The Twilight of the Souls Part 4

The two brothers, who had come because they thought their brother mad, looked round the room; and to both of them the room also seemed mad. To the captain of hussars, whose earlier depression had pa.s.sed off, who suddenly felt himself becoming healthy and normal again as he listened to his eccentric brother's ravings, the room became a demented room, because it lacked a trophy of arms, riding-whips, prints of horses and dogs and the oleograph of a naked woman, bending backwards and laughing.

To the other brother the room also seemed demented because here the vase was no longer an ornament, because the vase had become a morbid thing, like a many-coloured weed, growing in rank profusion among the dark shadows of the curtains and oak book-cases. To Paul the room seemed demented because there was dust on the books and because the basket full of torn paper had not been emptied. But to both of them the man Ernst himself seemed more demented than the room: the man Ernst, their brother, an eccentric fellow whom for years they had been compelled to think "queer" because he was different from any of them. When he confessed to them that his room was full of souls, souls that hovered round him like a cloud until he was on the point of suffocating, souls that chained themselves to him and rattled their chains, they thought that he was raving, that he was stammering insane words. It was the view of both of them, the view of normal, healthy men, outwardly sane in their senses, in their gestures, expression and language, because their gestures, expression and language did not clash with those of the people about them, whatever they might sometimes feel deep down in themselves.

But to the man himself, to Ernst, his own view was the normal, the very ordinary view; and he thought his two brothers Gerrit and Paul queer and eccentric because he was able, in his furtive way, to see that neither of them noticed anything of the innumerable souls, though these writhed so pitifully and thronged so closely around him, as though he were in purgatory. To him there was nothing mad or insane in his room, in his words, or in any part of him. He looked upon them as mad, he looked upon himself as sensible. When, last night, he tried to go out in his nightshirt, because the souls pressed upon him until he felt as if he were suffocating in the throng, he had simply wanted air, nothing but air, had wanted to breathe without the discomfort of clothes, coat or waistcoat, upon his chest; and he had thought it quite natural that he should go downstairs with a candle and try to open the door with his key. Then the fat landlady and her lout of a brother had heard him and had come upon him, making a great to-do with their silly hands and their loud voices; and the two, the fat landlady and her lout of a brother, had stood there shouting and gesticulating like a pair of lunatics while he had already loosened the chain from the front-door and felt the draught doing him so much good, because it blew upon his bare flesh under his flapping shirt. Then Ernst had become angry, because the fat landlady and her lout of a brother did not listen to what he said: he had a soft voice, which could not cope with the rough, loud, vulgar voices of people without feeling, of people without soul, knowledge or understanding. He had become angry, because the brother, the coa.r.s.e brute, had locked the door again, dragged him away, hauled him up the stairs; and he had struck the brother. But the brother, who was stronger than he was, had hit him, hit him on the chest, which had been bursting before and at that had become still worse, because all the souls had thronged against him in terror, beseeching him to protect them. And, roughly, rudely, like the unfeeling brutes that they were, the fat landlady and her lout of a brother had dragged him upstairs between them; and, as they dragged him, they had trodden not only on his bare feet but also on the poor souls! Their vulgar slippers, their clumsy, caddish feet had trodden on the poor, poor tender souls, trodden on them in the pa.s.sage and along the stairs; and he heard them panting and sobbing, so loudly, so loudly, in their mortal anguish, that he could not understand why the whole town had not come running up in sheer alarm, to see the poor souls and help them. Oh, how they had moaned and gnashed their teeth, oh, how they had sobbed and lamented, most terribly!

And n.o.body had come. n.o.body would hear. They had refused to hear, those townsfolk; no rescue had arrived; and the two brutes, that fat landlady and that wretched cad of a fellow, her brother, had hauled him along, up the stairs, into his room, had flung him in, locked the door behind him and barricaded the door on the outside. And in the pa.s.sage, caught in the front-door, on the landing, caught in the door of his room, lay the poor panting, sobbing souls; they lay trodden and trampled, as if a rough crowd had danced on those tender gossamer beings, on their frail bodies; and he had spent the whole night sitting on a chair in a corner of his room, shivering in his nightshirt, in the dark, listening to the lamentations of the souls, hearing them wring their hands, hearing them pray for his pity, for his commiseration, for they knew that he loved them, that he would not hurt them, the poor souls.... He understood, yes, he understood that those two brutes, the woman and her brother, thought that he was mad. But he had only wanted to breathe the cool night-air, to feel the cool night-air blowing over his hot limbs, which were all aglow because, in bed, the souls pressed so close upon him, though he tried to push them softly from him. It wasn't mad, surely, to want a breath of fresh air, to want to feel the cool air blowing over one's self. That was all he wanted.... And, in the morning ... yes, he had seen her at the door, opening it very carefully. He had seen the face of his sister Dorine that morning, seen her grimacing and laughing and cackling, with a devilish grin, glad, she too, at the sight of the frail bodies of the poor souls lying trampled on the stairs and in the pa.s.sage; but he had been clever: he had remained sitting in his shirt, in the corner of his room, and pretended not to see her and taken no notice of her devilish grin, so as not to satisfy her evil pleasure....

Then at last the poor souls that still lived had settled down: he had lulled their fears with gentle words of consolation. Then they had fallen asleep around him; and he had been able to get up softly, without rattling their chains, and wash his face, put on his trousers, his socks, his dressing-gown.... What were his brothers doing now? He knew, he knew: no doubt they were also thinking, like the landlady and her beast of a brother, that he was mad, mad, bereft of his senses. But it was they who had lost their senses: they had no eyes, not to see the slumbering souls that filled the house; they had no ears, not to hear the plaint of the souls last night ringing through the universe. They, they were mad: they knew nothing and felt nothing; they lived like brute beasts; and he hated them both: that big, burly officer and the other, that fine gentleman, with his smooth face and his moustache like a cat's whiskers, which he couldn't stand, which he simply could not stand.

Somehow, he had had to tell them about the poor souls; but, now that he saw that they were mad, he would never mention the souls to them again: otherwise they would be sure to want to beat him too and pull him about and tread on the poor souls, as those two horrible brutes had done.

So he remained sitting quietly, waiting for them to go and leave him to himself, in the peaceful solitude to which he was accustomed. For he was tired now; and, sitting straight up in his chair, he closed his eyes, partly to shut out the sight of his brothers' faces. Around him lay the souls, countless numbers of them, but they were still and silent, slumbering around him like children, though their faces were wrung with all the grief and pain that they had been made to suffer the night before.

Gerrit and Paul had stood up, were pretending to look at the vases, talking in whispers:

"He is pretty calm," said Gerrit.

"Yes, but what he said was utter nonsense."

"We must go to a doctor."

"Yes, we must go to Dr. van der Ouwe first. Perhaps to Dr. Reeuws afterwards, or any other nerve-specialist whom Van der Ouwe recommends."

"What do you think of him? Is he absolutely mad?"

"Yes, mad. He never used to talk in that incoherent way. Up to now, he was only queer, dreamy, eccentric. Now he is absolutely...."

"Mad," Gerrit completed, in a low voice.

"Look, he's shut his eyes...."

"He seems calm."

"Yes, he's calm enough."

"Shall we go?"

"Yes, let's go."

They went up to Ernst:

"Ernst...."

"Ernst!"

He slowly raised his heavy eyelids.

"We're off, Ernst, old chap," said Gerrit.

Ernst nodded his head.

"We shall be back soon."

But Ernst closed his eyes again, yearning for them to go, driving them out of the room with his longing....

They went. He heard them shut the door softly, carefully. Then he nodded his head with satisfaction: they were not so bad, they had not waked the souls.... He heard them whispering on the landing, with those two beasts, the landlady and her brother. He got up, crept to the door, tried to listen. But he could not make out what they said.

Then he laughed contemptuously, because he thought them stupid, devoid of eyes, ears, heart or feeling:

"Wretched brutes, infernal brutes!" he muttered fiercely, clenching his fists.

A mortal weariness stole over him. He went to his bedroom, let down the blinds and got into bed, feeling that he would sleep.

All around him lay the souls: the whole room was full of them.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nicolette.

[2] Gerard.

CHAPTER II

Old Mrs. van Lowe's neighbours thought it a funny thing that, after dinner that evening, the whole family arrived, one after the other, rang the bell and went in, though it was not Sunday. Except on those "family-group" Sundays, there was never much of a run on Mrs. van Lowe's door. And they wondered what could be the matter; and, as it was very warm, an August day, they opened all the windows, kept looking across the street and even sent their maids to enquire of Mrs. van Lowe's maids. But the maids did not know anything: they only thought it must be something to do with the young mevrouw, the one in Paris--Mrs. Emilie, as they called her--who had gone off with her brother.

"It's very queer about the Van Lowes," said the neighbours, looking out of window at the old lady's front-door, at which somebody was ringing again for the hundredth time.

"There come the Van Saetzemas."

"And here are those fat Ruyvenaers."

"What's up?"

"Yes, what can be up?"

"The servants say it's something to do with Emilie."

"A nice thing for the Van Ravens!"

"They say that Bertha has become quite childish, don't they?"

"I don't know about that: she just sits staring in front of her. They never come now: they're living at Baarn."

"Here are the Van der Welckes."

"Like aunt, like niece."

"Now they're all there."