The Later Life Part 44

And, going to the bathroom, he flung off all his clothes and took a shower-bath, while Addie brought him fresh things.

He was ready in ten minutes, doing everything in a feverish, tired hurry:

"Now we can have dinner. Isn't Mamma coming down?"

"No."

They sat down opposite each other, but Van der Welcke was not hungry, did not eat. The servant took something up to Constance. Dinner was over in a quarter of an hour.

"I am tired!" Van der Welcke confessed.

The maid had soon cleared the table. And they remained in the dining-room, which was now growing dark.

The French windows were open and the sultry evening filled the room. Van der Welcke, who had thrown himself into a chair, got up restlessly, strode into the garden, came back again. When he saw Addie sitting quietly on the sofa, he flung himself beside him, laid his head on the boy's knees. Then, with a deep sigh, he fell asleep, almost immediately.

Addie sat without moving, let his father sleep there, with his head on his son's knees.

From another villa, a stream of yellow light flowed across the garden and cast dim shadows in the dark dining-room. And in the kitchen the maid went on drearily humming the same tune as in the afternoon, as though she were humming unconsciously.

The boy sat still, with set lips, looking down at his father, whose chest rose and fell peacefully, with the deep breathing which Addie felt against his hand....

That afternoon, those two, his father and mother, had spoken to each other, for the first time, seriously, in truth and sincerity, as his mother had told him. And now the thought was whirling in both their minds that, after years and years of wretchedness and disunion, they were going to separate after all! For Papa's happiness, Mamma had said; and Addie believed that that was how she meant it.

Apart from this, there had been no names mentioned; but Addie knew that both Mamma and Papa, that afternoon, had thought--as he was thinking now--had thought, behind their spoken words, of Marianne. And now jealousy--that heritage from both his parents--sprang up in the boy's breast, jealousy no longer vague and formless. He felt it with a keener pang because Papa, at this moment, cared more for Marianne than for him. He felt too, for the first time, that, though he did not mean to, he loved his father better than his mother: his father who was like a child, who was himself a boy, a brother, a friend to him, something more than a father almost. In their brotherly comradeship, they had seemed gradually to lose sight of the difference in age, of filial respect; and in Addie's love for his father there was an element--not yet fully developed, but slowly gathering strength--of protection almost, a feeling that he was perhaps not yet the stronger, but that he would become so when he was a little older. It was a strange feeling, but it had always come natural to him, that way of looking upon his father as a younger brother to be loved and protected.

It was perhaps all for nothing, useless, he thought, and worthless. It was Marianne that Papa cared for now. And he remembered how he had sometimes thought that Papa was so young that one could imagine him with a very young wife, a young girl like Addie's cousins, a girl like ... Marianne.

So it was to happen ... Papa and Mamma ... would separate ... and....

He felt the sadness of it all ... and his heart was very heavy ... and his lips became still more compressed because he did not want to cry. He wanted to stand firm against the cruelties of life; and, if Papa could do without him, if Mamma also thought it better so, if perhaps it was also better for Mamma and would make her happier, why, then it was all right and he could bear it with strength and fort.i.tude. He was a child, a boy; but he felt vaguely that soon the world would open before him. He must forget everything therefore: everything about his parents, their ill-a.s.sorted lives, in which he had been the only comfort and consolation. No, it would all be different in future; and, if nothing else could be done, well then, it must be like that. When Papa, later on, was tired or in the blues or anything, he would not lay his head on Addie's knees, just like a little brother, and go to sleep: Marianne would comfort him instead.

Addie tried to suppress that feeling of jealousy, but it kept on shooting through him, like a painful, smarting sting.... But suddenly, in the dark room, in the silent house--the servant was no longer singing--Van der Welcke woke, drew himself up, rubbed his neck, which was stiff with lying down.

"Well, you've had a good long nap!" said Addie, making his voice sound rough.

There was nothing in that voice and in the boyish phrase to suggest the jealousy, the melancholy and the great sorrow that was weighing down his childish soul.

Van der Welcke seemed to be waking up to life and reality after his vain attempt to lose himself in that mad devouring of distance. He remembered his conversation with his wife, in which she had been so unusually gentle, so indulgent, showing such self-effacement and self-sacrifice ... so much indeed that he had had to kiss her in spite of himself.

"I have been speaking to Mamma," said he.

But he was silent again, could get no further.

"So have I," said Addie, to make it easier for him.

But he also did not know what to say; and they remained sitting side by side in the dark dining-room, both staring at the shaft of yellow light that streamed across the garden from the villa at the back. Each now knew, however, that the other knew; and Addie threw his arm over his father's shoulder, almost protectingly.

"It is an idea of Mamma's, Addie ... that it would be better...."

"For both of you."

"For me, Mamma thought."

"And for her too."

"And you, my boy, what would you think ... if it did come to that ... at last?..."

"If you both consider ... calmly and dispa.s.sionately ... that it would be a good thing...."

"And you, you would spend a part of the year with Mamma and a part with me...."

"Yes, of course."

"You're taking it very coolly, Addie."

"Dad, what else is there to do? If it's better like that ... for the two of you ... I'm bound to think it all right."

"If you can talk like that, it's because you're not so fond of us...."

"No, I'm just as fond of you: of Mamma, Dad, and of you. But, if it's got to be, it's got to be...."

"It's strange, Addie, how everything suddenly, one fine day, seems likely to become different...."

"Mamma saw it like that...."

"Yes. Mamma has changed lately, don't you think?"

"Mamma has become rather gentler, not so quick-tempered."

"Yes, not so quick-tempered."

"That's all...."

"Yes, that's all. Tell me, Addie, tell me honestly: do people, as far as you know, still ... talk about us ... as much as they did?"

"I don't know, Dad. I don't bother about 'people.' I just go to school, you see. But I think...."

"Do they talk about Mamma?"

"No."

"Not at all?"

"I never hear anything."

"About me?"

"Yes."