[24]Oh, dear!
[24]Oh, dear!
[25]Mistress.
[25]Mistress.
Yes, Gerrit had quite forgotten the golden glint of those two laughing eyes which he had seemed to recognize; he had only just reflected, lightly and vaguely, that he must have been mistaken. And great was his surprise, a few days later, when, on his way to the Witte after dinner, a woman came up to him near the club, in the dusk of the evening, and, as she passed, flashed a laughing glance into his eyes and whispered very tenderly, almost in his ear:
"Good-evening, Gerrit!"
He knew the voice, even as he had known the eyes: a drowsy, deep-throated note, with a slight roll of the "r's." Yes, he recognized her: it was really Pauline; she was back at the Hague. After twelve years' time!... Well, he took no notice of her, walked on, turned the corner and reached the Witte at once. He ran up the steps, almost as though fleeing from something outside; and his face was red, his temples throbbed. He stayed talking to his friends for an hour or so, curious to learn whether they too had happened to see Pauline. But the others—younger officers than himself, he reflected—did not know her; and he did not hear her name mentioned....
He went home early. The impudent wench, todareto speak to him! He went to bed early, man of regular habits that he had become in the course of years; and, while Adeline was already asleep in the other bed, he saw the golden eyes laughing, heard his name murmured by that drowsy, provocative voice, heard it whispered almost close to his ear.... He fell asleep and, in his dreams, saw the golden eyes....
Well, he thought next morning, if he was to start dreaming of all the eyes into which he had looked, his sleep would be one great firmament of eyes! And, as he got up and took his bath, he threw the thing off him, washed those eyes out of his mind.... Then he breakfasted, quickly, with his pretty children, vigorous and fair-haired, around him; and then he rode to the barracks....
But, two days later, walking back from barracks with a couple of officers, at six or half-past, he came upon Pauline under the fading trees beside the Alexandersveld. He repressed a movement of impatience and thought:
"Is she mad? Is she pursuing me deliberately?" But he did not let the others notice anything. One of them said:
"A fine girl. Who is she?"
But none of them knew; and they went on. Gerrit did not look round.
The thing began to get on his nerves. What did the damned wench want to come back to Holland for and why must she look at him and speak to him, why must she go walking past the barracks? Was she mad, was she mad?... He felt angry and uneasy.... And, a day or two after, as though he had a presentiment, he hung about the barracks, so as to go away alone, quite late.
He met her; and, in the dim light under the fading trees, her eyes laughed towards him through the distance like gold, with that gay, wicked glint of mockery.
"Damn it all!" he cursed.
And, resolved to take up a firm attitude, he squared his chest, put his shoulders back, apparently wishing to fill the whole lane with his manly determination to force his way through every ambush and snare. But she stopped right in front of him and said, in that drowsy, seductive voice:
"Good-evening, Gerrit!"
"Look here, clear off, will you? And be damned quick about it!" said Gerrit, angrily.
"It's so nice, meeting you again!"
"Yes, but I don't think it a bit nice, see? So be off!"
And he tried to walk on, broad-chested and imposing, the strong man who would trample on every smiling and mocking temptation that blocked his way under the fading trees.
"Gerrit, Imustspeak to you," she implored.
"Yes, but I don't want to speak to you."
"Oh, but Imustspeak to you, Gerrit!" murmured the languorous, maddening voice. "I must, I must speak to you. Not here, but just ... just inside the Woods."
"What do you want to speak to me about?"
"Only for a second.... I can't tell you here."
"Well, no, d'you see?" said Gerrit, roughly. "I don't want to have anything to do with you."
"Yes, yes, Gerrit.... Please, Gerrit ... only for a second...."
And he walked on.
She followed him:
"Gerrit...."
"I say, if you don't hurry up and clear out...!"
"Gerrit, just let me tell you something ... let me speak to you for three minutes ... in the Woods...."
The voice coaxed him and he saw that deep glint of mockery in the laughing eyes.
"Only for three minutes ... and then I sha'n't worry you any more...."
"Well ... go ahead then!" said Gerrit. "You go on.... I'll follow you.... But be quick ... I've no time...."
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
"Are you married, Gerrit?"
"Yes. Go ahead now."
"And have you any kiddies?"
"Yes, I have....Ajo!..."[26]
"I expect they're charming kiddies, Gerrit?"
Once again the deep glint in those golden, mocking eyes leapt out at Gerrit ... and then she had turned, walked away quickly, gone down the Timorstraat, disappeared in the Woods. It was quite dark there.
"Well, what is it?"
"I haven't seen you for twelve years, Gerrit."
"Is that all you have to say to me?..."
"No, listen," she said, swiftly, understanding that she must make the most of this precious moment. "Listen. I've been twelve years in Paris, Gerrit; I've had a lot of trouble there, I can tell you.... But a lot of fun too. I was all the rage: my photo used to be in the shop-windows between the Tsar and the King of the Belgians and under Otero's. That shows, doesn't it?... But a lot of trouble too, Gerrit. Men are beasts, Gerrit: they're not all like you, so kind, so nice. I often used to think of you...."
"Yes, but I don't care a hang about all this...."
"I often thought of you, how nice you were and how kind, though you often pretended to be rough and put on such an angry voice.... Well, Gerrit, I had to go back to the Hague—you see, it's too long a story to tell you—and now, Gerrit, now I want to tell you, I'm very hard up ... I haven't got a penny just now.... Please, Gerrit, can you give me fifty guilders?"
"Look here, if you think I'm well off, you're very much mistaken. I can't give you anything."
"Well, Gerrit, couldn't you give me twenty-five guilders? You'd be doing me a good turn."
"I haven't got it."
"Oh, but, please, Gerrit, can't you give mesomething?"
Gerrit fumbled in his pocket:
"Here's two rixdollars ... and a ten-guilder piece. That's all I've got. I'm not rich and I don't go about with sheaves of notes in my pocket."
He gave her the fifteen guilders.
"Oh, Gerrit, thank you ever so much! Oh, Gerrit, how sweet of you!"
And, before he could stop her, she had thrown her arms round his neck and was kissing him wildly on the mouth.
He almost flung her from him:
"Look here, are you mad?"
"No, Gerrit, but I love you and you're such a dear. Thank you, Gerrit, thank you ever so much."
He saw the golden eyes jeering.
"And now clear out!" said Gerrit, shaking with fury, while sparks seemed to dazzle his eyes. "And never speak to me again and don't go thinking that you'll get any more money out of me, for I haven't got it. So it's finished: understand that. You look out for a young, rich fellow ... and leave me alone...."
"Oh, Gerrit, they're all beasts ... all but you ... all but you...."
"Well, beast or no beast," roared Gerrit, "you go this way now and I that, see?"
And he released himself, panting, snorting, quivering. He walked as fast as he could; and, when he looked round, she was out of sight, must have gone up the Riouwstraat. He breathed again, managed to catch a tram, stood on the front platform to get the wind in his face and cool his throbbing temples.... And all the time he was thinking:
"The girl's mad, to speak to me ... to go kissing me!... I'd have done better not to give her any money.... Twelve years!... She looks older, but she's still a fine girl.... She's put on flesh and she was painted, which she never used to be. But she's still a fine girl...."
Her kiss lingered on his mouth, like a burning pressure, as if she had sealed his lips with wax, the hot, melting wax of her kiss. And suddenly he had to admit to himself that, for years and years, for twelve years,no onehad kissed him like that; and the admission sent his blood racing through his veins and set all sorts of memories, like swift spirals, swarming before his eyes, in curving, waving lines, between him and the wet autumn street, down which the horse-tram jogged along, toiling slowly on its rails. Memories flashed before his eyes, in glowing visions before him and inside him and around him, until it was as though he were standing there, on the platform of the tram-car, in a blaze of recollections which the wind fanned rather than extinguished.... But the tram was passing his house; and he jumped down, wildly, almost stumbling over his sword, hampered by his military great-coat, which blew between his legs. He rattled with his latchkey against the door, like a drunken man, could not find the keyhole at once.... The door of the dining-room was open, sending forth a soft light of domesticity; the table was laid for dinner. Gerdy and Guy ran out to meet him. Adeline, inside the room, called out:
"Is that you, Gerrit? How late you are!"
"I missed the tram," he fibbed; and he thrust the two children away from him, a little roughly. "Wait, children: Papa must go upstairs first and wash his hands."
He stormed up the stairs, again nearly stumbling. The noise shook the whole house; the door of his bedroom slammed. He feverishly felt in his pocket for matches, couldn't find them; his trembling hands groped all round the room, knocking things over, almost breaking things; at last he found the box, lit the gas, looked at himself in the glass. He saw his face red with fierce, raging blood, which glowed under his cheeks and beat up towards his temples. His eyes started from their sockets and contracted to pin-points. He looked at his mouth, to see if the kiss was visible that still burnt on his lips like a hot seal of purple wax. His uniform felt too tight for him and he undressed himself, savagely. He washed his head in a basin full of water; he rubbed his mouth with a handkerchief till his lips glowed, went on rubbing them, as if they were dirty. He crunched the handkerchief into a ball and flung it on the ground. Then he quickly put on his indoor-jacket and then ... then he went downstairs....
"How late you are!" Adeline said again, very gently.
He did not answer, made no jokes with the children. He now, deliberately, let Gerdy kiss him, with cool lips; and it was as a cool flower, pressed flat on his glowing cheek. It calmed him; and he suddenly felt safe, in that small room, under the circle of light from the hanging lamp, with in front of him the great piece of beef, which he began to carve, with great art, and advised Alex to watch how Papa carved, so that he could do it too when he was older. He now gave all his mind to the beef, carved it in clean, regular slices, while Adeline and the children looked on.
He ate heartily and, after dinner, fell into a heavy sleep.
FOOTNOTES:[26]Malay: forward!
[26]Malay: forward!
[26]Malay: forward!
No, nobody saw it in him. He could admit that now without hesitation. Around him there appeared to be—he became more and more conscious of it—an opaque sphere, like a materialized phantasm, through which no one could see him, through which no one could penetrate and know him as he knew himself. This evening, as he sat with Constance, Constance did not see that he had met Pauline yesterday and gone back with her to her room. His wife did not notice it; Van der Welcke did not notice it. There was nothing around him but the everyday circumstances of an after-dinner chat in Constance' drawing-room, in the soft, cosy light of the lace-shaded lamps, while the wind outside blew from a great distance and howled moaning round the little house.... In his easy-chair, with the glass of grog mixed by Constance at his side, he was just a big, burly, light-haired fellow in his mufti; and his movements were brisk, his parade-voice sounded loud.... His wife was sitting there, gentle and placid, the quiet, resigned little mother; the children were asleep at home. Oh, his children, how he loved them!... Certainly, all of that existed, it was no phantasm, it was most certainly the truth; but behind that truth lay hidden another truth; and that was why it seemed a phantasm, his outward life as an officer, a husband, a father, while the real truth was what he always kept to himself: his strange gloom; the great worm that gnawed at him; his hot, racing blood; his sentimental and melancholy soul; that wriggling horror in his marrow; that recrudescence of sensuality in his blood.... The quiet, kindly words fell softly round the room, like small, sweet things between a brother and a sister who still have sympathy and affection for each other amid the inevitable slow moving apart of the family-spheres; but he—though he talked, though he was lively, though he cracked joke—he saw Pauline before him, as he had held her in his arms the day before.... Heavens, he couldn't help it: why was he built like that? A handsome woman, standing before his eyes, drove him crazy! Well, for years, all the years of his marriage, he had remained sober and sedate, but he had gradually begun to feel that this sedateness did not really suit him. It was no good his thinking it rotten; it was no good his telling himself that he was a husband and a father—the father of such jolly children too—and that he oughtn't to think of those things, that all that sort of thing belonged to his youth, to which he had said good-bye. It had been all very well to say it. But a thousand memories had gone curling into the air before his eyes, like swarming spirals; and, when he met Pauline again—by accident?—he had made an appointment with her for the next evening, in her room, cursing himself as he did so and swearing at her, with a torrent of rough words.... No, nobody had kissed him like that for years! Besides, he was sentimental. Didn't he himself know, damn it, what a sentimental ass he was? Didn't he know that sometimes, when he read a book or saw a play, when Mamma told him her troubles, as she had now got into the habit of doing, when he saw Dorine and felt sorry for her: didn't he himself know, damn it, that he was a sentimental ass and that he must pull himself together and not let the tears come to his eyes.... And Pauline, whether she did or did not know how sentimental he was: he couldn't see as far as that—not only kissed him as no one else did and knew how to drive him crazy, but she also worked upon his sentimentality. Was she making a fool of him, or did she mean all she said? He had never been able to trust those eyes of hers: they always retained a glint of mockery; but, when she said to him, "Men ... men are all beasts, every one of them, Gerrit ... except you.... You're not ... you're so nice and gentle ... however rough you may be," then she had him by his sentimental side and he did not know how to shake her off....
"I tell you, Gerrit, that's why I was so glad to see you again ... oh, Iwasso glad, Gerrit!"
He had cursed her, asked why she didn't go after a young, rich fellow rather than him, who was neither young nor rich; but her golden eyes had gleamed and she had merely repeated:
"Oh, men are all beasts, Gerrit ... beasts, beasts ... every one of them!"
And—perhaps that was the stupidest thing of all—he had believed her, believed that he was the only one whom she did not think a beast; and, when a woman got hold of him by his crazy side and his sentimental side as well, then he did not find it easy to wrench himself away: oh, he knew himself well enough for that!
Not one of them knew it, you see, while he sat talking so quietly with them, while he sipped his grog with enjoyment, his legs stretched out wide in front of him, and while he heard the raging wind outside come howling up from the distance.... And now Paul came in, rubbing his hands: he had driven up in a cab, declaring that he was too old to walk from the Houtstraat to the Kerkhoflaan in that weather and through such dirty streets. Why didn't he take the tram? Thank you for nothing: was there ever such a filthy conveyance as a tram, in wind and rain too? And a volley of sparkling witticisms flashed out for a moment: tirades against his dirty country, where it was always, always raining; against people, against the whole world, all dirty alike.... When he sat down, he looked round, with a glance that had become a second habit, to see that there were no bits of fluff on his chair. And he at once ceased talking, the battery of his words exhausted, sat still, not thinking it worth while to talk, because nobody appreciated what he said. Gerrit heard Constance chide him, in her gentle voice, in a sisterly but serious fashion, because he was growing so elderly, shutting himself up, giving way to his mania for cleanliness and for thinking everything dirty. He answered with a couple of whimsical sallies....
Then Constance said that she had asked Dorine also, but that Dorine did not seem to be coming; and that Aunt Ruyvenaer was too tired, because she was fixing up the new small house with the girls. And Gerrit felt—now that Mamma was getting old, very old—how Constance was trying to keep the elements of the family together in her place. Not in such a wide and comprehensive manner as Mamma used to do—and still did—but with some measure of sympathy. Ah, she wouldn't succeed, thought Gerrit! The circles were not moving closer together: each was just himself; he was no different from the rest. Was he not thinking of Pauline? Had he not his silent secret? Had not each of them perhaps his silent secret, while they sat talking together with such apparent sympathy?...
Addie came in, after finishing his school-work upstairs; and Gerrit noticed the conciliatory smile with which he at once went up to his father, who had been sulking of late because his boy had made a choice of which he altogether disapproved. But for weeks and weeks he had seemed unable to resist the conciliatory smile; and Gerrit had noticed that it was Van der Welcke himself who suffered most from his sulking, which went on because he did not know how to manage a gradual change of attitude, while the boy's calm smile meant:
"Daddie will have to give in, for what I want is only reasonable...."
And Gerrit enjoyed looking at Addie, hoping that his own boys would grow up like that; but Paul, as soon as he saw his nephew, flashed forth into chaff, a chaff which had a speculative interest underlying it and which the boy took quietly, looking at Paul with his serious, blue eyes, which gazed so steadily out of his fresh, boyish face.
"Well, learned professorin ovo, my dear doctorin spe, how are the patients? Are they keeping you busy just now? Has mankind increased in vitality and primordial vigour since you entered the therapeutic arena? O great healer, on whom are you going to try your powers first, Æsculapius? On members of your family, I suppose? Are you going to make us live for ever, Addie? Well, you needn't trouble about me.... Can't you manage to make the human body work a little more cleanly in future? That's the thing before which we're expected to kneel in admiration: the Creator's masterpiece, the human body; and what is dirtier than the human body? A nasty house of flesh, with our poor small soul pining away inside it.... Addie, when you grow very clever later on, just remove all that: entrails, intestines, the whole bag of tricks; and put in its place a little silver machine which a fellow can polish at least ... if there must be a machine of some sort!"
The boy never got annoyed, but stood in front of his uncle and put his hand on Paul's shoulder and looked at him and said:
"Why aren't you always so lively, Uncle?"
"Lively? Do you think me lively? He thinks I'm lively, while I sit here cursing human filthiness! Is that your diagnosis, professor? Well, you're quite out of it, my boy! You'll never get your ten guilders for that! Lively? Heavens, boy, I'm far from that!... As long as life remains as dirty as it is, I shall be as melancholy as melancholy can be.... Cure me, if you like, but first clean the Augean stable.... There's just one little clean spot left in our soul; but all the rest is dirty!... Tell me now: whom will you start on? Couldn't you cure Uncle Gerrit? Give him a better appetite? Sounder sleep? A healthier complexion? Teach him to buck up that big carcase of his a bit?... Just see how wasted he looks!..."
There was something in Paul's chaff that grated on Gerrit very unpleasantly; but he laughed, as though he thought it the best joke he had ever heard, that Paul should be wishing him a better appetite and sounder sleep. Was Paul getting at him? Did Paul see through his sham strength? And would Addie do so, later?... No, nobody saw through it: the centipede rooted in him unseen by them all....
And he got up, to mix himself another grog; but he mixed it so that it was hardly more than hot water and lemon.
He had never quite understood her, not even in the old days. In the old days, as a young officer, he had seen in her a fine girl, a delicious girl, of whom he had been madly enamoured. He had never understood her eyes, never understood her soul; but formerly he had not thought so very much about those eyes and that soul, because in those days he didn't know much about himself either, did not know what he knew now. In those days, he only now and then had a vague glimpse of his own latent sentimentality: to-day, he knew that sentimentality to be there most positively, as a blue background to his soul. And he was so much afraid of that sentimentality, so much afraid lest he should miss the truth, the naked, mocking reality of that courtesan's soul, so much afraid lest he should make it out to be finer than it really was, kinder above all and gentler and more tender, that he could never speak to her without abusing her or swearing at her, his voice as rough as if he were roaring at one of his hussars.
"I mustn't let myself be put upon by her ... or by myself either," he constantly reflected.
And he kept on his guard. Add to that a vague resentment, at not having been able to keep away from her, at having gone to see her in her room; a vague resentment at the thought of his home, of his children, of all that he went back to when he left her room. The way you got used to anything, he would reflect! Now, when he had been to her, he would put his latchkey calmly into his front-door, without feeling his heart beating with nervousness, would undress calmly, would walk into the room where Adeline lay in bed! The way you got used to everything and by degrees came to do things which at first you thought rotten! You did it because you couldn't very well help it ... and also because your ideas about things, day by day, as you did it, slumbered away into a feeling that you weren't responsible, that it was no use resisting what had got such a hold of you.... Nevertheless, when he was with her, he always felt that resentment keenly: it did not slumber away.... At Pauline's, he had a keen apprehension of being still more imposed upon, of seeing kindness and charming tenderness in that girl, whereas of course she was nothing but a courtesan who meant to get money out of him. And then, in her small, shabby room, he would roar at her and ask:
"Look here, why can't you leave me alone?"
Her golden eyes gleamed; and he read a secret mockery in them. No, mark you, he'd take jolly good care that his sentimentality didn't make him see her as a chocolate-box picture! You only had to look at her eyes!
"But, Gerrit," she said, nestling at his feet, "I never ran after you! I met you by accident, really by accident, I assure you. Don't you remember? Yes, once when I was driving: that was the first time; then near the Alexander Barracks...."
"But what were you doing near the barracks, damn it?"
She looked at him coaxingly, stroked him caressingly:
"Oh, well ... I thought...!"
"There, you see!... You thought...!"
"Yes, you won't believe me.... Even towards the end ... in Paris, Gerrit...."
"Well?"
"I used to think of you sometimes."
"Oh, rot, you're lying!... Do you think I believe you?"
"No, you don't believe me, but, Gerrit.... I assure you ... men are beasts ... and you...."
"Oh, yes, you tell everybody that: do you imagine I don't see through it?"
Then she laughed merrily; and he laughed too.
"I'm laughing," she said, "because you're pretending to be so cynical. ... Tell me, Gerrit, why do you pretend to be so cynical?"
"I?"
"Yes, you: why do you do it? You're putting it on, aren't you, on purpose?"
"Purpose be blowed!... If you think I'm going to be taken in by all your pretty speeches!... If you come to me with pretty speeches, it's because you want money and I've ... I've told you, I haven't any...."
"But, Gerrit, I don't ask you for money ... and I'm not getting any from you either...."
He flushed, a deep glow overspreading his red, sunburnt face and the white neck on which the tight collar of his uniform had left a plainly-visible line. What she said was quite true: she asked for no money and he gave her no money. He had none to give her.
"Now let me tell you," she said, nestling still closer against his knees. "You see, in Paris, towards the end, I got the blues badly.... You understand, Gerrit, don't you, one has enough of the life sometimes ... and a fit like that isn't very cheerful?"
"Oh, rot!" he said, gruffly. "And you, who are always laughing!"
"I'm always laughing?"
"Yes, you, with those eyes of yours, those eyes which are always laughing."
"That's my eyes, Gerrit: I can't help it if they laugh."
"And you want to make me believe that you get fits of the blues?"
"Well, why shouldn't I?"
"Very likely. But you're not the sort...."
"To what?"
"To sit moping for long."
"Well, I didn't. I came to Holland."
"Weren't you doing well in Paris?"
"Not quite so well, perhaps," she said, hesitating between her vanity and certain strange feelings which she did not clearly realize.
"Sothat'swhy you came to Holland!"
"I might have gone to London."
"To London?"
"And from there to Berlin."
"Berlin?"
"And then to St. Petersburg."
"Look here, what are you talking about?"
"And next to Constantinople."
"Oh, shut up!"
"And do you know where we finish?"
"What do you mean, finish?"
"At Singapore. You know that's the regular tour."
"Oh, well.... I've heard it; but that's nonsense."
"So many of us go on that tour. It's not a circular tour, Gerrit. It doesn't bring you back ... to Paris."
"What a queer way you have of saying those things!" said Gerrit, laughing uncomfortably. "You were always a strange girl. Tell me, your father ... was a waiter, wasn't he?"
"No, a gentleman. My mother was a laundress ... in Brussels."
"And those twelve years of yours in Paris...."
"Made me into a Parisian, you think?... Gerrit, I longed for Holland!"
"I'll never believe that."
"Yes, Gerrit, I longed for Holland."
"You're a great liar ... with those eyes of yours! I never believe a word you say."
"Gerrit ... and for you!"
"What's that?"
"I longed for you."
"Yes, of course. Tell that to the marines."
"I remembered the old days...."
"Oh, drop it!"
"Don't you know, when...."
"Yes, yes, I know everything. Stow all that, you and your recollections! You've taken me in enough, as it is. Why don't you look out for a young, rich chap?"
"You're not old, Gerrit."
"Oh, I'm not old!"
"No. I am. I've grown older, haven't I, Gerrit?"
"Your eyes haven't."
"But the rest of me?"
"Yes, of course.... You have grown older..."
"Gerrit, I don't want to get old.... I think it terrible to get old.... Am I still pretty and...?"
"Yes, yes, yes...."
"But, very soon, I shall...."
"You'll what?"
"I shall be plain ... and old."
"Oh, don't sit there bothering!"
"I'm very fond of you, Gerrit. You're so...."
"Yes, I know what you're going to say. I'm off now...."
"Must you go?... I say, Gerrit, you have children, haven't you? I expect they're charming children."
He seemed to see mockery in the gleaming eyes.
"You drop it about my children, will you?"
"Mayn't I ask after them?"
"No."
"I saw them out walking the other day."
"Shut up!"
"I thought them so charming."
He swore at her, roughly and hoarsely:
"Shut up, blast it, can't you?"
"Very well. ... Are you going?"
"Yes."
He was outside the door.
"Are you cross with me?"
"No, but this talkee-talkee bores me. That's not what I come to you for...."
"No, I know you don't. ... But, still, you can't mind my talking to you sometimes, Gerrit?..."
"Very likely, but not such twaddle. And I won't have you mention my children."
"I won't do it again. Good-bye, Gerrit."
"Good-night."
He looked round, in the passage, and nodded to her. In the dim light of the room, he saw her standing, framed in the half-open doorway; she stood there, a handsome, slender, willowy figure, in a shimmer of dull gold: the light, the yellow tea-gown, the touches of gold lace round the very white neck, the strange gold hair round the powdered white face and, under the sharp line of the eyebrows, the golden eyes, with a golden gleam. Her voice, all the evening, had sounded very soft and coaxing in his ears, as though crooning a plaintive song, of youth, of memories, of the past, of longing for her native country ... and for him: all unnatural and impossible things in her, things which he only heard in her voice because of his confounded sentimentality, a sentimentality which, however deeply it might be hidden from everybody else, was clearly perceptible to himself....
And, outside, he thought:
"I must be careful with that girl. ... She is as dangerous as can be ... tome...."
Well, if he treated it like that, he thought, he could reduce the danger to a minimum. He had allowed himself to be taken in; and the only thing now was to disentangle himself, slowly, gradually; and he would certainly succeed in this, for none of them, not even Pauline, had ever held him for long. Though she had got him to come and see her, though he had gone back once or twice, he had shown her that she had no sort of power over him and that he remained his own master. His voice roared hers down, so that he did not even hear the coaxing, brooding tones; his robust cynicism was more than a match for his sentimental tendencies; and so her only hold was on his recrudescent sensuality, glowing with the memories that had been smouldering in his blood. But that would run its course in time; and meanwhile, as he would never really recapture those old sensations after twelve years, the charm, the enchantment of it would wear off ... and pretty quickly too.... Yes, she had grown old. She had not gone through her twelve years in Paris with impunity. All that former freshness, as of a fruit into which he used to bite, had vanished; he could not endure the musty smell of the paint which she smeared on her face: he once roughly rubbed a towel over her cheeks till she had grown angry and locked herself in; and he had to go away and apologize next time. And he was struck above all by her timidity in revealing her body, her artfulness in retaining, even when in his arms, those laces and fripperies which were supposed to create a filmy haze all around her: a haze through which he was well able to see that she was no longer the girl of twelve years ago.... And, when he compared his recollections of that time with what she gave him now, he could not understand that he had allowed himself to be caught like that by her eyes, which had remained the same, though she now smeared black stuff round them; he did not understand how he had gone into the Woods with her; he did not understand how he had yielded to her entreaties that he should come to see her.... No, he would disentangle himself from this woman, from this faded courtesan, who was complicating his life, his life as a respectable husband and father, especially father. He would disentangle himself. It would not be difficult, now that the present gave him back so little of what had glowed in his memory.... But, just because of that, because it would be so easy, because the present was such dead ashes, a heavy melancholy fell around him like a curtain of twilight.... Great Lord, how rotten it was: that slow decay, that getting old, that dragging on of the days and years! How rotten that you had to pay for everything that life gave you, first with your youth and then with your prime, as if your life were a bank on which you drew bills of exchange, as if your existence were a capital on which you lived, without ever saving a farthing, so that, when you died, you would have squandered every little bit of it. Lord, how rotten! Not dying, which was nothing, after all; but just that slow decay, that confounded spending of your later years, for which you got nothing in return; for you had had everything already: your youth, your strength, your good spirits; and, as the years dragged and dragged along, you just jogged on towards the cheerless end; and there was nothing to do but look on while every day you spent one more day of your capital of later days and got nothing in return, while nothing remained but your memory of the youth which you had also squandered.... Lord, Lord, how dark it all grew around you, when you thought of such rotten things!... Oh, of course, there was one streak of light: he knew it, he saw it, saw the golden dawn, the dawn in his own house, the dawn of his children: light still shone from them; their circle was still moving within his circle, just for a time, for so long as their shining sphere touched his own sphere ... until later it would circle away, ever farther and farther, describing wider and wider revolutions, even as every sphere rolls away, rolls away from the centre!... That was how it would be ... when he had grown old, very old. It was not so yet: for the present, the bright-haired little tribe was still in its golden dawn.... Yes, for its sake too he would like to disentangle himself, to disentangle himself. The thing that had never been able to hold him, would it hold him in his old age?... Well, there was no question of old age yet, even though he was getting on for fifty. But still it wasn't as it used to be: nothing was as it used to be, no, not even Pauline....
No, not even Pauline. When he went to her now, he took a malicious pleasure in telling her so, with rough words, in making her feel it ... both in order to make himself appear rougher than he was and because of the resentment which always kept pricking him sharply.
"I say, you're not a bit like those old photographs of yours now!"
It gave her a shock when he said this. Nothing gave her such a blinding shock, as if the shock had plunged her into darkness and made everything go black and menacing as death.
She felt that it was cruel of him to throw it in her face like this; and she couldn't understand it in him. But, because her eyes were always laughing, even now they laughed their golden laugh....
"Ah, you don't believe it!... You just think you're exactly as you were, the same young and pretty girl.... Well, my beauty, you never made a greater mistake in your life!... But I see you don't believe me, you grin when I tell you, you think your charms are going to live for ever.... Everything wears, child.... However, you won't believe it: I can see your eyes mocking me now...."
Indeed, her eyes were laughing and the smouldering spark of mockery seemed to leap into flame. And, because he spoke like that, she laughed, a loud laugh with a shrill note which annoyed him, in which he heard mockery ... because, after all, though she no longer resembled her old photographs, she had caught him badly.
"Just come here," he said, roughly.
"Why?"
"Just come here."
She went up to him, trembling.
He took hold of her, a little more roughly than he intended, took her between his knees, looked her in the face:
"What do you make up for?" he asked.
"I don't make up."
"Oh, you don't, don't you? Do you think I can't see it?"
"No, I don't make up."
"Then what's that?"
He pointed to her cheek.
"That's only powder, which stays on because I use a face-cream first."
"Oh, really! And isn't that making up?"
"No."
"And what's that?"
He pointed to her eyes. She shrugged her shoulders:
"That's done with a pencil, just a touch. It's nothing. That's not a make-up. Make-up ... is something quite different."
"Oh, really! Well, I don't like all that messing. What do you do it for?"
She looked at him in dismay; and again the blinding shock bored an endless, dead-black perspective before her ... of death. But he saw only the laugh of her golden eyes.
"What do you do it for?" he repeated. "You usedn't to."
"No."
"Then why do it now?"
She made an effort, so as not to cry. She laughed, shrilly; and it sounded like a jeer, as though she were saying, jeeringly:
"I make up my face, but I've got you all the same."
"Give me a towel," he said, roughly.
"No," she said, struggling and releasing herself from his grip.
"Give me a towel."
"No, Gerrit, I won't, do you hear?"
Her eyes just flashed an angry look of dark reproach. But they laughed and mocked immediately afterwards.
He snatched a towel from the wash-hand-stand:
"Come here," he said.
Her first impulse was a storm of seething rage, a rage as on the last occasion, when she locked herself in and he had to go away.... But there was something so cruel and vindictive in his voice, in his glance, in the abrupt movements of his great body that she grew frightened and came:
"Gerrit," she implored, softly, timidly.
"Come here. I don't like all that muck...."
He had wetted the towel. He now washed her face; and he became a little gentler in his movements, glance and voice ... because she was frightened and meek. He washed her face all over:
"There," he said. "Now at least you're natural."
Something like hatred gripped at her heart, but she could not yield to it: her nerves had become too slack for hatred. Besides, she had always, always been very fond of him, just because he was such a strange mixture of roughness and gentleness. She remained standing anxiously in front of him, with her hands in his.
Like that, like that, at any rate, she no longer looked like the picture on a chocolate-box. He was safe now against his sentimentality. But, Lord, how old she looked! Her skin was wrinkled, covered with freckles and blotches. Was it possible that a drop of wet stuff out of a bottle and a touch of powder could cover all that? And the golden eyes of mockery, how ghastly they looked, without the shadows about the brows and lashes!... And yet she kept on mocking him.... But then, suddenly, he felt pity, was sick at having been rough, at pretending to be rougher than he was. He was always like that, always made that pretence, putting on a blustering voice, squaring his broad shoulders, banging his fist on the table ... for no reason, save to be rough ... and not sentimental. And, seeking for something to say to her, he said, in a voice which she at once recognized, a voice of pity, the gentleness now tempering the roughness, that mixture which she had always loved in him:
"Really, Pauline, you look much prettier like this...."
But she saw the dark vista opening out before her, black as night.
"You're much prettier now. You look a fresh and pretty woman."
Her eyes were laughing.
"You haven't the least need to smear all that stuff on your face."
Her lips were laughing now.
"Come and give me a kiss.... Come...."
He caught her in his arms. He felt her flesh, soft and flabby, as though he were grasping wadding or lace, not as though he were grasping the woman whom he remembered in his glowing memories, a woman of warm marble.
She roused herself, in her desire. She strained her muscles, embraced him with force, with all the science of passion which she had acquired during the years. They embraced each other wholly; and their embrace was full of despair for both of them, as though they were both plunging with their intense happiness into a black abyss, instead of soaring to the stars....
She now lay against him like a corpse. Never had he felt so full of heavy melancholy in his heavy, heavy soul. Never had his whole, whole life passed before him like that, suddenly, in a flash: his boyhood, Buitenzorg, the river, Constance; his young years as a subaltern, his reckless period, the period of inexhaustible, gay, brutal, young life; and, after that very youthful period, still many long years of youth, with Pauline herself still young, warm marble; and then the sobering down, his marriage and oh, the golden dawn of his children!... He was not old, he was not old, but everything had arrived.... Nothing, nothing more would come but the dragging past of the monotonous years; and, with each year, the bright circles would shift farther and farther apart and the gloom would deepen around him.... Never had he felt so full of heavy melancholy in his heavy, heavy soul.
She, against him, lay like a corpse. He felt her like a bundle of down, of lace, soft and flabby as a pillow, still in his arms. He would have liked to fling her away from him, weary, sick of that tepid flabbiness. But he kept her in his arms, made her lie against him, suffered the tepid heap of lace and down on his chest. Her eyelids hung closed, as though she would never raise them again. Her mouth hung down, as though she would never laugh again. And yet he continued to hold her like that. It was not because of his sentimentality, for she was anything but a chocolate-box picture now, and it was not out of a sudden recrudescence of rough sensuality that he now held that flabby bundle in his arms: no, it was from a real, genuine, but heavy and melancholy feeling, a feeling of pity. He had been able to wash the make-up from her face with a towel, but he couldn't fling her from him now, before she herself should raise herself from his arms. And she remained lying, like a corpse. God, what a time it lasted!... Still, he couldn't do it: he continued to suffer her there, on his heart. He looked down at her askance, without moving; and his eyes grew moist.... Those confounded eyes of his, which grew moist! He couldn't help it: they just grew moist. He screwed them up, wiped them with his free hand, before Pauline could see them moist. And he remained like that, so long, so long!... At last he gave a deep sigh and she drew breath; he could not go on: not because of her weight, but because of her softness, that soft flabbiness, that stuffiness, that crumpled lace against him. His chest rose high; and she awoke from her lethargy. She lifted her heavy eyelids, she pinched her lips into a smile. It was a smile of utter despair....
She released herself from his arms, stood up; and he made ready to go.
"Gerrit," she said, faintly.
"What is it, child?"
"Gerrit," she repeated, "you don't know how glad I am that I ... that I met you again ... here ... that we have seen each other again.... I used to think of you so often ... in Paris ... because I was always ... a little fond of you ... because you are so gentle and rough in one.... That's how you are ... and that was why I was fond of you.... Oh, it was so nice to see you again ... after so many, many years ... those dirty, dirty years!... It has made me so happy, so happy!... Thank you, Gerrit ... for everything. But I wanted to say...."
"What, child?"
"You had better not come back again.... You know, you had better not come back.... We have seen each other again now: not often, perhaps ten or twelve times, I can't remember.... It was such heavenly, such heavenly happiness ... that I forgot to count the number of times.... But you had better not come back any more...."
"And why not, child? Are you angry ... because I washed your face with that towel?"
"No, Gerrit, it's not that, I'm not angry about that.... I'm not angry at all...."
Indeed, her eyes were laughing. Then she repeated:
"But still ... you had better not come back."
"I see. So you've had enough of me?"
She gave a shrill laugh:
"Yes," she said.
"Oh! And have you found a young, rich chap, as I advised you?"
Her laugh sounded still shriller and her golden eyes were full of mockery.
"Yes," she said.
Under his heavy melancholy, he was angry and jealous:
"So you don't want me any more?"
"Want you?... I shall certainly want you, but...."
"But what?"
"It's better for every reason, better not. You mustn't come back, Gerrit."
"Very well."
"And don't be angry, Gerrit."
"I'm not angry. So this evening was the last time?"
"Yes," she said.
They both looked at each other and both read in each other's eyes the memory of their last embrace: the stimulus of despair.
"Very well," he repeated, more gently.
"Good-bye, Gerrit."
"Good-bye, child."
She kissed him and he her. He was ready to go. Suddenly he remembered that he had never given her anything except on that first evening in the Woods, a ten-guilder piece and two rixdollars:
"Pauline," he said, "I should like to give you something. I should like to send you something. What may I give you?"
"I don't mind having something ... but then you mustn't refuse it me...."
"Unless it's impossible...."
"If it's not possible ... then I won't have anything."
"What is it you'd like?"
"You're sure to have a photograph ... a group ... of your children...."
"Do you want that?" he asked, in surprise.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know; I'd like it."
"A photograph of my children?"
"Yes. If you haven't one ... or if you can't give it me ... then I don't want anything, Gerrit. And thank you, Gerrit."
"I'll see," he said, dully.
He kissed her once more:
"So good-bye, Pauline."
"Good-bye, Gerrit."
She kissed him hurriedly, almost drove him out of the room. It was ten o'clock in the evening. Gerrit, in the street outside, heaved a great sigh of relief. Yes, this was all right: he was rid of her now. It had not lasted very long; and the best part of it was that none of his brother-officers, of his friends or of his family had for a moment suspected that connection, for a moment noticed that the past, his memories, his youth had loomed up before him, haunting him and mocking him in Pauline, in her body, in her golden eyes. It had remained a secret; and what might have been a great annoyance in his life as husband and father had been no more than a momentary and unsuspected effort to force back what was long over and done with. It was now over and done with for ever. Oh, it was the first time and the last: never again would he allow himself to be entrapped by the haunting recollections of former years!... But how sad it was to reflect that all that past was really over and done with ... and that everything had been!
During the days and weeks that followed, he went about with heavy, heavy melancholy in his heavy soul. Nobody noticed anything in him: at the barracks he blustered as usual; at home he romped with the children; he went with Adeline to take tea at Constance' and laughed at the tirades of Paul, who was daily becoming more and more of an elderly gentleman. Nobody noticed anything in him; and he himself thought it very strange that the eyes of the world never penetrated to the shuddering soul deep down within him, as though sickening in his great body, with its sham strength. Sick: was his soul sick? No, perhaps not: it was only shrinking into itself under the heavy, heavy melancholy. Sham strength: was his body weak? No, not his muscles ... but the worm was crawling about in his spine, the centipede was eating up his marrow.... And nobody in the wide world saw anything—of the centipede, of the worm, of all the horror of his life—even as nobody had seen anything of what had come about during the last few weeks between himself and his past: the last flare up of youth, Pauline.... Nobody saw anything. Life itself seemed blind. It jogged on in the old, plodding way. There were the barracks, always the same: the horses, the men, his brother-officers. There were his mother, his brothers and sisters. There were his wife and his children.... He saw himself reflected in the blind eyes of plodding life as a rough, kindly fellow, a good officer, a big, fair-haired man, just a little grey, a good sort to his wife, a good father to his children.... Lord, how good he was, reflected in the blind eyes of plodding life!... But there was nothing good about him and he was quite different from what he seemed. He had always been different from what he seemed. Oh, idiot people! Oh, blind, idiot life!
It was a steadily grey and rainy winter. A winter without frost, but with endless, endless rains, with a firmament of everlasting clouds hanging over the small, murky town, over the flooded streets, through which the gloomy people hurried under the little roofs of their umbrellas, clouds so preternaturally big and heavy that everything seemed to cower beneath their menace, as though the end of the world were slowly approaching. Black-grey were those everlasting clouds; and it seemed as if they cast the shadow of their menace from the first hour of the day; and so short were the days that it was as though it were eternal night and as though the sun had lost itself very far away, circled from the small human world, circled very far behind the immeasurable world of the clouds and the endless firmaments. And, lashing, ever lashing, the whips of the rain beat down, wielded by the angry winds. Gloom and menace hung over the shuddering town and over the shuddering souls of the people. There were but few days of light around them.
The old grandmother sat gloomily at her window, nodding her head understandingly but reproachfully, because old age had not come in the nice and peaceful way which she had always, peacefully, hoped. The shadows of old age had gathered around her like a dark, dreary twilight, were already gathering closer and closer because she saw that, however hard she had tried, she had not been able to keep around her all that she loved. Was the supreme sorrow not coming nearer?... Just as the shadows were gathering around her, so they had already gathered around Bertha, over at Baarn, far away, too far for her, an old woman, to reach her; and, in a sudden flash of clairvoyance, she saw—though no one had ever told her—Bertha sitting at a window, listlessly, with her hands in her lap, saw her sitting and staring, even as she herself stared and sat. In a flash of clairvoyance she saw Karel and Cateau and Adolphine's little tribe far, far away from her, even though they lived in the same town and came regularly on Sunday evenings. Far away from her she saw Paul and Dorine. Very far away from her she saw her poor Ernst, whom she knew to be mad; and her old head nodded in understanding but yet in protest against the cruelty of life, which brought old age to her in such a sad guise and made it gather so darkly and menacingly around her loneliness.... Yes, there was Constance, there was Gerrit: she felt these two to be closest to her; but, though they were closer, it grew black around her, black under the black skies, with the glimpses of light, the flashes of clairvoyance, in the midst of them.... She saw—though no one had told her—a pale, thin girl, Marianne, pining away by Bertha's side.... She saw—though no one knew it—Emilie and Henri toiling in Paris, struggling with life, which came towards them hideous and horrible, bringing with it poverty, which they had never known. She saw it so clearly that she almost felt like speaking of it.... But, because they would not have believed her, she remained silent, enduring all that gloomy life even as the town endured the black skies and the lashing of the rain....
And yonder, far away, too far for her, she saw a woman, old like herself, dying. She saw her dying and by her bedside she saw Constance and she saw Addie. She saw it so clearly, between her eyes and the rain-streaks, as though flung upon the screen of the rain, that she felt like speaking of it, like crying it out.... But, because they would not have believed her, she remained silent, enduring all that gloomy life even as the town endured the black skies.
Then things grew dull around her and she saw nothing more; and the nodding head fell asleep upon her breast; and she sat sleeping, a black, silent figure, while the rain tapped as though with fingers—which would not tap her awake—at the panes of the conservatory-window at which she used to sit....
For hours she would sit thus alone in the shadow of her day and the shadow of her soul; and, when any of her children or friends called, they would find her in low spirits.
"Mamma, don't you feel lonely like this?" Adolphine asked, one afternoon. "We should all like to see you take a companion."
The old woman shook her head irritably:
"A companion? What for? Certainly not."
"Or have Dorine to live with you."
"Dorine? Living with me? No, no, I won't have her in the house with me. Why should I?"
"You're so lonely; and, though you've had the servants a long time, somebody ... to sit with you, you know...."
"Somebody sitting with me all day long? No, no...."
"We should like to see it, Mamma."
"Well, you won't see it."
And the old woman remained obstinate.
Another afternoon, Adeline said:
"Mamma dear, Constance asked me to tell you that she won't be able to see you for a day or two."
"And why not? What's the matter with Constance?"
"Nothing, Mamma dear, but she's been sent for to Driebergen...."
"To Driebergen?..."
"Yes, dear. Old Mrs. van der Welcke hasn't been quite so well lately...."
"Is she dead?"
"No, no, Mamma. ... She's only a little unwell...."
The old woman nodded her head comprehendingly. She had already seen Constance standing yonder by the dying woman's sickbed, but she did not say so ... because Adeline would have refused to believe it....
Another afternoon, Cateau said:
"Mamma ... it's ve-ry sad, butoldMrs. Friese-steijn...."
"Oh, I haven't seen her ... for ever so long; and...."
"Yes. And it's ve-ry sad, Mam-ma, because shewasa friend of yours. And, Mam-ma, peo-ple are saying that she'silland that she won't last verylong."
The old woman nodded knowingly:
"Yes, I knew about it," she said.
"Oh?" said Cateau, round-eyed. "Has somebodytoldyou?..."
"No, but...."
The old lady had seen her, had seen her old friend dying; and she nearly committed herself, nearly betrayed herself to Cateau.
"What?" asked Cateau.
"I suspected it," said the old lady. "When you are old, old people die round you...."
"Mam-ma, we should ve-ry much like...."
"What?"
"Adolph-ine would like it ... and so would Ka-rel."
"What?"
"If you would take a compan-ion to live with you."
"No, no, I don't want a companion."
"Or Do-rine. She's ve-ry nicetoo...."
"No, no. Not Dorine either."
And the old woman remained obstinate.... The old people were dying around her; she was constantly hearing of contemporaries who had gone before her. Her old family-doctor was dead, the man who had brought all her children into the world, in Java; now an old friend was gone; the next to go would be Henri's old mother, who had been unkind to Constance and none the less had sent for Constance to come to her.... Who else was gone? She couldn't remember them all: her brain was sometimes very hazy; and then she forgot names and people, just as the old sisters always forgot and muddled things. She did not want to muddle things; but she could not help forgetting.
"So I sha'n't see Constance for quite a long time?" she said to Cateau.
"Con-stance?"
"Yes, you said she was going to Driebergen."
"No, Mam-ma, I never men-tioned Con-stance."
The old woman nodded her understanding nod. Nevertheless she no longer remembered who it was that had told her about Constance; but she preferred not to ask....
And she thought it over, for hours....