The Later Life Part 39

Still he came down from the mountains....

CHAPTER XXIV

It was not until he was standing in front of her, at the Hague, that he knew, in his innermost soul, that he had come back to Holland because of her and of her alone. It struck him at once that her eyes were brighter, her movements younger, that her voice sounded clearer.

"I have read your book!" was the first thing that she said to him, radiantly.

"Well?" he asked, while his deep, almost sombre eyes laughed in his rough, bronzed face.

She would not tell him that the book, Peace, written in his clear, luminous style, prophesying in ringing tones the great watchword of the future, had consoled her for his three months' absence. She managed to speak of it in terms of quiet appreciation, betraying no sign of her enthusiasm except by an added brightness in her eyes and a curious lilt in her voice, with its echo of summer and of carolling birds. The book was a great success, written as it were in one breath, as though he had uttered it in a single sentence of quiet knowledge, warning them of the coming changes in the world; in a single sentence of quiet consolation, foretelling its future destinies. There was in his words, in that one long sentence of prophetic consolation, an irresistible sweetness, a magic charm which affected for a moment even the most sceptical of his readers, even though they scoffed at it immediately afterwards; something wonderful, inspired ... and so simple that the word was spoken almost without art, only with a note that sounded strangely clear, as though echoing from some higher plane. He had thought out the book during his lecturing-period in Holland and Germany; he had written it up there, high up in the Alps, with his eyes roaming over the ice-bound horizons; and it had often seemed to him as if Peace were waving her argent banners in the pure air, her joyous processions descending from the eternal snows of the upper air to the pollution of the lower, to trumpet forth with blithe clarions the holy tidings, the fair, unfaltering prophecy.... The book had comforted her; she had read it in the Woods, on the dunes, by the sea; and, in the warm summer air, with its tang of salt, she had sat with the book in her hands and felt him with her, though absent.... She knew the sentences by heart; but she tempered her enthusiasm, lest she should betray herself. And, when she had spoken of the book and was silent for a moment, he said:

"And now tell me about yourself! What have you been doing all these months?"

"What have I been doing?..."

"Yes. You must have done something besides reading my Peace!"

She almost blushed; and a thrill went through her, that catch at her throat and grip at her heart which his step, his voice, his glance could still always give her; and she was not able to answer at once. Yes, really she had done nothing that summer except read his Peace! So it seemed to her for a moment. But, when she recovered from that sudden wave of emotion, she reflected that it was not so; that she had read other things; that she had dreamt, had thought; that she had lived! It was very strange, but she reflected ... that she had lived!

It was as though both of them had much to say to each other and yet did not know how to say it. Van der Welcke was not at home; and they talked together for a long time of indifferent things. He felt all the while that a vague question was rising to his lips, a question hardly formulated even in his mind. He longed to ask her something, such a question as a brother's tenderness might have prompted, to which she would answer with a sister's ready sympathy. But he did not know how to speak; and so he buried within himself that strange bright tenderness which longed to give itself expression, to ask its questions; and he locked himself up in his deep, mournful seriousness, the sombreness of a middle-aged man. She also, opposite him, was the same, sat and spoke like a middle-aged woman; he remarked the soft grey of her curling hair; and both of them, serious, almost indifferent, talked quietly, if sympathetically, of casual things.... And yet he felt that, deep down in herself, she was changed. She had never looked like that before, never spoken so clearly, with such young and lively gestures. He noticed that she had been reading, that she had read other books than his Peace; and, when he told her of the world of misery which he had seen quite lately in Germany, she replied in a tone of compa.s.sion which struck him, because it was no more the shuddering pity of a woman of the world for the misery that swarms far beneath her like vermin, but true compa.s.sion, the welling up of a new and generous youth in her soul, an enthusiasm now experienced for the very first time. How sincerely her answer rang, how fervent were the words in which she uttered it! He was astonished and told her so, told her that he would never have suspected such sincerity, such fervour, such capacity for pity in a woman of her caste. But she defended her caste, especially because she did not wish to be too exuberant in her new youth and new life and was perpetually suppressing herself. And so now, to hide her feelings, she defended her caste: did he not think that there were others who had the power of feeling as she did for the misery of the world, women like herself, women of her caste, not merely those who perform their perfunctory little works of charity, but other women who welcome the new ideas and above all the new sentiments of universal brotherhood, women who will perhaps stamp them on their coming children, are already implanting them, germ by germ, so that later, soon indeed, they will bear a new generation whose lives will be based on those sentiments of brotherhood? He was surprised at what she said, but he brushed it aside with a rough gesture, while a glance of hatred flashed from his sombre, brooding eyes, deep-set in his rough face--a glance that was sometimes anguished as though with pain--and he said to her that this was not true, that it could not be, that her whole caste was nothing but egoism, nothing but hypocrisy, vast and monstrous, its hypocrisy perhaps even more colossal than its egoism, and that he was surprised at himself for having any friendly feeling towards her, a woman of her caste. A rough candour made his voice sound harsh. But she was not offended by it; she listened to him although out of his rough words there came a gust which seemed likely to overthrow all that she had long looked upon as cultured, correct, respectable, irreproachable, moral and aristocratic. It was as though her reading, like a breeze from the sea or the dunes, had suddenly removed and blown away from her all the pettiness, the miserable distortion of the dwarf plant with its aping of greatness; all the everlasting strife of opinions, interests and prejudices waged in and around all those creatures of the world, the women of her set. He noticed it, with a thrill of happiness; and he knew that they understood each other. There had sprung up between them the common understanding, the common discussion of things that are never discussed in current conversation.

And, because of his happiness, he knew that he loved her, even though it was late in the day, even though it was too late. He had never known a love like that; he felt it now for the first, the very first time, that wave of exultant, smiling happiness, but at the same time he felt it like a shadow, a grief, a regret for what might have been. She had not yet felt it like that, a regret for what might have been, because she was living again, because she was living for the first time, late but not too late, since she was living at last in a real, intense, pulsating life; but to him, the man who had lived but only never loved, it came at once, came as regret for what might have been....

And his love seemed never likely to become anything else than just that: regret....

CHAPTER XXV

In these days, when Constance felt herself becoming so strangely young and alive--she who for so long believed that she had never, never lived--she was compelled to step outside that life dominated purely by feeling. Van Vreeswijck came to her one evening and sat talking for hours. She liked him; she valued him as a good friend who, notwithstanding that he really belonged to the most insufferable section of the Court set, had shown that he was not too much afraid of degrading himself by a.s.sociating with Van der Welcke, with her or even with Brauws, though he loudly and sweepingly condemned Brauws' views. She, in her new pride of life, looked down upon him, with a kindly contempt, as one of the little people in the narrow little circle, a humming-top spinning around itself and around other humming-tops, just another figure in the merry-go-round which they represented to her, all of them; but she valued his unaffected friendship and, though she thought him anything but a great soul, she did not think him a base or evil soul. And so she spoke to him sympathetically that evening and promised to help him.

She promised; and yet it was exceedingly difficult. A new honesty had sprung up in her, making her hesitate to whom to turn first. She had meant to speak to Van der Welcke the next morning, in quite an ordinary way. But, when she saw him for a moment before he went out, he seemed to her to be suppressing some secret grief deep down in himself: his blue boyish eyes were overcast, his mouth half-sulking, as on rainy days when he was not able to go cycling; and yet it was fine now, a fine autumn day, and he came down in his cycling-suit, fetched his bicycle, said that he was going a long way, that he would perhaps not be back for lunch. She suspected in him a craving to get away, as fast as possible and as far as possible, and to deaden with that wild speed the pain of his gnawing grief. But, in the soft glow of her new youth, which illuminated everything within her and around her, she had not the heart to tell him what she was going to do, what she had promised to do, though in her secret self she thought it dishonest not to tell him straight out. So she said nothing, let him go. She looked after him for a moment, watched the angry curve of his shoulders, as he pedalled desperately, in his mad craving to get away, far away.

She sighed, felt sorry for him, she no longer knew why or wherefore ... But she had promised Van Vreeswijck; and perhaps, she thought, it would be best so. She went out therefore, took the tram to the Bezuidenhout, rang at Bertha's door, found her at home. In the hall, the removers' men were busy packing china and gla.s.s in big cases. Louise and Frans were going from room to room with a list in their hands, making notes of the furniture which Mamma would want at Baarn. The little villa had been taken.

Constance found Bertha upstairs in Van Naghel's study. She was sitting at an open window in the large room with its dark, heavy furniture, gazing into the garden, with her hands in her lap. She seemed calmer than she had been the other evening, at Mamma's. She sat there in her black dress, her face old and drawn, but calmer now; and her eyes never left the garden, a town garden full of rose-trees and fragrant in the late summer air. But all around her the room was gloomy and deadly and desolate. The book-cases were empty: the books had been taken out and divided among the boys. Only the large bronze inkstand remained on the writing-table. The furniture stood stiff, formal, stripped, unused, lifeless, as though awaiting the day of the sale. The bare walls showed the marks of the etchings and family-portraits that had been taken down.

Bertha rose when Constance entered; she kissed her and sat down again at once, sinking into her chair and folding her hands in her lap. And Constance asked if she could have a moment's serious conversation with her. A shade of weariness pa.s.sed over Bertha's face, as if to convey that she had had so many serious conversations lately and would rather go on gazing into the garden. She lifted her eyes almost sorrowfully from the riot of roses, turned them on Constance, asked what it was about. And Constance began to tell her: Van Vreeswijck had been with her for a long time the evening before and had told her that he had loved Marianne for so long, so long....

Bertha was interested for a moment, seemed to wake from a dream:

"Van Vreeswijck?" she asked.

Constance went on. He had never said a word to Marianne, because he feared, was almost certain, indeed, that she did not care for him. Had it not been mentioned that they were moving to Baarn, he would perhaps not have ventured to speak even now. But this threatened change had suddenly compelled him to open his heart ... to her, to Constance. And he had begged Constance to ask Bertha, to ask Marianne herself if he might hope ... perhaps later....

"Van Vreeswijck?" Bertha repeated.

Two months ago, though she had never been a match-making mother, she would have welcomed this proposal, would have rejoiced at it: Van Vreeswijck was a man of good family, belonged to their own circle and to the Court set, had a little money; not very young, perhaps, but a good-looking, pleasant, well-bred fellow. But now she did not know, showed little or no interest after that momentary flicker and went on dully, with her hands lying motionless on her black dress:

"Well, I have nothing against it, Constance. If Marianne likes the idea, I do too."

Her voice sounded as if she were withdrawing herself from everything, including her children's interests. She sat there, just blankly staring, leaving everything to them. Louise and Frans went through the house looking out the furniture for which there would be room at Baarn. Constance heard their voices on the stairs:

"So," Louise was saying, "we have, in addition to the furniture in Mamma's bedroom, in Marianne's and mine, enough for one spare-room; then there's the piano, from the drawing-room, and the china-cabinet...."

"Isn't the china-cabinet ever so much too big ... for those small rooms down there?"

"Yes, perhaps.... Perhaps we had better leave the china-cabinet...."

Bertha heard as well as Constance: perhaps Louise and Frans were speaking loudly in the pa.s.sage on purpose. Bertha, however, did not stir: her eyes remained vague, her hands lifeless. It was obviously a matter of supreme indifference to her whether they took the china-cabinet with them or not....

And, as she did not speak at all, Constance was obliged to ask:

"Would you mind, Bertha, if I just spoke to Marianne?"

"Very well," said Bertha, "do."

"Now? Here?"

"Yes," said Bertha.

Constance rose, opened the door.

"So that's two more tables ... two sofas," Frans counted, making notes on his list.

"Louise," said Constance, at the door, "would you ask Marianne to come here a moment?"

She sat down again by her sister, affectionately, took her hand, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with pity for the tired woman whom she had always looked upon as an ever capable, busy woman of the world, now exhausted with all the thousand cares of her life and smitten by the sudden blow that had befallen her. And Constance' heart beat anxiously in dread of what was coming: she trembled, felt her eyes become wet....

Marianne entered, pale, almost diaphanous; and her black blouse made her look a frail little figure of mourning, slender and drooping. For the thing which she could not conceal in her innermost self was no longer a light shining from her, visible to all: it was now a cloud around her, still visible, but as a shadow of grief, whereas but lately it had been a glow of happiness. Constance at once drew her to her, kissed her, held her to her. And she could not find words. Bertha did not speak.

"Marianne ..." Constance began.

"Are you angry, Aunt Constance?"

"No, darling, why...."

"Yes, you are angry with me."

"Why, Marianne!"

"Yes, you are different. I have seen it for some time; there's something, I know...."