[20]Tropical flowers.
[20]Tropical flowers.
[21]The great house,i.e., the Viceregal Palace at Buitenzorg.
[21]The great house,i.e., the Viceregal Palace at Buitenzorg.
"So you're thinking of being presented at Court next winter?" said Van Vreeswijck, who had been a chum of Henri's at Leiden and who was now a chamberlain-extraordinary to the Queen Regent, as he and Van der Welcke were leaving the Plaats together.
Van der Welcke looked up:
"I wasn't thinking of it for a second."
"Really? I heard that you meant to, or rather that it was your wife's intention."
"I haven't exchanged a single word on the subject with my wife."
Van Vreeswijck took Van der Welcke's arm: "Really? Well, to tell you the truth, I could not quite understand it."
"Why not?" asked Van der Welcke, promptly taking offence.
"Look here, old fellow: I can speak to you frankly, can't I, as an old friend? But, if you're touchy ... then we'll avoid intimate matters."
"Not at all: what were you going to say?"
"Nothing that you won't see for yourself, if you think for a moment. But, if the whole question of getting presented at Court doesn't exist with you and your wife, then don't let me bring it up at all."
"No, no!" said Van der Welcke, becoming interested. "Don't beat about the bush; say what you meant to say."
"I couldn't understand your having the idea, or how the idea could ever have occurred to your wife: I tell you so, honestly. De Staffelaer is a relation of the Eilenburgs and of the Van Heuvel Steyns; and it would surely be painful for you and your wife to meet those people, wouldn't it?... That's all."
"Short and sweet," said Van der Welcke, still feeling put out.
"But that's the whole point of it."
"You're right," muttered Van der Welcke, gloomily. "Perhaps we ought never to have come to the Hague."
"Nonsense!" said Van Vreeswijck, rather feebly. "Your old friends are glad to see you back again. The question of the Court is non-existent with you both. Well, then there's nothing to fret about.... As for myself, I am more than glad to see you at the Hague again," he continued, more cheerfully, almost in a tone of relief. "I have the pleasantest memories of the occasions when I had the privilege of meeting your wife in Brussels. When would it suit you both for me to come and call?"
"Will you look round one evening? Or, if you really want to be friendly, come and dine."
"I should like to, above all things. When shall I come?"
"Day after to-morrow, at seven."
"Delighted. Just yourselves? And I'll call and leave a card to-morrow."
"By the way," said Van der Welcke. "You mentioned De Staffelaer: where is he now?"
"At his country-place, near Haarlem. He's still flourishing. He's well over eighty."
"He must be."
They parted. Van der Welcke went gloomily home. It was curious, but, every afternoon, when he went home from the Witte or the Plaats, he had that gloomy, unsettled feeling. The moment he set eyes on Addie, however, his face at once lighted up; but, this time, when the boy wanted to romp, before dinner, Van der Welcke began to think whether Constance would approve of his having asked Van Vreeswijck to dinner two days later....
They sat down to table:
"By the way," said Van der Welcke, hesitatingly, "I met Van Vreeswijck; and he wanted to call on you and asked when it would suit you."
"He might have done so long ago," said Constance, who had entertained Van Vreeswijck once or twice in Brussels.
"He apologized," said Van der Welcke, in defence of his friend. "He did not know whether you were quite settled. I told him he must come and dine one night and—if it's not too much trouble for you—I asked him to come the day after tomorrow."
"I think he might have paid a visit first."
"He said something about leaving a card to-morrow. But, if you don't care about it, I'll put him off."
"No, it's all right," said Constance.
It was an instinct with her to be hospitable, to have her house always open to her friends. But, until now, she had dreaded asking any one to meals, except Gerrit and Adeline, quite quietly, and, just once, Paul.
Paul happened to call that evening.
"Do you mind if I ask Paul too?" she said to her husband.
"No, of course not; Paul is delightful."
Paul accepted with pleasure. On the evening of the little dinner, he was the first to arrive.
"Addie is dining with Gerrit and Adeline," she said. "It will be nicer for him."
"How charming you've made your place look!" said Paul, enthusiastically.
She had a pretty little drawing-room, cosy and comfortable and gay with many flowers in vases. And she looked most charming, young, with the attractive pallor of her rounded face, the face of a woman in her prime, and a smile in the dimples about her lips, because the graciousness of a hostess was natural to her. Paul thought her the best-looking of all his sisters, as she stood before him in her black dress: a film of blackmousseline-de-soieand black lace, falling in a diaphanous cloud over white taffeta. There reigned, in her rooms, in herself, the easy grace of a woman of the world, a quality which Paul had not yet observed in her, because until now he had seen her either quite intimately, in her bedroom, or at those crowded family-evenings. It was as though she had come into her own again.
Yes, as she now welcomed Van Vreeswijck, with a soft, playful word or two, Paul thought her simply adorable. He suddenly understood that, ten years ago, his sister might well have been irresistible. Even now, she had something about her so young, charming, engaging, pretty and distinguished that she was a revelation to him. She was an exquisite woman.
She had not hired a man-servant: the parlour-maid would wait. She herself drew back the hangings from the dining-room door-way and, without taking Van Vreeswijck's arm, asked the men to come in to dinner. A pink light of shaded candles slumbered over the table, with its bunch of grapes and its pink roses and maiden-hair fern, in between the crystal and the silver.
"But this is most charming!" said Paul, to himself, for he could not tell his sister so yet, as she and Van der Welcke were talking to Van Vreeswijck. "This is most charming! A party of four, like this, in this pretty room. That's just what I like. Compare all that formality of Bertha's. Bertha never gives these intimate little dinners. This is just what I like at my age"—Paul was thirty-five—"no formality, but everything elegant and nicely-served and good.... Excellenthors d'oeuvres!Constance knows how to do things! Compare the friendly, but homely rumpsteak which I sometimes get at Gerrit and Adeline's; or Adolphine's harum-scarum dinners.... No, this is as it should be: a quiet, friendly little dinner and yet everything just right.... Van Vreeswijck's dinner-jacket looks very well on him; only I don't like the cut of his waistcoat: too high, I think, his waistcoat. Those are nice buttons of his. But he's wearing a ready-made black tie! How is it possible! Strange how you suddenly perceive an aberration like that in a man: a ready-made tie! Who on earth wears a ready-made tie nowadays! Still, he looks very well otherwise.... Nice soup, thisvelouté.... What a duck Constance looks! Would you ever think that she was a woman of two-and-forty! She's like Mamma: Mamma also has that softness, that distinction, that same smile; Mamma even has those dimples still, in the corners of her mouth.... No, none of my other sisters could have done that, pulled back the hangings herself with that pretty gesture and asked us so naturally to come in to dinner.... You'll see, Constance will make her house very cosy, even though they are not rich and though they won't go into society officially. These friendly little dinners are just the thing...."
He had to join in the conversation now, with Van Vreeswijck; and Van der Welcke, who was in a pleasant mood, let himself go in a burst of irrepressible frankness:
"Tell me, Vreeswijck, who is it that's been saying we wanted to be presented at Court?..."
Van Vreeswijck hesitated, thought it a dangerous subject of conversation. But Constance laughed gently:
"Yes," she said, seconding her husband, "there seems to be a rumour that we have that intention; and the intention never existed for a moment."
Van Vreeswijck breathed again, relieved:
"Oh, mevrouw, how do people ever get hold of their notions? One will suggest, 'I wonder if they mean to be presented?' The other catches only the last words and says, 'They mean to be presented!' And so the story gets about."
"I shouldn't care for it in the least," said Constance. "I have become so used, of late, to a quiet life that I should think it tiresome to be paying and receiving a lot of visits. I am glad to be at the Hague, because I am back among my family...."
"And the family is very glad too!" said Paul, with brotherly gallantry, and raised his glass.
She thanked him with her little laugh:
"But I want nothing more than that. And I don't think Henri cares for anything else either."
"No, not at all!" said Van der Welcke. "Only, I can't understand why people at once start talking about others and, without a moment's hesitation, pretend to know more about a fellow's plans than he himself does. I never talk about anybody!"
"I must admit," Constance laughed, "that I often differ from my husband, but in this we are absolutely at one: I too never talk about anybody!"
"But that people should talk about us is only natural, I suppose!" said Van der Welcke and threw up his young, blue eyes, almost ingenuously. "They had forgotten us for years and now they see us again."
"He oughtn't to have said that," thought Paul. "Sometimes, he is just like a young colt...."
And he could understand that Constance occasionally felt peevish. These allusions, however slight, must necessarily vex her, he thought. Van der Welcke, when he let himself go, was capable of saying very tactless things. He generally restrained himself, but, when he did not, he became too spontaneous for anything. And Paul said something to Van Vreeswijck to change the conversation.
Yes, Paul felt for his sister. After all, that sort of past always remained, always clung about one. They were sitting here so cosily; Van Vreeswijck was a charming talker; and yet, at every moment, there were little rocks against which the conversation ran. Constance was behaving well, thought Paul: he had seen her quite different, flying out at the least word. But she was a woman of the world: she did not fly out before a stranger.... Here they were again, though: the conversation was turning on old Mr. and Mrs. van der Welcke. There they were again: he felt that Van Vreeswijck hesitated even before asking after the old people; and not until Constance herself said that she thought them both looking so well did Van Vreeswijck venture to go on talking about that father- and mother-in-law, who had sacrificed their son, who had refused for years to see their daughter-in-law and even their grandchild.... Surely it was better to talk about indifferent things....
But this was not only one of Constance' handsome, but also one of her amiable evenings. As a hostess, in however small a way, she came into her own and was like another woman, much more gentle, without any bitterness and ready to accept the fact that a rock had to be doubled now and again. Her smile gave to her cheeks a roundness that made her look younger. What a pity, thought Paul, that she was not always just like that, so full of tact, always the hostess in her own house, hostess to her husband too:
"How strange women are," he thought. "If I were dining here alone with them, in the ordinary course of things, and if these same rocks had occurred in the conversation, Constance would have lost her temper three times by now and Van der Welcke would have caught it finely. And now that there's a guest, now that we are in our dinner-jackets and Constance in an evening-frock, now that there are grapes and flowers on the table and a more elaboratemenuthan usual, now she does not lose her temper and won't lose her temper, however many rocks we may have to steer past. I believe that, even if we began to talk about infidelity and divorce, about marriages with old men and love-affairs with young ones, she would remain quite calm, smiling prettily with those little dimples at the corners of her mouth, as though nothing could apply to her... What strange creatures women are, full of little reserves of force that make them very powerful in life!... And, presently, when Van Vreeswijck is gone, she will rave at Van der Welcke if he so much as blows his nose; and all her little reserve-forces will have vanished; and she will be left without the smallest self-control.... Still, in any case, she is most charming; and I have had a capital dinner and am feeling very pleasant...."
The bell rang and, through the open door leading to the hall, Constance and Paul heard voices at the front-door:
"That's Adolphine's voice!" said Constance.
"And Carolientje's," said Paul....
"Oh, then I won't stay!" they heard Adolphine say, loudly, shrilly.
Constance rose from her chair. She thought it a bore that Adolphine should call just in this evening, but she was bent upon never allowing Adolphine to see that she was unwelcome:
"Excuse me, Mr. van Vreeswijck, for a moment. I hear my sister...."
She went out into the passage:
"How are you, Adolphine?"
"How are you, Constance?" said Adolphine.
She knew that Constance was giving a little dinner that evening and she had come prying on purpose, though she pretended to know nothing:
"I just looked in," she said, "as I was passing with Carolientje; I saw a light in your windows and thought you must be at home. But your servant says that you're having a dinner-party!" said Adolphine, tartly and reproachfully, as though Constance had no right to give a dinner.
"Not a dinner-party. Van Vreeswijck and Paul are dining with us."
"Van Vreeswijck? Oh!" said Adolphine.
"The one at Court?"
"He's a chamberlain of the Regent's," said Constance, simply.
"Oh!"
"He's an old friend of Van der Welcke's," said Constance, almost in self-excuse.
"Oh! Well, then I won't disturb you...."
The dining-room door was open. Adolphine peeped in and saw the three men talking over their dessert. She saw the candles, the flowers, the dinner-jackets of the men; she noticed Constance' dress....
"Do come in, Adolphine," said Constance, mastering herself and in her gentlest voice.
"No, thanks. If you're having a dinner-party, I won't come in, at dessert.... Oof! How hot it is in here, Constance: do you still keep on fires? It's suffocating in your house; and so dark, with those candles. How pale you look! Aren't you feeling well?"
"Pale? No, I'm feeling very well indeed."
"Oh, I thought you must be tired or ill, you look so awfully pale! You're not looking well. Perhaps you've put on too much powder. Or is it your dress that makes you look pale? Is that one of your Brussels dresses? I don't think it improves you! Your grey cashmere suits you much better."
"Yes, Adolphine, but that's a walking-dress."
"Oh, of course, you can't wear that at a dinner, at a dinner-party. Still, I prefer that walking-dress."
"Won't you come in for a moment?"
"No, I'm only in walking-dress, you see, Constance dear. And Carolientje too. And then I don't want to disturb you, at your men's dinner-party."
"I'm sorry, Adolphine, that you should have called just this night, if you won't come in. Come in to tea some other evening soon, will you?"
"Well, you see, I don't often come this way: you live so far from everywhere, in this depressing Kerkhoflaan. At least, I always think it depressing. What induced you to come and live here, tell me, between two graveyards? It's not healthy to live in, you know, because of the miasma...."
"Oh, we never notice anything!"
"Ah, that's because you always keep your windows shut! You want more ventilation, really, in Holland. I assure you, I should stifle in this atmosphere."
"Come, Adolphine, do come in...."
"No, really not. I'm going; make my apologies to your husband. Good-bye, Constance. Come, Carolientje."
And, as though she were really suffocating, she hurried to the front-door with her daughter, first glancing through the open door of the dining-room, noticing the hot-house grapes, the pink roses, screwing up her eyes to read the label on the champagne-bottle from which Paul was filling up the glasses. Then she pushed Carolientje before her and departed, slamming the front-door after her....
Constance went back to the dining-room. Her nerves were shaken, but she kept a good countenance.
"It was Adolphine, wasn't it?" asked Paul.
"Yes, but she wouldn't come in," said Constance. "It's such a pity, she's such good company...."
She did not mean it, but she wished to mean it. That she said so was not hypocrisy on her part. Any other evening, after Adolphine's comments, all in five minutes, on her house, her street, her candles, her fires, her dress and her complexion, she would probably have flung herself at full length on her sofa, to recover from the annoyance of it. But now she was the hostess; and she showed no discomposure and asked the men not to mind her and to stay and smoke their cigars with her, at the dinner-table. She herself poured out the coffee, from her dainty little silver-gilt service, and the liqueurs; and, when Paul asked her if she would not smoke a cigarette, she answered, with her pretty expression and the little laugh at the bend of her lips which made her so young that night and caused her to look so very charming:
"No, I used to smoke, in my flighty days; but I gave it up long ago."
Marietje van Saetzema stood at the window and looked out into the street. She looked down the whole street, because the house, a corner-house, stood not in the length of it, but in the width, half-closing the street, making it a sort of courtyard of big houses. The street stretched to some distance; and another house part-closed the farther end, turning it actually into a courtyard, occupied by well-to-do people. The two rows of gables ran along with a fine independence of chimney-stacks, of little cast-iron pinnacles and pointed zinc roofs, little copper weathercocks and little balconies and bow-windows, as though the architects and builders had conspired to produce something artistic and refused to design one long monotonous gable-line. But the new street—it was about twenty years old—had nevertheless retained the Dutch trimness that characterizes the dwellings of the better classes: the well-scrubbed pavements ran into the distance, growing ever narrower to the eye, with their grey hem of kerb-stone, their regularly-recurring lamp-posts; in the middle of the street was a plantation: oval grass-plots surrounded by low railings, in which were chestnut-trees, neatly pruned, and, beneath them, a neat shrubbery of dwarf firs. The fronts of the houses glistened with cleanliness after the spring cleaning; the tidily-laid bricks displayed their rectangular outlines clearly, even at a distance; the window-frames were bright with fresh paint, dazzling cream-colour or pale brown; the blinds, neatly lowered in front of the shining plate-glass windows, were let down in each house precisely the same depth, as though mathematically measured; and the houses concealed their inner lives very quietly behind the straight, nicely-balanced lace curtains. And this was very characteristic, that above each gable there jutted a flagstaff, held aslant with iron pins, the staff painted a bright red, white and blue—the national colours—as though wound about with ribbons, with a freshly-gilded knob at the top. All those flagstaffs—a forest of staffs, with their iron pins, for ever aslant on the gables—waited patiently to hoist their colours, to wave their bunting, twice a year, for the Queen and her mother, the Regent.
Marietje looked out. It was May; and the chestnuts in the grass-plots tried to outstretch and unfurl their soft, pale-green fans, now folded and bent back against their stalks. But a mad wind whirled through the street, which was like a courtyard of opulence, and the wind scourged the still furled chestnut-fans. The girl looked at them compassionately as they were whipped to and fro by the wind, the eager young leaves which, full of vernal life and pride of youth, were trying hard to unfold. The tender leaves were full of hope, because yesterday the sun had shone, after the rain, out of a flood-swept sky; and they thought that their leafy days were beginning, their life of leaves budding out from stalk and twig. They did not know that the wind was always at work, lashing, as with angry scourges, with stinging whips; they did not know that their leafy parents had been lashed last year, even as they were now; and, though they loved the wind, upon which they dreamt of floating and waving and being merry and happy, they never expected to be lashed with whips even before they had unfurled all the young bravery of their green.
The wind was pitiless. The wind lashed through the air like one possessed, like a madman that had no feeling: strong in his might and blind in his heartlessness. And the girl's pity went out to the eager leaves, the young, hoping leaves, which she saw shaken and pulled and scourged and driven withered across the street. The blind, all-powerful north-east wind filled the street: the weathercocks spun madly; the iron pins of the flagstaff creaked goutily and painfully; the flagstaffs themselves bent as though they were the masts of a fleet of houses moored in a roadstead of bricks.
The girl looked out into the street. It was a May morning. Standing in front of one house and looking for all the world like sailors on a ship were men dressed in white sailors'-jackets, busy fixing ladders and climbing up them to clean the plate-glass windows. They swarmed up the ladders, carrying pails of water; and, in the midst of the forest of masts, of the red-white-and-blue flagstaffs, they looked like seamen gaily rigging a ship.
Along the street went the brightly-painted carts of a laundry, a pastrycook, a butter-factory. Hard behind came loud-voiced hawkers pushing barrows with oranges and the very first purple-stained strawberries. And the whole economy of eating and drinking of those tidy houses, whose life lay hidden behind their lace curtains, filled the morning street. Butcher-boys prevailed. Each house had a different butcher. Broad and sturdy, the boys walked along in their clean, white smocks, carrying their wicker baskets of quivering meat held, with a fist at the handle, firmly on shoulder or hip, bending their bodies a little because of the weight; and they rang at all the doors. Sometimes, a couple bicycled swiftly down the street. At all the houses they delivered loads of meat: beefsteaks and rumpsteaks and fillet-steaks and ribs and sirloins of beef and balls of forced-meat; the maid-servants took the meat in at the front-doors, with an exchange of chaff, and then closed the door again with a bang. The butcher-boys largely prevailed; but the greengrocers, with their barrows arranged with fresh vegetables, were also many in number. The dairy, with its cart filled with polished copper cans, rang at every door; and notable for its ostentatious neatness was a van conveying beer in cans: the driver, who was constantly getting down and ringing, wore a sort of brown shooting-suit, with top-boots and a motor-cap; the cart was painted with earthenware cans swelling out in relief from the panels. A barrel-organ quavered on, playing a very doleful tune: the organ-man ground out a bit of dolefulness, stopped and then pushed on again; his old woman rang at every door, put the coppers she received in her pocket, as if she were collecting so many debts. Each time, the maids, in their lilac-print dresses, appeared at the doors, or leant out and looked from the open windows of the bedrooms, or called out and flung down the rich man's dole of coppers. Domestic economy filled the street, while the wind, the blundering, mighty wind, blew on. A gentleman passed on his way to his office, hugging a portfolio. Two girls flew by on bicycles; a lady hurried along on some urgent errand. But, for the rest, there was nothing but the economy of eating and drinking. It filled the street, it rang and rang and rang until all the houses chimed with the ringing. And the houses took in their supplies, the street grew quiet: only the wind blew the young chestnut-leaves to pieces and the flagstaffs groaned on their creaking, gouty pins....
Marietje turned away. She was a pale, fair-haired little thing of sixteen, with pale-blue eyes and a white, bloodless skin. Her hair, brushed off her forehead, was already done up behind into a knob. She wore a little pinafore to protect her frock. And now she sat down at the piano and began to tap out her scales.
The room in which Marietje was practising was the drawing-room. It was a fairly large room on the first floor, but it was so terribly crammed with furniture, arranged in studied confusion, with an affectation of elegance, that there was hardly space to move about or sit. On the backs of all the chairs hung fancy antimacassars, flattened by the pressure of reclining forms, with faded and crumpled ribbons. On all sorts of little tables stood nameless ornaments: little earthenware dogs and china smelling-bottles, set out as in a tenpenny bazaar. The wall-paper displayed big flowers, the carpet more big flowers, of a different species, while on the curtains blossomed a third kind of flower; and the colours of all these flowers yelled at one another like so many screeching parrots. In the corners of the room rose dusty Makart bouquets, which decorated those same corners year in, year out.
Marietje played her scales in the drawing-room, while the wind howled down the chimney, which smelt of soot after the winter fires. Conscientiously Marietje played her scales with her stubborn little fingers, constantly making the same mistake, which she did not hear and therefore did not correct, thinking that it was right as it was. Now and then, she looked up through the window: "Poor trees!" thought Marietje. "Poor leaves! See how the wind's killing them; and they're hardly open yet!..."
She played on, conscientiously, but she dearly wished that she could make the wind stop, to save the leaves, the young chestnut-leaves. She remembered, it was just the same thing last spring. The spring before that, it was the same too. And then, when the chestnut-leaves were at last able to unfurl themselves, in a quiet, windless moment, then they were scorched and shrivelled for the whole summer, for their whole leafy lives. Poor trees! Poor leaves!...
The stubborn fingers went on conscientiously, tapping out the scales and constantly playing that same wrong note with almost comical persistency: ting! The front-door bell was constantly going ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling! All those noises—the wind: whew, boo! The scales: ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta; ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta. The front-door bell: ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling! The barrel-organs in the street, two going at the same time. The colours indoors: the colours of the wall-paper and curtains and carpet, screeching like parrots. The cries of the costermongers outside: "Strawberrees!... Fine strawberrees!" The rattle of the greengrocers' carts, clattering over the noisy cobble-stones—all these noises rang out together and it was as though the wind defined and accentuated each individual sound, blowing away a mist from each sound, leaving only the rough, resonant kernel of each sound to ring out against the glittering plate-glass windows, along the goutily-creaking flagstaffs, into this room, where the parrot-colours jabbered aloud....
It blew and rang and screeched and jabbered; and the girl with her continual false note—ting!—heard none of it, but thought only, "Oh, those poor trees! Oh, those poor leaves!" in her gentle little, hypersensitive soul. Used as she was to the wind, the noises and the colours, she saw nothing but the trees, heard nothing but the rustling of the leaves, nor heard her own persistent little false note: ting!
Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling went the bell; and the wind must have rushed through the front-door and up the stairs, for the drawing-room door blew open as lightly as though the great door had been no more than a sheet of note-paper; the maid came pounding up the stairs, the stairs creaked, another door slammed; the maid, at the door, screamed out something loud through the house, loud through the wind, loud through all the sounds and colours; another voice sounded sharply in reply; the maid went pounding down again, the stairs creaked and bang went the door:
"Will you please go upstairs, mevrouw?"
"Come upstairs, Cateau!"
"But am I re-ally not disturb-ing you, Adolph-ine?"
"No, come up."
"What awind, eh, Phi-i-ine? Eh? How it's blow-ing!"
Ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta; ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, went Marietje's scales, as Mamma entered with Aunt Cateau. Whew, boo! blew the wind. C-r-rack, cr-r-rack! went the flagstaff outside the window....
"Good-morn-ing, Marie-tje. Andtellme, Phi-i-ine, was it a reg-ular din-ner?"
"Yes, it was a formal dinner."
"Oh, so theydosee peo-ple? And Ithoughtthey lived so qui-etly. We are nev-er asked there; areyou, Adolph-ine?"
"No, never."
"I do think she might al-so some-times show a little polite-ness to her brothers and sis-ters. We nev-er see peo-ple, as you know,don'tyou, Adolph-ine? Ka-rel doesn'tcarefor it; he only cares for qui-et.Ishould ratherlikeit. But it's Ka-rel, you see, who doesn'tcarefor it. And who were there, Adolph-ine?"
"Oh, well, they know nobody, so it looked to me rather like a failure. Nobody except that Vreeswijck. No doubt, they'd had one or two refusals, for they'd asked Paul to make up the party."
"Oh,Paul? No doubt, one or twomusthave refused!"
"Yes, of course."
"Well, re-ally, Con-stance is ... But thenIdon't call a din-ner like that asuccess. Doyou, Adolph-ine?"
"No, I thought it ridiculous. A dinner-party of four!"
"Were the mendressed?"
"Yes, dressed."
"And Con-stance? Low-necked?"
"No, not low-necked, but smart as paint. And champagne!"
"Re-ally! Cham-pagne as we-ell?"
"Yes, a cheap brand. And the rooms so dark: I didn't think it respectable. Such a dim light, you know. Quite disreputable, I thought, with those three men," said Adolphine, whispering because of Marietje.
"She can't hear, she's play-ing. Oh, re-ally! And what next?"
"Well, I think, if Constance wants to see people in that sort of way, she could have done so just as well in Brussels. She's supposed to have come here for the family."
"But she doesn'taskthe fam-ily. Oh, you mustn't countus, Phi-i-ine. We al-ways live ve-ry qui-etly. It's Ka-rel, you see."
"But I feel sure now that she means to get presented at Court."
"Yes, by Vrees-wijck, no doubt. Will he present her to theQueen?" asked Cateau, rounding her owl's eyes.
"Oh, no!" said Adolphine, irritably. "But they mean to push themselves with his assistance."
"Oh, isthatthe way it's done? You see,weknow no-thing about theCourt. You wouldn't get Ka-rel to go toCourtfor any-thing! Not if youpaidhim! Butnowit'squitecert-ain."
"Yes, I'm convinced of it now."
"About theCourt?"
"Yes."
"Oh! Well, I al-ways thought that Con-stance would have too muchtactforthat. And may I have a look at Floortje's trous-seau now, Adolph-ine? She'll be mar-riedquitesoon now,won'tshe? In a week? Ah! And I al-ways think it soniceto be mar-ried inMay, don'tyou, Adolph-ine?"
The two sisters' voices whined and snarled, the stairs creaked, the doors slammed. Ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, went the scales. Whew, boo, whew! went the wind, roaring down the sooty chimney. Cr-r-rack! Cr-r-rack! went the gouty flagstaff. "Strawberrees!... Fine strawberrees!" shouted the costermonger outside. Ting! went Marietje's obstinate false note.
The girl looked up through the window.
"Those poor trees!" thought Marietje. "Oh, those poor leaves!..."
Adolphine enjoyed showing Cateau Floortje's trousseau, with its stacks of linen. Adolphine attached more importance to her own house, her own children, her own furniture, her own affairs, matters and things than to anything else in the world. She was never tired of displaying, for the extorted admiration of the sister or friend who came to visit her, the thickness of her carpets, the heaviness of her curtains, the taste with which she had arranged the ornaments in her drawing-room; and she praised all that belonged to her, cried it up as though for a sale, inviting the appreciation of her sister or friend. In her heart of hearts, she was always afraid of being eclipsed and, in order to conceal her fear from the other's eyes, she bragged and boasted of all her belongings. The fact that she was a Van Lowe appeared in this, that she included her husband and children and puffed them up also in her general self-glorification. And in all her bragging one could easily detect a shade of reproach against her family, her acquaintances, the Hague, because nothing about her was properly valued: not she, nor her husband, nor her house, nor her furniture, nor her ideas, nor the street she lived in. And she explained at great length to the friend or sister her way of thinking, of managing, of calculating, of bringing up children, of furnishing, of giving dinners, of ordering a dress, as though all of this was of such immense interest to the friend or sister that nothing more immense could be imagined. If, thereupon, the friend or sister, for the sake of conversation, in her turn described her own thoughts, or arrangements, or methods of entertaining, Adolphine was unable to listen to a word and showed plainly that the affairs of the sister or friend did not interest her in the least and that, for instance, the quality of the covering of her, Adolphine's, chairs, or the fresh air of the street in which she, Adolphine, lived, or the velvet of the collar of the great-coat of Van Saetzema, Adolphine's husband, was of much greater importance. For she wanted the sister or friend to realize, above anything else, that in her, Adolphine's, life everything was of the best and finest kind: things animate and inanimate, things movable and immovable alike. Adolphine's cook, the sister or friend was assured, cooked better than any other cook, especially than Bertha's cook; Adolphine's dog, a pug, was the sweetest pug of all the pugs in the world. And, while she bragged like this, she was filled with a deep-seated dread, asked herself, almost unconsciously:
"Can my cook really cook? And isn't my pug, if the truth were told, an ill-tempered little brute?"
But these were deeply-hidden doubts; and, to her family and friends, Adolphine boasted loudly of all and everything that belonged to her and insisted upon an admiring appreciation of her children and furniture. It was part of her nature to want to be high-placed—she was her father's child—to be rich, to have everything fine and imposing and distinguished about her; and it was as though fate had compelled her, from a child, to have everything a little, a trifle less good than her family and friends. In reality, she was never satisfied, for all her boasting. In reality, she reproached life with its horrible injustice. As a child, she was a plain, unattractive girl, whereas Bertha was at least passable and Constance was decidedly pretty. That Dorine was not pretty either did not console her; she did not even notice it. Both Bertha and Constance had been presented at Court, one as a young woman, the other as a mere girl. After Constance' marriage, however, her father and mother had conceived a sort of weariness of society; and, whenever Mamma did suggest that it was perhaps time for Adolphine to be presented too, Papa used to say:
"Oh, what good has it done the others?"
And, for one reason or another, Adolphine had never been presented. She never forgave her parents, nor, for that matter, her sisters; but she always said that she did not care in the least for all that fuss about the Court. She was married early, at twenty; she accepted Van Saetzema almost for fear lest life should show itself unjust once more if she refused him. And Van Saetzema had proposed to her, even as hundreds of men propose to hundreds of women, for one or other of those very small reasons of small people which work like tiny wheels in small souls and which others are not able to understand, so that they ask themselves in amazement:
"Why on earth did So-and-so do this or that; why did this or that happen to So-and-so; why did So-and-so marry So-and-so?..."
Van Saetzema had a fine-sounding name, was a doctor of laws, had a little money: Adolphine had risked it. But, while Van Naghel, after practising at the bar in India, was making his way through interest, through his political tact, through the influence of Papa van Lowe, who liked him, while Van Naghel was placed on all sorts of committees, each of which raised him one rung higher in the official world of the Hague, until he was elected a member of the Second Chamber and at last entered the Cabinet as colonial secretary, Van Saetzema remained quietly jogging on at the Ministry of Justice, with out ever obtaining any special promotion, without ever receiving any special opportunity, without being pushed on much by Papa van Lowe, just as though Papa, with a sort of step-fatherly disdain, had thought this as little worth while as having Adolphine presented at Court. Van Saetzema was now chief clerk, was a respected public servant, performing his work accurately and well and even valued by the secretary-general; but there it ended. And this was the despair of Adolphine, who, ever since Van Naghel had become a minister, wanted to see her husband a minister too, a hope which there was not the least prospect of ever realizing. And so Adolphine had to look on at all Van Naghel and Bertha's distinction with envious eyes; and, however much she might boast of everything that belonged to her, that distinction, which she would never achieve, remained a torture to her vanity. It had come of itself, in the course of Van Naghel and Bertha's life—through Papa's patronage, through Van Naghel's own connections and his Overijssel family, which had always played a part in the political history of the country—it had come of itself that not only had Van Naghel attained a high level in his career, but his house had become a political and also an aristocraticsalonat the Hague, as though, through their respective connections, Van Naghel and Bertha, after Papa van Lowe's death, had continued the tradition which, after the viceregal period, had prevailed in the Alexanderstraat, where Mamma was now left peacefully leading her after-life as an old woman and a widow. On the other hand, Adolphine's house, in spite of all her wishes and endeavours, had never been anything more than an omnium-gatherum, a rubbish heap. She lacked tact and the gift of discrimination. She thought that for her too to have a busy house would give her something of Bertha's importance and distinction; and so she paid visits right and left and had a multitude of incongruous acquaintances, all belonging to different sets: the orthodox set; the Indian set; the official set; the military set; but not, alas, the Court set nor the leaven of aristocracy which, after Papa's death, at first used to leave a card, once a year or so, but had gradually dropped her. And so it had come of itself, in the course of their, Van Saetzema and Adolphine's, life, that their house had become an ever-increasing omnium-gatherum: a busy house, it is true, where they "saw people," but a nondescript house, where one never knew whom one would meet nor what the hostess was really aiming at. There was something maddening about Adolphine's way of turning her house into a busy house, crammed with people. She would propose, for instance, to give a small dinner five days later; she would ask eight people, but remember, two days before the dinner, that she might as well ask a few more; then she would send round a few quite formal invitations, couched in terms which were out of keeping with the interval between the date of the invitation and the date of the dinner, with the result that, first of all, she utterly put out the hired chef; that sometimes there was a bottle of champagne short; and that her guests invariably appeared in every possible gradation of evening-dress. Or, else, she thought of giving a big dinner, received a number of refusals, did not know whom to invite instead, asked people informally, or even by word of mouth, and found herself entertaining half-a-dozen guests with a super-abundance of dishes and wine, while once again the men were dressed, one in a swallow-tail coat and white tie, the other in a morning-coat; the ladies, one in a low-necked bodice, the other in a blouse: a disparity that was constantly giving them fresh shocks of dismay.
It was always a medley; and, even as she lacked the tact to give a successful dinner, she was doomed to lack the tact to achieve the distinction for which she craved. Her very husband thwarted her: a simple man, a little boorish in his ways, who trudged daily to his office and back, conscientious about his work like a schoolboy finishing his exercises and devoid of any particular ability or political adroitness. He approved of what Adolphine did, but could not understand that craving, that vital need of hers for distinction. It was true that he had caught from his wife that exuberant satisfaction withhiswife,hishouse,hischildren,hisfurniture andhisfriends. He too knew how to boast ofhiscoat,hisoffice, evenhisminister,hissecretary-general. But Adolphine might have stood behind him with a whip and would still have urged him to the summits of earthly and Haguish greatness. He was ponderous, fog-brained, a man who worked by rote, who went his way like a draught-ox, year in, year out, with the same heavy tread of a Dutch steer under heavy Dutch skies: he bore within him the natural instinct to be an inferior, an underling, to remain in the background and there to go on working in an accurate, small-souled, worthy fashion, in the little groove in which he had first started.
They had three boys and three girls and they were not bad parents. They, both of them, loved their children and thought of their children's welfare. But they knew as little of a system of education as of a system of dinner-giving; and such education as existed in their house was as ramshackle as their friends, their rooms, their tables. It was especially where her children were concerned that Adolphine had that mania for having and doing everything in a very imposing fashion, a fashion at least as imposing as that in which Bertha had and did things for hers. As Adolphine, however, was the only one of the Van Lowes who was, by exception, thrifty, her thrift often waged a severe struggle with her yearning for what was imposing. And so, whereas everything relating to the Van Naghels' household and the education of their children was conducted, as a matter of course, on the most expensive lines, which they both recognized as expensive, but which their tastes and their manner of life made it impossible to alter, everything at Adolphine's was done cheaply. And so, whereas Louise and Emilie and Marianne had been to expensive boarding-schools near London and Paris—great country-houses, where the daughters of wealthy men received a fashionable education, with dancing-lessons in ball-dresses, drawing-, painting- and music-lessons given by well-known masters—Adolphine, though inwardly eaten up with jealousy, pronounced those boarding-schools simply absurd and quite beyond her means and discovered one near Cleves, to which she sent Floortje and Caroline: a very respectable establishment, but one where German shopkeepers' daughters were taken in and where a very different tone prevailed from that of the aristocratic schools near Paris and London. This, however, did not prevent Adolphine from extollingherboarding-school as far above those silly, frivolous institutions to which Bertha had sent her children. And, as regards the boys, Adolphine magnifiedherthree boys, Piet, Chris and Jaap: the eldest was to enter the East-Indian civil service; the two others were intended for Breda and Willemsoord, which was better than those two spendthrift Leiden students, who were at it again, wanting some thousands of guilders for their approaching masques, and far better than that lazy lout of a Karel.
Also, Adolphine was always drawing comparisons between her Marietje, a gentle, fair, white-skinned little girl, a bit subdued amid the blatancy of the others, and Bertha's Marietje: comparisons invariably in her own child's favour; but now, after Emilie's wedding with Van Raven, she drew comparisons more particularly between Emilie's wedding-preparations and all that she, Adolphine, was doing for Floortje and Dijkerhof. And brag and boast as she might, she, the exception among the Van Lowes, the thrifty Adolphine, who counted every twopenny-bit—wheredidshe get those economical ideas from? Mamma van Lowe would sometimes ask herself—was unable to come within hailing-distance of what Van Naghel and Bertha and the Van Ravens and their friends on both sides had done; she thought it absurd, she thought it flinging money away, she grumbled to herself that everything had gone up so terribly in price: a deep-rooted prudence—an atavistic quality, a mysterious throw-back—disapproved of that luxury of parties, trousseaus, presents, flowers with which Emilie's wedding-days had glittered; she thought it ridiculous, she wanted to do everything more economically and yet she did not like doing everything so economically; and so there was an incessant struggle, both with herself and with Floortje, who also did not wish to be second to Emilie and who gave no thought to money: it was only her parents' money! But still, with her peculiar gift of self-glorification, Adolphine was now able to praise Floortje's trousseau to Cateau above all those lace fripperies of Emilie's.
"Much ni-cer and more last-ing,Ithink, Adolph-ine!" whined Cateau.
"Yes; and just look at those chemises, look at those table-cloths and napkins: there's quality there, you can't beat it," said Adolphine, patting the stacks of linen in the cupboard. "And all those silly presents which Emilie had, all that silver, which she can't use: what do young people, who of course won't be seeing people for the first few years, want with so much silver? I'm very glad thatourfriends have been more practical in choosing their presents for Floortje:Ishouldn't have been at all pleased if Floortje had been set up in her silver-cupboard by people whom you may call acquaintances, if you like, but who, after all, are strangers."
"Ye-e-es," whined Cateau. "At Emilie-tje's reception, it looked just like Van Kem-pen's shop. I thought it so vul-gar and com-mon, didn'tyou, Adolph-ine?"
The epithets were not exceptionally well-chosen as applied to Van Naghel and Bertha—even Adolphine could see that—but she admired her own purchases andherfriends' presents too greatly to say so to Cateau.
Constance made it a duty to go often to Adolphine's during Floortje's wedding-preliminaries. She went out of her way to be cordial; she sent a beautiful basket of flowers on the day of the contract; she gave a handsome present, much more expensive than the one which she had sent Emilie; and she showed great interest in the party and the dinner that were to be given at the Witte Brug. She examined attentively the open presses with the stacks of linen composing Floortje's trousseau—"Just look at those chemises; and those table-cloths and napkins: there's quality there, you can't beat it. Just feel them, only feel them! Whereas those fripperies of Emilie's...!"—and listened attentively to the endless pæans of self-glorification, spent herself in admiration, was determined to flatter Adolphine and to make a good impression on her sister. Because, during those days, she had conscientiously set herself the task of winning over Adolphine, she swallowed the criticism that was never wanting, little spiteful arrows shot off in between the pæans:
"How pale you're looking! Have you been using too much powder again, or aren't you well?... What a pity that your boy is such an old gentleman, Constance!... Tell me, Constance: your father- and mother-in-law were not very nice to you, were they?... Constance, are those rings of yours real?... Oh, really? Upon my word, I thought one of those stones was paste...."
She swallowed it all, accepted the affront with a gentle smile, a word of almost assenting reply: "Yes, Addie is rather old-fashioned.... Oh, it was very difficult for Papa and Mamma van der Welcke.... You are right, that stone is a little dull sometimes...."
She swallowed it, took it all so gently and so submissively that Addie, when he happened to be present, looked up at his mother in surprise, thinking her so different from the woman whom he knew, who blazed out for the least thing at Papa and who always behaved towards himself as the spoilt little mother who wanted to be petted and loved by her boy. And the lad, in his small, bright, earnest, doughty soul, felt a sort of amazement at that puzzle of a woman's soul that was his mother's:
"Are they all like that, so queer? Or is it only Mamma? And why is she so forbearing towards Aunt Adolphine, when she can't bear the least thing from Papa?"
This made him still more of a little man towards his mother, with something protecting and condescending, because she was so weak and irresolute and excitable, but also with very much that was affectionate, because that strange womanliness possessed a charm for his small male soul.
Adolphine, however, on the day when the contract was signed, at the big family-dinner at the Witte Brug and the subsequent evening-party for all the friends and relations, boasted aloud in her self-complacency. She bragged to Uncle Ruyvenaer, to Karel and Cateau, to Constance, to Gerrit and Adeline:thosewere fine rooms, the rooms of the Witte Brug, much finer than the rooms in the Doelen; that was a splendid dinner, the dinner whichshehad given: it cost a lot of money, though, and she told how much, but added a couple of hundred guilders to the cost; and did they remember that impossible dinner of Bertha's, at Emilie's wedding, and the queer dishes that had been set before them? Wasn't it a splendid dessert, with beautiful strawberries, whichshehad given? And somanyand at this season, too: but you had to pay for them! And how gay they had been at table,herfamily—as though that same family were not also Bertha's family—andherfriends: so very different from that pretentious set of Bertha's! There was such a gay, spontaneous tone in the speeches and the conversation; and did Gerrit remember that deathly stillness at table at Emilietje's dinner? Such nice people, Dijkerhof's parents,hergirl's future father- and mother-in-law.... And how well Floortje looked, didn't she? And the other girls were prettily dressed too. She boasted so breathlessly of everything, of every detail, that neither Uncle nor Gerrit had a single opportunity of expressing their appreciation, of giving voice to their admiration; and it was not until she had passed on, boasting right and left to her acquaintances—"Well, what do you say tomydinner? Well, what do you say tomyparty? Well, what do you think ofmy dress?"—that Uncle Ruyvenaer said:
"Any one would think that Adolphine had built the Witte Brug herself!"
"Ithink," whined Cateau, "Adolph-ine oughtn't to say all those things her-self, don'tyou, Ger-rit?"
"Well," said Gerrit, "it's a delightful feeling to be so pleased with your own self and your own children and your own dinner. But, if you think as you do, Cateau, why didn't you compliment her yourself?"
"Be-cause Ithink," whined Cateau, whining worse than usual, "that that dress doesn't look atallsmart on Adolph-ine. What doyouthink, A-deline?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Adeline, good-naturedly.
"Con-stance,youhave suchverygood taste: do tell me, doyouthink that dress lookssmart?"
"I think Adolphine looks exceedingly well to-night," said Constance, irritably.
"I say, Sissy, you can't mean that!" said Gerrit.
"And, even if you don't think so, Gerrit, it's not nice of you to speak like that of your sister!"
"Oh, well, a little criticism!..."
"Yes, but to be always criticizing one another is horrid, I think," said Constance, angrily.
"I'm bound to say, though, that I think it a ramshackle party," said Uncle Ruyvenaer. "Who on earth are all these people?" he continued, putting on dignity, disdainfully. "I say, Toetie, are you enjoying yourself?"
"Yes, Papa, awfully!" said Toetie, as she passed on her partner's arm.
The Ruyvenaer girls, though no longer young, always enjoyed themselves "awfully," not caring whether it was at Bertha's or Adolphine's. Good-natured, kindly, simply and pleasantly Indian in their ways, they loved dancing, they always enjoyed themselves "awfully."
"And, Dotje, what do you think ofmyparty?"
"Oh, Adolphine, so jolly your party: I'm enjoying it awfully."
And Dot also shone with gratitude and perspiration after dancing.
"Are those the Dijkerhofs' friends?" asked Mamma van Lowe, in a whisper, of Bertha, glancing towards a gentleman and a lady who had been introduced to her, but whose name she had not caught. "What strange friends those Dijkerhofs have! Such obscure people: one never knows who they are or what they are! Very vulgar people, I think. It's such a pity, Bertha, isn't it? Dijkerhof himself is not bad; and, if Floortje is fond of him, well, I suppose it will be all right; but I must admit I am sorry that Adolphine is mixed up with this lot.... And those people over there, Bertha, the stout man and the tall woman with whom Adeline is talking so familiarly: are those intimate friends? What curious friends she has!... It must strike Constance too, now that she's come back to it all. At our house there was a certain harmony, a set, as there is in your house now, Bertha. But, at Adolphine's, it's always such a queer lot, such a queer lot! I can't call it anything else. Goodness gracious, what a number of curious people!"
"Mamma," said Paul, "what do you think of this menagerie of Adolphine's?"
"Oh, Paul," sighed the old lady, a little nervously, "I was just saying to Bertha ... But we mustn't let any one else notice what we think...."
"I say, Mamma," asked Gerrit, "do you know who those two are?"
"No, Gerrit. Van Naghel, do you know who those two people are: that stout gentleman and that tall lady?"
"Yes, Mamma: it's Bruys and his wife. He's the editor of theFonograaf:very respectable people, Mamma...."
"My dear Van Naghel!..."
Utterly perplexed, the old lady passed on, leaning on Van Naghel's arm....
Constance had overheard the comments of the family upon Adolphine's friends. She herself, newcomer that she now was in Hague society, was not so greatly struck by the fact that Adolphine's guests consisted of all sorts of dissimilar elements: she had sometimes at Rome had to suffer incongruous elements at her big receptions and she had often found, abroad, that it was possible for witty, polished, cultured people to exist, even though they did not belong to her set. Then again she considered that, at a wedding-party, which was attended by relations' relations and friends' friends, it was almost inevitable that the guests were sometimes entirely unknown to one another: wasn't it the same at Bertha's party? Yes, Bertha had given two evening-parties, in order to separate the elements; but hadn't the family found fault with this? Was there nothing but fault-finding and criticizing in the family; and did none think right what another did? Gerrit and Paul were now sitting beside her; and she heard them talking, condemning, criticizing, ridiculing.
"Poor, dear Mother: she's quite bewildered!"
"I say, Paul, are you allowing yourself to be introduced to Dijkerhof's uncles and aunts?"
"I'm not going to be introduced to another soul," said Paul, wearily blinking his eyes. "I'm here to make studies. The only way to amuse yourself in a Noah's ark like this party of Adolphine's is to make studies of the animal side of mankind. Look at Mrs. Bruys eating her cake with an almost animal satisfaction. Look at that uncle of Dijkerhof's dancing with Van Saetzema's cousin: it's almost disgusting."
"Paul," said Constance, "I've known you wittier than you are to-night."
"My dear sister, I feel myself growing dull here. The figures and colours swarm before my eyes so hideously as really to cause me physical pain. My God, the charm of our modern life, the charm at an evening-party of Adolphine's: where is it, where is it?"
"It's gone, it's gone!" Gerrit noisily declaimed. "Adolphine's charm is gone!"
"I don't think either of you at all nice!" Constance broke in, irritably. "Tell me, my dear brothers, is this irony, this fault-finding tone, usual among us? Has it become a custom for the brothers and sisters to carp and cavil at one another—and even for Mamma to cavil at her children—as I have heard you all do to-night? Does each of us criticize the other in a general cross-fire of criticism? I heard something of the kind at Bertha's party; but is there really nothing good here to-night? I feel bound to tell you I think you very petty, provincial, narrow-minded and cliquey: even you, Paul, for all your philosophy! You, Gerrit, are afraid of demeaning yourself by allowing yourself to be introduced to a few of Dijkerhof's uncles and aunts, whom perhaps you won't see three times again as long as you live; and, as for you, Paul, why are you so spiteful in your comments on absolute strangers who don't eat a cake in the exact way which you approve of? I think Uncle Ruyvenaer ridiculous: he's not particularly well-bred himself and he sneers at the breeding of Van Saetzema's friends; I think Cateau ridiculous: she hasn't the faintest pretensions to smartness, though her clothes may be good and substantial, and she criticizes Adolphine's smartness...."
"O dear, gentle soul!" said Paul, affectedly, and took Constance' hand. "O proud and noble one! O heroine in a sacred cause! You are a revelation to me! How broad are the principles which you proclaim, how great your tolerance! It is terrible! Only you, you dear, gentle soul, are not so sparing of the criticism which you criticize in us."
"Very well, I criticized you, for once; but you're criticizing others everlastingly."
"No, not quite; but we're only very small people and we think it fun to pass remarks on others," said Gerrit.
"I am a very small person, like yourselves. I have never met big people, in our 'set,'" said Constance, with a sneer. "What is any one in our setbutsmall?"
"Good!" said Paul. "Well done! You got that from me. But proceed, my fond disciple!"
"I am frightened!" said Constance, earnestly. "You think I am only just exciting myself a little, but I'm frightened, I'm simply frightened. I hear so much criticism from the mouths of my relations on every side, criticism on a dress, on an evening-party, on a couple of utter strangers who happen to be friends of my sister's, that I am frightened of the criticism of my relations concerning myself, myself in whom there is so much to criticize."
"Come, Sis!" said Gerrit, good-naturedly, restlessly stretching out his long legs.
"Mayn't I speak out my mind, to my brothers?" asked Constance. "Have I come back to the Hague and to all of you, after being away for years, to behave as though nothing had happened to separate me from all of you who are dear to me?"
"O tender one!" said Paul. "Hearken unto the words of wisdom of your younger brother! You're afraid of criticism, because you fear that, where so much criticism is passed, in such a hot-bed of criticism as our family, you yourself will not escape a severe judgment. But let me tell you now that you don't know humanity, the humanity of small people. Small people criticize—because they think it fun, as Gerrit says—criticize a dress, or an evening-party, but they never criticize life. To begin with, they're afraid to: small people are interested only in what is not serious, in what is really not worth while."
"I don't believe you," said Constance. "That's a clever phrase, Paul, and nothing more. I am becoming distrustful. When I hear so much criticizing—even from Mamma—on Adolphine, I ask myself, 'What will my mother, what will my brothers and sisters find to say of me?...' Oh, perhaps it can't be helped; perhaps everything is insincere, in our set!"
"But not in our family," said Gerrit.
"You say that, Gerrit, with a nice sound in your voice."
"The captain of hussars with the nice sound in his voice!" said Paul.
"You silly boy! Be serious for a moment, if you can! I am frightened, I am frightened. Honestly, it makes me nervous. Perhaps I did wrong, perhaps I ought not to have come back here, to the Hague, among all of you...."
"Are you so disappointed in your brothers and sisters?" asked Gerrit.
"I am not complaining on my own behalf now, I am complaining on behalf of Adolphine. I think you others are not tolerant enough of anything that does not appeal to your taste. That's all. I am not complaining as far as I'm concerned. You have all received me very nicely; only, I am frightened. I'm frightened, I'm frightened.... Tell me, is it possible that there should be a strong family-feeling, a mutual kindliness, when the daily criticism is so inexorable?"
"The daily criticism in the family: what a good title for an essay!"
"Paul, do be serious!"
"My dear Connie, you know I can't. Alas, I can only be serious when I am holding forth myself!"
"Well, then, I'll let you talk...."
"That's generous of you. My Connie, you must remember this—it's a cruel law in our social life—that parents care much for their children, but children less for their parents; that the family-bonds become still looser between brothers and sisters; and that those bonds gradually become wholly loosened between uncles and aunts and nephews and nieces and cousins. Family-life may have existed in the days of the old patriarchs, who went into the wilderness with sons and daughters and herds, but it has ceased to exist in our modern days. At Gerrit's, although he has no herds, a little bit of it may still exist, because his children are very many and very small. But, when children are a little bigger, they want to stretch their wings; and then the family-bonds get loosened. If children marry, then each child has his own family—for so long as it lasts—and his own interests; and the bonds that bound together the patriarchal family of the desert flap lightly in the wind. Now how can you expect criticism, the greatest and cheapest 'fun' that man can have at his fellow-man's expense, not to be directed at relations, when the word 'relation' is really only a synonym for 'stranger'? There is no such thing as the family in modern society. Each man is himself. But in natures such as yours and Mamma's there remains something nice and atavistic that belongs to the patriarchal family of the desert: you would like to see the family exist, with family-love, love of parents for children and children for parents, of brothers and sisters and even nephews and nieces and uncles and aunts and cousins. Mamma, who has a simple nature, has instituted, for the satisfying of that feeling, a weekly evening at which we, who are related by blood but not by interest, meet out of deference for an old woman whom we do not want to grieve, whom we wish to leave in her illusion. You, my noble, gentle one, with your more complex character, feel a more powerful yearning for the old patriarchal life of the desert, especially after the sorrow and loneliness which you have known in your life. And you come to the Hague, with your pastoral ideas, to find yourself in the midst of polished cannibals, who rend one another daily into tiny pieces and eat one another up with their family-criticism. That your gentle nature should be shocked at the spectacle was only to be expected."
"So we are all strangers to one another," said Constance; and a chilly feeling passed over her, a melancholy rose within her at the sound of those words of Paul's, half banter, half earnest. "We are strangers to one another. That feeling which I felt to be deep and true within myself, when I was abroad, and which drove me back to my family and my country is what you call atavistic and has no reason for existence, since we no longer live in Mosaic times. So we are strangers to one another, we who, for Mamma's sake, continue to greet one another as relations once a week, at her Sundays, because otherwise we should give her pain; and my longing for you all, whom I had not seen for twenty years, my yearning for you, which brought me back to my own country, was no more than an illusion, a phantom?..."
"Well, Connie, perhaps I was cruel; but, really, you are so pastoral! Country, native country! My dear child, what beautiful phrases: how well you remember your Dutch! I have forgotten the very words."
"Sis, dear," Gerrit interrupted, "don't listen to the fellow: he's talking nonsense. He denies everything because he loves to hear himself speak and because he is a humbug: to-morrow he will be defending the country and the family just as he is demolishing then to-night, No, Sis, believe me, there are such things as family and one's native country."
"Listen to the captain, the defender of his country, with the nice sound in his voice!"
"There is such a thing as family. Not only with me, because my children are still young, as Paul has been trying to explain, but everywhere, everywhere. I feel that you are my sister, even though I didn't see you for twenty years. I did not recognize you at once, perhaps; perhaps I have not quite got you back yet: when I think of Constance, I always think of my little sister who used to play in the river at Buitenzorg...."
"Oh, Gerrit, don't begin about my bare feet again!" said Constance, raising her finger.
"But I feel that you are not a stranger, that there is a bond between us, a relationship, something almost mystical...."
"Oh, I say, what a poetic captain of hussars!" cried Paul. "Once he lets himself go...!"
"And country, one's native country," Gerrit continued, impetuously, "there is such a thing as one's country: I feel it in me, Paul, you sceptic and philosopher, old before your time; I feel it in me, not as something poetical and mystical, my boy, like the family-feeling, but as something quite simple, when I ride at the head of my squadron; I feel it as something big and primitive and not at all complex, when I escort my Queen; I feel that there exists for me a land where I was born, out of which I have grown...."
"Adelientje!" Paul beckoned. "Do come here, Adelientje! Your husband is so poetic, you must really listen to him."
The fair-haired little mother came up.
"I feel that, if any one says anything about Holland, about my native land, criticizes it, speaks a disrespectful word of my sovereign, I feel something here, here, in my breast...."
"Adelientje, do listen! Your husband is not an orator, but still he feels that he feels something; in short, he feels! Loud cheers for the captain of hussars with the soft note in his voice and the mystic feelings!"
"Gerrit, they're teasing you!" said Adeline.
Gerrit shrugged his shoulders, a little angrily, a little uncomfortably, and stretched his long legs across the carpet.
"Gerrit," said Constance, "I'm glad you said what you did."
"It's all nonsense," growled Gerrit. "There is a tendency, not only in Paul,—he's a humbug—but in all sorts of people in our set, Constance, of which you were speaking so scornfully just now, to run Holland down, to think nothing Dutch good, to think our language ugly, to think everything French, English or German better than Dutch. Those are your smart Dutch people, Constance, your Hague people, whom you meet in Bertha's drawing-room, Constance. If they go abroad for a couple of months, they've forgotten their mother-tongue when they come back; but let them be three years without going to Paris, London or Berlin, they'll never, never, never forget their French, their English or their German! Oh, they know their foreign languages so well!"
"Gerrit," said Paul, "what you say is true; but just try and say it in fine Dutch, Gerrit!"
"And, Sis," continued Gerrit, stammering a little, but full of mettle, "that is why I think it so nice that you, a woman like you, who have lived for years in Rome, in just that smart, cosmopolitan world where patriotism tends to disappear, that you, who have been away from your country for twenty years, that just you have felt awaken in yourself...."
"Bravo!" cried Paul. "His words are coming!"
"A feeling for your country, for your motherland, that made you long to see Holland again. I would never have suspected it in you; and that, Sissy, is why I should almost like to kiss you ... but we're at a party...."
"And a party of Adolphine's into the bargain. And Adelientje is jealous."
"No, I'm not!" said Adeline, good-naturedly.