stammered and looked out of the window, waiting, waiting. At the other window sat Takma and waited, waited, nodding his head. Oh, it was awful, thought Lot, looking at his mother. She did not understand his look, had forgotten his moment of prostration and weakness, his dread of old age, because she always forgot when he did not complain; and she merely thought that he wanted to get up. She smiled, sadly, as was her custom in these days, nodded and was the first to rise:

"Well, we'd better be going now, Mamma.... Mr. Takma, am I not to see you home?"

"No, child, it's not raining; and I can manage by myself, I can manage...."

Ottilie's voice sounded very sad and childish and old Takma's paternal, but fluttering and airy. Lot and Elly rose; and there were more careful kisses; and Mr. Takma kissed Ottilie also. When they were gone, the old doctor came rolling in.

"Well, Roelofsz," said Grandmamma.

"Well-well-well, yes-yes," mumbled the doctor, dropping into a chair.

They sat like that, without words, the three old people. The light was waning outside; and a bleak autumnal wind drove the first yellow leaves through the gardens of the Sofialaan.

"You're out too late, Takma," said the doctor.

"No, no," said the old man.

"It gets chilly early, at this season."

"No, no, I'm not chilly."

"Yes, you're always blazing hot inside."

"Yes, just as you're always getting fatter."

The doctor gave an explosive laugh, not viciously this time, because he had got his joke in first; and Takma also laughed, with a shrill, cracked note. The old woman did not speak, leant over slightly, looked out of the window. The dusk of evening was already gathering over the Nassaulaan.

"Look," said the old woman, pointing with her trembling, slender, wand-like finger.

"What?" asked the two men, looking out.

"I thought ..."

"What?"

"I thought that there was something ... moving ... over there, under the trees...."

"What was moving?"

"I don't know: something ... somebody...."

"She's wandering," thought the doctor to himself.

"No, Ottilie," said Takma, "there's nothing moving."

"Oh, is there nothing moving?"

"No."

"I thought that something was passing ... just hazily...."

"Yes ... well ... that's the damp rising," said the doctor.

"Yes," said Takma, "that's mist...."

"You're out of doors much too late, Takma," said the doctor.

"I've got my great-coat, a warm one...."

"Well-well...."

"The leaves are rustling," said the old woman. "And the wind's howling. It'll soon be winter."

"Well ... yes-yes, winter's coming. One more of 'em...."

"Yes," said the old woman. "The last ... the last winter...."

"No-no-no-no!" boasted the old doctor. "The last! I promise you, you'll see a hundred yet, Ottilie!..."

Old Takma nodded his head:

"It's more than sixty years ..."

"Wha-at?" exclaimed the doctor, in a startled voice.

"Ago ..."

"What are you saying?" cried the old woman, shrilly.

"I'm saying," said Takma, "that Ottilie, that Lietje ... is turned sixty ..."

"Oh, yes!"

"And so it's more than sixty ... more than sixty years ago since ..."

"Si-incewhat?" exclaimed the doctor.

"Since Dercksz ... was drowned," said Takma.

And he nodded his head.

"Oh!" moaned the old woman, lifting her hands to her face with an angular and painful movement. "Don't speak about that. What made you say that?"

"No," said Takma, "I said nothing...."

"No-no-no-no!" mumbled the doctor. "Don't talk about it, don't talk about it.... We never talk about it.... Yes ... aha ... Takma, what made you talk about it?... There-there-there-there ... it's nothing, but it makes Ottilie sad...."

"No," said the old woman, calmly. "I'm never sad now.... I'm much too old for that.... I only sit and wait.... Look, isn't that something passing?..."

"Where?"

"In the street, opposite ... or down there, in the road ... something white...."

"Where? Aha, oh, there?... No, Ottilie, that's mist."

"The leaves ... the leaves are rustling."

"Yes-yes-yes, autumn ... winter's coming...."

"The last," said the old woman.

The doctor mumbled a vague denial. Takma nodded his head. They sat very still, for a time. Yes, it was more than sixty years ago.... They all three saw it: the old man and the old woman saw it happening; and the doctor saw it as it had happened. He had understood and guessed, at once, and he had known, all those years long. Very many years ago he had been in love with Ottilie, he much younger than she, and there was a moment when he had called upon her to pay him the price of his knowledge.... He had buried all that in himself, but he saw it as it had happened.... It was more than sixty years ago.

"Come," said Takma, "it's time I went.... Else ... else it'll be too late...."

He rose with an effort and remembered that he had not torn up one letter to-day. That was not right, but the tearing tired his fingers. The doctor also arose and rang the bell twice, for the companion.

"We're going, juffrouw."

It was almost dark in the room.

"Good-bye, Ottilie," said Takma, pressing the mittened hand, which was raised an inch or two.

The doctor also pressed her hand:

"Good-bye, Ottilie.... Yes-yes-yes: till to-morrow or next day."

Mr. Takma found Ottilie Steyn de Weert waiting downstairs:

"You here still, child?"

"Yes, Mr. Takma. I'll just see you home. You've really stayed out too late to-day; Elly thought so too; and Adèle will be uneasy...."

"Very well, child, do; see the old man home."

He took her arm; and his now irregular step tottered as Anna let them out.

"Juffrouw," said the old woman, upstairs, when the companion was about to light the lamp, "wait a moment and just look out of the window. Tell me: there, on the other side of the road, through those leaves falling ... isn't there something ... something white ... passing?"

The companion looked through the window:

"No, mevrouw, there's nothing. But there's a mist rising. Mr. Takma has stayed much too long again."

She closed the shutters and lit the lamp. The old woman sat and took her soup; then the companion and old Anna put her to bed.

Old Mr. Pauws came to meet them at the station, in the evening, at Brussels:

"My dear boy, mydearboy, how are you? And so this is your little wife! My dear child, I wish you joy with all my heart!"

His arms, thrown wide, embraced first Lot and then Elly.

"And I've taken a room for you at the Métropole, but I reckoned on it that you'd first come and have supper at my place. Then I shall have been at your wedding too. I don't expect you're tired, are you? No, it's nothing of a journey. Better send your trunks straight to the hotel. I've got a carriage: shall we go home at once? Do you think there's room for the three of us? Yes, yes, we'll fit in nicely."

It was the second time that Elly had seen the old gentleman, a pink-and-white, well-preserved man of seventy: she had been with Lot to look him up during their engagement. There was something decided and authoritative about him, together with a cheerful gaiety, especially now, because he was seeing Lot again. He would receive them at his own place, at his rooms, for he lived in bachelor quarters. He opened the door with his latch-key; he had paid the cabman quickly, before Lot could; and he now hustled the young couple up the stairs. He himself lit a gas-jet in the passage:

"I have no one to wait on me in the evening, as you see. Afemme-de-ménagecomes in the morning. I take my meals at a restaurant. I thought of treating the two of you to supper at a restaurant; but I think this is pleasanter.... There!"

And he now lit the gas in the sitting-room, with a quick movement, like a young man's. Elly smiled at him. The table was laid and there were flowers on it and a few pints of Heidsieck in a wine-cooler.

"Welcome, my dear child!" said the old man, kissing Elly.

He helped her take off her hat and cloak and carried them into his bedroom:

"You'd better bring your coat in here too, Lot."

"Your father is wonderful!" said Elly.

The little sitting-room was cosy and comfortable; it was his own furniture. There were books about; photographs on the walls and prints of horses and dogs; arms on a rack; and, underneath—it impressed Elly, just as it had impressed her the first time—a portrait of Ottilie at twenty, in an old-fashioned bonnet which made her look exquisitely pretty, like a little heroine in a novel. Strange, thought Elly to herself, Steyn also had pictures of dogs and horses in his room; Steyn also was a hunting man, a man of out-door pursuits; Steyn also was good-looking. She smiled at her reflection that it was always the same sort of manliness that had attracted Ottilie; she smiled just as Lot sometimes smiled at his mother.

"You two are very like each other," said Pauws, as they sat down to table. "Look, children, here's what I've got for you. Everything's ready, you see. Hors d'oeuvres. Do you like caviare, with these toasted rolls?"

"I'm mad on caviare," said Lot.

"I remembered that! After the hors d'oeuvres, a mayonnaise of fish: perhaps that's rather too much fish, but I had to think out a cold menu, for I've no cook and no kitchen. Then there's cold chicken and compote: a Dutch dish for you; they never eat the two together here or in France. Next, there's apâté-de-foie-gras. And tartlets for you, Elly."

"I'm fond of tartlets too," said Lot, attentively examining the dish.

"All the better. A decent claret, Chateau-Yquem and Heidsieck. I got you some good fruit. Coffee, liqueurs, a cigar, a cigarette for you, Elly, and that's all. It's the best I could do."

"But, Papa, it's delightful!"

The old gentleman was uncorking the champagne, quickly and handily, with a twist of the wires:

"Here goes, children!"

The wine frothed up high.

"Wait, Elly, wait, let me fill up your glass.... There, here's to you, children, and may you be happy!"

"You take after Lot," said Elly.

"I? In that case, Lot takes after me."

"Yes, I meant that of course."

"Ah, but it's quite a different thing!"

"Yes, but Lot ... Lot is also like his mother."

"Yes, I'm like Mamma," said Lot.

He was short, slender, almost frail of build and fair; the old gentleman was solid in flesh and figure, with a fresh complexion and very thick grey hair, which still showed a few streaks of black.

"Yes, but I think Lot also has that flippancy of yours, though he is like his mother."

"Oh, so I'm flippant, am I?" said old Pauws, laughing.

His hands, moving in sweeping gestures, were busy across the table, with the hors d'oeuvres, which he was now handing.

"Would you ever believe that Papa was seventy?" said Lot. "Papa, I'm amazed every time I see you! What keeps you so young?"

"I don't know, my boy; I'm built that way."

"Were you never afraid of getting old?"

"No, my dear fellow, I've never been afraid ... of getting old or of anything else."

"Then whom do I get it from? Mamma hasn't that fear, not as I have it, although ..."

"You're an artist; they have those queer ideas. I'm just ordinary."

"Yes, I wish I were like you, tall and broad-shouldered. I'm always jealous when I look at you."

"Come, Lot, you're very well as you are!" said Elly, defending him against himself.

"If you were like me, you wouldn't have attracted your wife, what do you say, Elly?"

"Well, there's no telling, Papa!"

"How are things at home, my boy?"

"Same as usual, just the same."

"Is Mamma well?"

"Physically, yes. Morally, she's depressed ... because I'm married."

"How do she and Steyn get on?"

"They quarrel."

"Ah, that mother of yours!" said Pauws. "Elly, will you help the mayonnaise? No, Lot, give me the Yquem: I'll open it.... That mother of yours has always quarrelled. Pity she had that in her. Temper, violent words ... all about nothing: it was always like that in my time. And she was so nice otherwise ... and so sweetly pretty!"

"Yes," said Lot, "and I'm like Mamma, an ugly edition."

"He doesn't mean a word of it," said Elly.

"No," said the old gentleman, "not a word of it, the conceited fellow!"

"All the same, I'd rather be like you, Papa."

"Lot, you're talking nonsense.... Some more mayonnaise, Elly? Sure? Then we'll see what the cold chicken's made of. No, give it here, Lot, I'll carve.... And your wedding was very quiet? No religious ceremony?"

"No."

"No reception?"

"No, Elly has so few friends and I have so few, in Holland. We lead such a life of our own, at the Hague. I know more people in Italy than I do at the Hague. The whole family rather lives a life of its own. Except the D'Herbourgs there's really nobody."

"That's true."

"Those very old, old people are out of the question, of course."

"Yes, Grandpapa, Grandmamma.... And the old doctor...."

"Uncle Anton lives his own life."

"H'm, h'm ... yes...."

"Uncle Harold is old also."

"Two years older than I."

"But he's poorly."

"Yes ... and queer. Always has been. Quiet and melancholy. Still, a very good sort."

"We at home, with Steyn and Mamma: what's the use of our entertaining people?"

"You forget Aunt Stefanie: she's an aunt with money to leave, just as Uncle Anton is an uncle with money to leave; but your aunt has plenty."

"Oh, Lot is quite indifferent to what money he inherits!" said Elly.

"Besides, you two won't be badly off," said old Pauws. "You're right: what's the use of wedding-festivities? As for acquaintances ..."

"We none of us have many."

"It's a funny thing. As a rule, there's such a lot of movement around Indian families. 'Swirl' we used to call it."

"Oh, I don't know: there's no 'swirl' of acquaintances round us!"

"No, we've had 'swirl' enough among ourselves: Mamma saw to that at least!"

"It made Mamma lose her friends too."

"Of course it did. Mamma's life has really been hardly decent ... with her three husbands!"

"Well, of course.... I don't allow it to upset me.... But the family isn't thought much of."

"No. Grandmamma was the first to begin it. She also did just what she pleased...."

"I've heard a lot of vague rumours...."

"Well, I've heard a lot of rumours too, but they weren't vague. Grandmamma was agrande coquettein her day and inspired more than her share of the great passions in Java."

"They say that Mamma ..."

"I don't know, but it's quite possible. At least, you two are so like each other that you might be brother and sister."

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