The Twilight of the Souls Part 11

He is splendid, he is unique. He is not a vulgar clown, not a _dummer August_. He is simply magnificent. He has turned the art of the clown into something really artistic, something all his own. He makes the audience laugh and cry as he pleases. He invents his own scenes, designs his own dresses, or else I design them for him. He has a way of making up.... He has discovered the melancholy side of the clown: he's sublime in that.... He has one turn in the circus with quite fifty b.u.t.terflies flitting on wires all round him ... he tries to catch them and can't ...

and, when he does that turn, the people begin by laughing and end by crying. You see, it's symbolical.... Really, you ought to go to Paris to see him. He's so good, so artistic.... He does a lot of exercises, to keep himself supple. He looks much better than when he was racketing about at Leiden. He's very good-looking and he knows it: he never makes up ugly. A modern sculptor wants to make a statue of him: very fanciful, you know; something _art-nouveau_; in that part, with the b.u.t.terflies all round him. He is always being asked to sit to artists.... You would never have thought it of him, Auntie. Here, he was just the ordinary undergraduate, racketing about, blowing his money.... I was always fond of him. The moment he got to Paris, he understood that he must do something, show what he was made of, strike out a line for himself; and it came to him with a flash: he would be a clown! But a very, very fine clown, something quite new, not one of your vulgar clowns! He makes heaps of money, I don't know how much.... And that's how we live, Auntie: free and independent of everything and everybody. ... Auntie, you look shocked. But you _mustn't_ blame us! Here, I was unhappy, so was he; there, we are happy, happy together. I am fond of him and he of me. I don't know what it is, but we can't live without each other. In Paris, the people think that we are lovers; they won't believe that we are brother and sister. And there you are: we're happy and we don't care what horrible things they say about us in Holland. Do you think I've come back to Holland for any other reason than to see Grandmother, you, Mamma, Otto? I longed to see you; I have no feeling for the others. I am sorry for Uncle Ernst. But I want to lead a free life, independent of Holland, of the family ... and I had to make it independent of my husband, whom I married in mistake ... and who beat me and ill-treated me! We want to _live_, Auntie, and not merely exist!"

But Constance did not know what to say and shut her eyes as if she had been struck in the face. She turned pale. They wanted to live, not merely to exist! Was it for her to blame them, for her, who herself, very late, when she was quite old--too late and too old--had felt the need to live and not merely to exist? But ... had they really found their life in what they now considered their life? Did she not now know that the real life is not for one's self, but for others? Did she not know it even though she had never reached the radiant cities of the new life which had shone far off on those unattainable horizons? Had she not guessed that it was there; and had she herself not seemed very small when she had had to leave out of her reckoning the man who had become so dear to her that she was able to forget everything for his sake, even her son, the comfort of her existence, if not of her life? Was not she herself small and had she the right to condemn, merely because she was older and therefore saw the purest truths gleam at times out of some shimmering mist of self-deception? No, she did not condemn ... but that did not prevent her from being shocked. She could understand now ... and yet the rooted prejudice was there. She was willing to accept their new, fresh, free happiness in a life without conventional bonds; and yet those bonds bound herself, despite her new powers of understanding. She understood; and yet she felt a shudder at those who did not tread the beaten path, the smooth track of their decent respectability. Did not a vague suggestion of tragedy show dimly at the far ends of the new roads?

Could they possibly persevere? And what would be the result of so unconventional a view of life? Was anything but convention possible for people such as all of them? Were they not born for it, trained for it?

She herself had found new roads that led up to cities of light, but she had not trodden those roads. These ... were these new roads leading up to cities of light? Or was it merely wantonness, youthful levity, turning aside from the smooth tracks, the beaten paths?...

"Emilie," she said, "if what you tell me is true, don't tell any one else, don't talk about it! If Grandmamma heard, it would hurt her so much! And Mamma too!"

"No, Auntie, I won't; besides, it is a great secret ... a secret from the family, from all our friends. I have mentioned it to n.o.body but you; and I shall mention it to n.o.body. But come, Auntie, it's not so bad as all that: you look quite upset! We have different ideas from our parents. We can't help it. Who's to blame?"

"When I think, dear, of your house, as it used to be!"

"And now Henri is a clown ... and I paint fans for my living!"

She gave a loud, shrill, almost triumphant laugh, followed by a laugh that sounded sadder:

"Poor Grandmamma!" she said. "Poor, Grandmother! She called our family a _grandeur dechue_. And she is right, from her point of view. I am very sorry for her. I found her sitting there so melancholy, so forlorn; and the tears were running down her cheeks.... Auntie, you're a darling; I feel that you are better than I. But I can't live here. Your trouble made you want to come back. Mine made me want to get away. You felt that there were bonds that drew you here. I felt, on the contrary, that I must throw off every bond. My life began with a mistake."

"So did mine."

"Is it always like that?"

"Often ... often...."

"Don't we know ourselves, then ... when we begin to live?..."

"No, every truth comes to us later, much later...."

"Then you don't think that I know _my_ truth?"

"No, Emilie."

"You are not pleased with me?"

"Pleased, child? It is not for me to judge you. All I say is, take care.

Don't play with your life. Don't waste it. Our life is a very serious thing; and you treat it as...."

"As what, Auntie?"

"An artistic caprice."

"How well you have put it, Auntie! I never thought of that, never said it. An artistic caprice! Henri too: an _art-nouveau_ caprice? Why not?"

"Oh, no, Emilie ... take care!"

"Auntie, we are so small. We don't make any difference. What do people like us matter, women like us, girls such as I was? Nothing. Nothing.

Why make tragedies of our lives? Why not rather make them into something fanciful, something fanciful and artistic?" And she made a painter's gesture with her fore-finger and thumb. "When we are dead, it's finished.... What do we matter, that we should be tragic? That is all very well for heroes and heroines ... but not for us. I will not have my life a tragedy. I started with a mistake. Since then, I have conquered my life and given it a definite aim. Do try and see, Auntie...."

"I see, Emilie. But you forget...."

"What?"

"The bonds...."

"Which I unloose...."

"Which you cannot unloose."

"Yes, I can."

"No."

"Yes."

"No. You'll see, later, when you're older."

"I sha'n't grow old, Auntie."

"Oh, child, what do you know, what do you know? How can you tell what you will become, how tragic your life may easily become, if you don't think of it more seriously ... more _seriously_?"

She rose: an irresistible impulse made her embrace the girl pa.s.sionately.

Emilie gave a start:

"What are you thinking of, Auntie?... What do you mean?..."

But what was the use of saying anything now of her presentiment, when presentiments always deceive? Constance said nothing more; she did not know indeed what more to say; she merely stared in front of her, strangely, vaguely; and what had shone for a moment was gone.

And she looked deep into Emilie's eyes and saw there only a vision: Paris, a circus, a clown, b.u.t.terflies, quite fifty or more....

The front-door downstairs was opened; there were sounds of footsteps and voices. Ordinary life was beginning again.

"There are Uncle and Addie," said Constance. "Emilie, I'm going to Nunspeet this afternoon."

"I'm going to Otto and Frances after lunch. Let us meet at the station; and I'll go to Nunspeet with you. I want to see Uncle Ernst. And then we'll go to Baarn together."

"Very well, dear. But will you do one thing, to please me?"

"Yes, Auntie."

"Dress a little more simply. Remember that we're in Holland."

Emilie gave a shrill laugh:

"Yes, Auntie. I'll go and buy myself a sailor-hat. All my hats are too exciting for the Hague. The butcher-boys were shouting after me: 'Hat!

... Hat!' And, at Nunspeet and Baarn, I know the whole village would turn out to look at me!"