Old People and the Things That Pass E-Book

Louis Couperus

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 432

Beschreibung

This book was created by Louis Marie-Anne Couperus, one of the major Dutch writers, in 1918. The story tells of two very old people who keep a terrible secret from the time they lived in the Dutch East Indies, many decades ago. Yet times change, and shame and scandal can no longer be contained when their grandchildren get married. Louis Marie-Anne Couperus (1863-1923) was a Dutch novelist and poet of the late 19th and early 20th century. He is usually considered one of the foremost figures in Dutch literature. He came to fame with the publication of his first novel Eline Vere (1888), a naturalist work influenced by French novelists like Emile Zola and Gustave Flaubert. His 1891 novel Noodlot (Footsteps of Fate) was much admired by Oscar Wilde, and many have noted stylistic similarities between Noodlot's 1890 novel and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Couperus attained popularity with his novels Majesteit (Majesty, 1893) and Wereldvrede (World Peace, 1895), both set among royals in modern Europe, threatened with anarchism. Also his fairy tale Psyche (1898) has often been reprinted. His other works include: De Stille Kracht (The Hidden Force, 1900), Berg van Licht (The Mountain of Light, 1906), De Boeken der Kleine Zielen (The Books of the Small Souls, 1901-1902) and Van Oude Menschen, de Dingen, die Voorbij gaan... (Old People and the Things that Pass, 1906).

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER I

Steyn's deep bass voice was heard in the passage:

"Come, Jack, come along, dog! Are you coming with your master?"

The terrier gave a loud, glad bark and came rushing madly down the stairs, till he seemed to be tumbling over his own paws.

"Oh, that voice of Steyn's!" Ottilie hissed between her teeth angrily and turned a number of pages of her novel.

Charles Pauws glanced at her quietly, with his little smile, his laugh at Mamma's ways. He was sitting with his mother after dinner, sipping his cup of coffee before going on to Elly.

Steyn went out with Jack; the evening silence settled upon the little house and the gas hummed in the impersonal and unhomely sittingroom. Charles Pauws looked down at the tips of his boots and admired their fit.

"Where has Steyn gone?" asked Mamma; and her voice grumbled uneasily.

"Gone for a walk with Jack," said Charles Pauws.

He was called Lot [ 1] at home; his voice sounded soft and soothing.

"He's gone to his woman!" snarled Ottilie.

Lot made a gesture of weariness:

"Come, Mamma," he said, "be calm now and don't think about that scene. I'm going on to Elly presently; meantime I want to sit cosily with you for a bit. Steyn's your husband, after all. You mustn't always be bickering with him and saying and thinking such things. You were just like a little fury again. It brings wrinkles, you know, losing your temper like that."

"I am an old woman."

"But you've still got a very soft little skin."

Ottilie smiled; and Lot stood up:

"There," he said, "give me a kiss.... Won't you? Must I give you one? You angry little Mummy!... And what was it about? About nothing. At least, I can't remember what it was all about. I should never be able to analyse it. And that's always the way.... How do I come to be so unruffled with such a little fury of a Mamma?"

"If you imagine that your father used to keep unruffled!"

Lot laughed that little laugh of his and did not reply. Mrs. Steyn de Weert went on reading more peacefully; she sat in front of her book like a child. She was a woman of sixty, but her blue eyes were like a child's, full of a soft beauty, gentle and innocent; and her voice, a little hightoned, always sounded like a child's, had just sounded like the voice of a naughty child. Sitting, small and upright, in her chair, she read on, attentively, calming herself because Lot had spoken so calmly and kissed her so comfortingly. The gas hummed and Lot drank his coffee and, looking at his boots, wondered why he was going to be married. He did not think he was a marrying man. He was young still: thirty-eight; he really looked much younger; he made enough money with his articles to risk it, frugal-fashion, with what Elly would get from Grandpapa Takma; but all the same he did not think that he was of the marrying kind. His liberty, his independence, his selfish power to amuse himself as he pleased were what he loved best; and marrying meant giving one's self over, bound hand and foot, to a woman. He was not passionately in love with Elly: he thought her an intelligent, artistic little thing; and he was really not doing it for what she would inherit from Grandpapa Takma. Then why was he doing it, he asked himself, as he had asked himself day after day, during that week which had followed on his proposal.

"Mamma, can you tell me? Why did I propose to Elly?"

Ottilie looked up. She was accustomed to queer and humorous questions from Lot and she used to answer him in the same tone, as far as she was able; but this question made her feel a prick of jealousy, a prick that hurt very much, physically, like a thorn in the flesh.

"Why you proposed to Elly? I don't know. We always do things without knowing why."

Her voice sounded soft and melancholy, a little sulky after the naughty child's voice of just now Had she not lost everything that she had ever possessed? Would she not lose Lot, have to part with him to Elly... as she had had to part with everything and everybody?...

"How seriously you answered, Mamma! That's not like you."

"Mayn't I be serious too, once in a way?"

"Why so sad and serious and tempersome lately? Is it because I am going to be married?"

"Perhaps."

"But you're fond of Elly... "

"Yes, she's very nice."

"The best thing we can do is to go on living together; Elly's fond of you too. I've talked to Steyn about it."

Lot called his step-father, his second step-father, Steyn, without anything else, after having called his first, when he was still a boy, "Mr." Trevelley. Ottilie had been married three times.

"The house is too small," said Mamma, "especially if you go having a family soon."

And yet she thought:

"If we remain together, I sha'n't lose Lot entirely; but I shall never be able to get on with my daughter-in-law, especially if there are children."

"A family?" he echoed.

"Children."

"Children?"

"Well, married people have had children before now!"

"Our family has lasted long enough. I shall be in no hurry about children."

"And, when your wife hasn’t you with her, what has she, if she hasn't any children? It's true, you're both so clever. I'm only a stupid woman; my children have often been a comfort to me...."

"When you were able to spoil them."

"It's not for you to reproach me with that!"

"I'm not reproaching you."

"As to living together, Lot," said Mamma, sadly, in a child's coaxing voice, casting up her blue child-eyes, "I should be quite willing, if Elly is and if she promises to take things as she finds them. I shall feel very lonely without you. But, if there were any objections, I might go over to England. I have my two boys there. And Mary is coming home from India this year."

Lot knitted his brows and put his hand up to his fair hair: it was very neat, with a parting.

"Or else... I might go and look up Ottilie at Nice."

"No, Mamma, not that!" said Lot, almost angrily.

"Why not?" exclaimed Mrs. Steyn de Weert, raising her voice. "She's my child, surely?"

"Yes," Lot admitted, quickly recovering his composure. "But... "

"But what? Surely, my own child...?"

"But it would be very silly of you to go to Ottilie."

"Why, even if we have quarrelled at times..."

"It would never do; you can’t get on with her. If you go to Ottilie, I won't get married. Besides, Steyn has something to say in the matter."

"I'm so fond of Nice," said Mrs. Steyn de Weert; and her child-voice sounded almost plaintive. "The winters there are so delightful.... But perhaps it would be difficult for me... to go there... because Ottilie behaves so funnily. If it could be managed, I would rather live with you, Lot. If Elly is willing. Perhaps we could have a little larger house than this. Do you think we could afford it? Stay alone with Steyn I will not. That's settled. That's quite settled."

"Mummy darling... "

Lot's voice sounded full of pity. After her last determined words, Mamma had big tears in her blue child-eyes, tears which did not fall but which gave a sorrowful gleam to the naughty look in her face. Then, with a sudden short sigh, she took up her book and was silent and pretended to read. There was something resigned about her attitude and, at the same time, something obstinate, the constant attitude of a naughty child, a spoilt child that persisted in doing, quietly and silently, what it wanted to. Lot, with his coffee-cup in his hand, his laugh about his mouth, studied Mamma; after his compassion, he just sat and studied her. Yes, she must have been very pretty; the uncles always said, a little doll. She was sixty now and no longer made any pretence to beauty; but she was still charming in a child-like and doll-like fashion. She had the wrinkles and the deeper furrows of an elderly woman; but the skin of her forehead and cheeks was still white and soft, without a blemish, tenderly veined at the temples. She had become very grey; but, as she had been very fair and her hair was soft and curly, it sometimes looked as if she had remained fair; and, simply though that hair appeared to be done, fastened up with one quick movement and pinned, there were still some almost childish little locks curling at the temples and in the neck. Her short, slim figure was almost that of a young woman; her hands were small and pretty; in fact, there was a prettiness about her whole person; and pretty above all were the young, blue eyes. Lot, who smiled as he looked at his mother, saw in her a woman over whom an emotional life, a life of love and hate, had passed without telling very much upon her. And yet Mamma had been through a good deal, with her three husbands, all three of whom she had loved, all three of whom, without exception, she now hated. A butterfly she had certainly been, but just an unthinking butterfly, simply because her nature was a butterfly's. She had loved much, but even a deep passion would not have made her life or her different; naturally and unconsciously she was in headstrong opposition to everything. She had never been economical; and yet her house was never comfortable, nor had she ever spent much on dress, unconsciously despising elegance and comfort and feeling that she attracted through herself and not through any artistic surroundings. Mamma's get-up was like nothing on earth, Lot thought; the only cosy room in the house was his. Mamma, mad on reading, read very modern French novels, which she did not always understand, despite a life of love and hatred, having remained innocent in many things and totally ignorant of the darker phases of passion. Then Lot would see, while she was reading, that she was surprised and did not understand; a simple, childish wonder would come into her eyes; she never dared ask Lot for an explanation....

Lot got up; he was going to Elly that evening. He kissed his mother, with his constant little laugh of silent amusement, his little laugh at Mamma.

"You never used to go out every evening," said Mamma, reproachfully; and she felt the thorn in her heart's flesh.

"I'm in love now," said Lot, calmly. "And engaged. And a fellow must go and see his girl, you know.... Will you think over my question, why I really proposed to Elly... and will you manage without me this evening?"

"I shall have to do that many evenings...."

Mamma pretended to be absorbed in her French novel, but, as soon as Lot had left the room, she put down the book and looked round, vaguely, with a look of helplessness in her blue eyes. She did not move when the maid brought in the tea-tray and kettle; she sat staring before her, across her book. The water sang its bubbling song; outside the windows, after the last summer heat, the first cold wind blew with its wonted plaint. Ottilie felt herself abandoned: oh, how little of everything remained! There she was now, there she was, the old, grey-haired woman! What was there left of her life? And yet, strange to say, her three husbands were all three alive: Lot had been lately to Brussels with Elly, to see his father; Trevelley was spending a life of pleasure in London: when all was said, she had liked him the best. Her three English children lived in England, felt more English than Dutch; Ottilie was leading her curious, unconventional life at Nice: the whole family cried scandal about it; and Lot she was now about to lose. He had always stayed with her so nicely, though he went abroad pretty frequently; and he had hardly any friends at the Hague and never went to the Witte. [2] Now he was going to be married; he was no longer young, for a young man; he must be thirty-eight, surely? To occupy herself a little now, beside her lonely tea-tray and bubbling water, she began to count her children's ages on her tiny fingers. Ottilie, Lot's sister, her eldest, forty-one: heavens, how old she was growing! The English ones, as she always called them—"my three English children"—Mary, thirty-five; John, thirty-two; even her handsome Hugh was thirty: heavens above, how old they were growing! And, once she was busy calculating ages, to amuse herself, she reckoned out that old Mamma would now soon be— let's see—yes, she would be ninety-seven. Old Mr. Takma, Elly's grandpapa, was only a year or two younger; and, when she thought of him, Ottilie reflected that it was very strange that Mr. Takma had always been so nice to her, as though it were really true what people used to whisper, formerly, when people still interested themselves in the family. So curious, those two old people: they saw each other almost every day; for Papa Takma was hale and still went out often, always walking the short distance from the Mauritskade to the Nassaulaan and crossing the razor-back bridge with rare vigour. Yes... and then Sister Thérèse, in Paris, eight years older than herself, must be sixty-eight; and the brothers: Daan, in India, [ 3] seventy; Harold, seventy-three; Anton, seventyfive; while Stefanie, the only child of Mamma's first marriage and the only De Laders, was getting on for seventy-seven. She, Ottilie, the youngest, felt that all those others were very old; and yet she was old too: she was sixty. It was all a matter of comparison, growing old, different ages; but she had always felt it so: that she, the youngest, was comparatively young and always remained younger than the others, than all the others. She had to laugh, secretly, when Stefanie kept on saying:

"At our age... "

Why, Stefanie was seventy-seven! There was a difference—rather!—between sixty and seventy-seven. But she shrugged her shoulders: what did it matter? It was all over and so long ago. There she sat now, an old, grey-haired woman, and the aftermath of life dragged on and the loneliness increased daily, even though Steyn was here still: there he was, coming in. Where on earth did he go to every evening? She heard the fox-terrier barking in the passage and her husband's deep, bass voice:

"Hush, Jack! Quiet, Jack!..."

Oh, that voice, how she hated it!

What had she, whom had she left? She had five children, but only Lot with her; and he went abroad so often and was now going to be married: oh, how jealous it made her! Ottilie she never saw nowadays; Ottilie didn't care for her mother; she sang at concerts and had made a name for herself: she had a glorious voice; but she certainly behaved very strangely: Stefanie spoke of her as "lost." Mary was married, in India,[4] and her two English boys were in London: oh, how she sometimes longed for Hugh! Which of her children was any use or comfort to her, except that dear Lot? And Lot was going to be married and he was asking her, his mother, who would miss him so, why he was going to be married, why! Of course, he was only joking, really; but perhaps it was also serious in part. Did people ever know anything?... Did they know why they did a thing... in their impulsiveness. She had married three times.... Perhaps Ottilie was right after all? But no, there was the world, there were people, even though neither the world nor people had interested themselves in the family of late years; but still there they were; and you couldn't act as Ottilie did, without making yourself altogether impossible. That was why she, Mamma, had married, had married three times. Perhaps she ought never to have married at all: it would have been better for a heap of things, a heap of people.... The old life was all gone. It had vanished, as if it had never existed. And yet it had existed and, when it passed, had left much behind it, but nothing except melancholy ghosts and shadows. Yes, this evening she was in a serious mood and felt like thinking, a thing which otherwise she did as seldom as possible: what good did thinking do? When she had thought, in her life, she had never thought to any practical purpose. When she had yielded to impulse, things had been worse still. What was the good of wanting to live, when nevertheless your life was mapped out for you by things stronger than yourself that slumbered in your blood?

Ottilie gave herself up to her French novel, for Steyn de Weert had entered the room, with Jack leaping in front of him. And any one who had seen Mamma a moment ago and saw her now would have noticed this phenomenon, that Mamma became much older as soon as her husband entered. The plump cheeks contracted nervously and the lines round the nose and mouth grew deeper. The little straight nose stuck out more sharply, the forehead frowned angrily. The fingers, which were tearing the pages of a novel anyhow with a hairpin, trembled; and the page was torn awry. The back became rounder, like that of a cat assuming the defensive. She said nothing, but poured out the tea.

"Coosh!" she said to the dog.

And, glad that the dog came to her, she patted him on the head with a half-caress; and the fox-terrier, giving a last sharp bark, spun round upon himself and, very suddenly, nestled down on Ottilie's skirt, with a deep sigh. Steyn de Weert, sitting opposite her, drank his tea. It appeared strange that they should be man and wife, for Mamma now certainly looked her age and Steyn seemed almost young. He was a tall fellow, broad-shouldered, not more than just fifty, with a handsome, freshcoloured, healthy face, the face of a strong out-of-doors man, calm in glance and movement. The fact that, years ago, he had thrown away his life, from a sense of honour, upon a woman much older than himself had afterwards inspired him with an indifference that ceased to reckon what might still be in store for him. What was spoilt was spoilt, squandered for good, irretrievably. There was the open air, which was cool and fresh; there was shooting; there was a drink, when he wanted one; there were his old friends, dating back to the time when he was an officer in the dragoons. Beyond these there were the little house and this old woman: he accepted them into the bargain, because it couldn't be helped. In externals he did, as far as possible, what she wanted, because she could be so tempersome and was so obstinate; but his cool stubbornness was a silent match for hers. Lot was a capital fellow, a little weak and unexpected and effeminate; but he was very fond of Lot: he was glad that Lot lived with them; he had given Lot one of the best rooms in the house to work in. For the rest... for the rest, there were other things; but they were no concern of anybody. Hang it all, he was a young man still, even though his thick hair was beginning to turn grey! His marriage had come about through a point of honour; but his wife was old, she was very old. The thing was really rather absurd. He would never make a hell of his life, as long as he still felt well and strong. With a good dose of indifference you can shake off everything.

It was this indifference of his which irritated his wife, till she felt as nervous as a cat when he did no more than enter the room. He had not spoken a word, sat drinking his tea, reading the newspaper which he had brought with him. In the small living-room, where the gas hummed and the wind rattled the panes, the fox-terrier sometimes snorted in dreams that made him groan and moan on the trailing edge of his mistress' dress.

"Coosh!" she said.

And for the rest neither of them spoke, both sat reading, one her book, the other his evening-paper. And these two people, whose lives had been welded together by civil contract, because of the man's feelings of conventional honesty and his sense of not being able to act otherwise as a man of honour, these two had once, years ago, twenty years ago, longed passionately, the man for the woman and the woman for the man. When Steyn de Weert was a first lieutenant, a good-looking fellow, just turned thirty, he had met Mrs. Trevelley, without knowing her age. Besides, what did age matter when he set eyes upon a woman so ravishingly beautiful to his quick desire that he had at once, at the first moment that he saw her, felt the blood flaming in his veins and thought:

"That woman I must have!..."

At that time, though already forty, she was a woman so full of blossoming prettiness that she was still known as the beautiful Lietje. She was small, but perfect in shape and particularly charming in feature, charming in the still very young lines of throat and breast, creamy white, with a few pale-gold freckles; charming with blue eyes of innocence and very fair, soft, wavy hair; charmingly half-woman and half-child, moulded for love, who seemed to exist only that she might rouse glowing desires. When Steyn de Weert saw her thus for the first time, in some ultramodern Hague drawing-room of the Dutch-Indian set, she was married to her second husband, that half-Englishman, Trevelley, who was supposed to have made money in India; and Steyn had seen her the mother of three biggish children: a girl of fifteen and two boys a little younger; but the enamoured dragoon had refused to believe that, by her first marriage, with Pauws, from whom she had been divorced because of Trevelley, she had a daughter at the Conservatoire at Liège and a son of eighteen at home! The beautiful Lietje? She had married very young, in India, and she was still the beautiful Lietje. Such big children? Was that woman forty? The young officer had perhaps hesitated a moment, tried, now that he knew so much, to view Mrs. Trevelley with other eyes; but, when he looked in hers and saw that she desired him as he did her, he forgot everything. Why not cull a moment of happiness? What was an instant of love with a still seductive and beautiful woman? A triumph for a week, a month, a couple of months; and then each would go a different way.

That was how he had thought at the time; but now, now he was sitting here, because that bounder of a Trevelley, who wanted to get rid of Ottilie, had taken advantage of their relations to create a scandal and, after a pretence at a duel, to insist on a divorce; because all the Hague had talked about Ottilie, when she was left standing alone with a lover; and because he, Steyn, was an honest chap after all: that, that was why he was sitting here, with that old woman opposite him. Not a word was uttered between them; they drank their tea; the tray was removed; Jack dreamed and moaned; the wind howled. The pages followed in quick succession under Ottilie's fingers; and Steyn read the Manchurian warnews and the advertisements, the advertisements and the war-news. The room around them, married though they were, looked as it had always looked, impersonal and unhomely; the clock ticked on and on, under its glass shade. It looked like a waiting-room, that drawing-room: a waitingroom where, after many things that had passed, two people sat waiting. Sat waiting... for what? For the end that was so slow in coming, for the final death.

Steyn restrained himself and read through the advertisements once more. But his wife, suddenly shutting up her book, said, abruptly:

"Frans!"

"Eh?"

"I was talking to Lot just now."

"Yes... "

"Would you object if they stayed on with us, he and Elly?"

"No, on the contrary."

But it seemed as though Steyn’s calm consent just irritated his wife, perhaps against her own will, into contradiction:

"Yes, but it wouldn't be so easy!" she said.

"Why not?"

"The house is too small."

"We can move."

"A bigger house would be more expensive. Have you the money for it?"

"I think that, with what Lot makes and with Elly's allowance... "

"No, a bigger house is too dear."

"Well, then here...."

"This is too small."

"Then it can't be done."

Ottilie rose, angrily:

"No, of course not: nothing can ever be done. Because of that wretched money. But I'll tell you this: when Lot is married, I can't... I c-can't... "

She stammered when she was angry.

"Well, what can't you?"

"I c-can't... stay alone with you! I shall go to Nice, to Ottilie."

"All right, go."

He said it calmly, with great indifference, and took up his paper again. But it was enough to make Ottilie, who was highly strung, burst into sobs:

"You don't care a bit about me any more!"

Steyn shrugged his shoulders and went out of the room and upstairs; the dog sprang in front of him, barking.

Ottilie remained alone; and her sobs ceased at once. She knew it herself —the years had taught her as much as that—she easily lost her temper and would always remain a child. But, in that case, why grow older, in ever-increasing loneliness? There she sat, there she sat now, an old, grey woman, in that unhomely room; and everything was past. Oh, if Lot only remained with her, her Lot, her Chariot, her boy! And she felt her jealousy of Lot and Elly, at first restrained, rising more and more violently. And that other jealousy: her jealousy of Steyn. He irritated her when he merely entered the room; but she still remained jealous of him, as she always had been of every man that loved her. Oh, to think that he no longer cared about her, because she had grown old! Oh, to think that he never uttered a word of affection now, never gave her a kiss on her forehead! She was jealous of Elly because of Lot, she was jealous of Lot because of Steyn, because Steyn really cared more for Lot, nowadays, than for her! How cruel the years were, slowly to take everything from her! The years were past, the dear, laughing love-years, full of caresses; all that was past! Even the dog had just gone off with Steyn: no living creature was nice to her; and why need Lot suddenly go getting married now? She felt so forlorn that, after the forced sobs, which she had stopped as soon as they were no longer necessary, she sank into a chair and wept softly, really weeping, this time, because no one loved her and because she was forlorn. Her still young and beautiful eyes, overflowing with tears, looked into the vanished past. Then—in the days when she was the beautiful Lietje—everything about her had been pleasant, nice, caressing, playful, jesting, almost adoring and entreating, because she was so pretty and gay and attractive and had an irresistible laugh and a temper full of the most delightful little whims. True, through all this there was always the sting of jealousy; but in those days so much of it had come her way: all the caressing homage which the world, the world of men, expends on a pretty woman! She laughed at it through her tears; and the memory meandered around her, bright as pretty little, distant clouds. Oh, what a wealth of adulation had surrounded her then! Now, all those men were old or dead; only her own three husbands were alive; and Steyn was still young. He was too young: if he had not been so young, she would have kept her charm for him longer and they would still be nice to each other, happy together as old people can be sometimes, even though the warmth of youth is past.... She heaved a deep sigh through her tears and sat in her chair like a helpless child that has been naughty and now does not know what to do. What was there for her to do now? Just to go quietly to bed, in her lonely room, an old woman's room, in her lonely bed, and to wake in the morning and drag one more old day after the old, old days! Ah, why could she not have died while she was young?

She rang and told the maid to lock up; and these little habits had for her the disconsolateness of everyday repetition, because it all seemed unnecessary. Then she went upstairs. The little house was very tiny: a small suite of rooms on the ground-floor, above that a suite with a little dressing-room in addition to her room and Lot's, while Steyn had hoisted himself up to the attic floor, doubtless so as not to be too near his wife. And, as she undressed, she reflected that, if Elly would consent to make shift, it might just be possible: she would give up her present big room, with the three windows, to Lot and Elly; she, oh, she could sleep in what was now Lot's little room: what did she care? If only children did not come too quickly! Oh, if only she did not lose Lot altogether! He asked her why he had proposed to Elly! He asked it in his usual halfjesting way; but it was not nice of him to ask it: she was glad that she had answered quietly and not worked herself into a temper. Oh, the pain, the physical pain which she sometimes suffered from that thorn in her heart's flesh, because of love, affection, caresses even, that went out to another! And sadly, pitying herself, she got into bed. The room was empty around her and unhomely: the bedroom of a woman who does not care for all the trifles of comfort and the vanities of the toilet and whose great joy always was to long for the love and caresses of those whom she found attractive, because of the once—often secret—wave of passion that flowed between them and her. For this she had neglected the whole of the other life of a wife, of a mother, even of a woman of the world and even of a smart woman, not caring for it, despising auxiliaries, feeling sure of her fascinations and very little of a mother by nature. Oh, she was old now and alone! And she lay lonely in her chilly bed; and that evening she had not even the consolation that Lot would come from the room next to hers to give her a good-night kiss in bed as he knew how, pettingly, a long, fond kiss on her forehead. At such times he would sit for a moment on the edge of her bed, have a last chat with her; and then, sometimes, passing his delicate hand over her cheek, he would say:

"Mamma, what a soft skin you have!"

When he came home now, he would think that she was asleep and would go to bed. She sighed: she felt so lonely. Above Lot's room—you could hear everything in that house—she heard Steyn pounding about. The maid also was going to bed now; out of her own bed Ottilie listened to all those sounds: doors opening; shoes put outside; a basin emptied. It now became very still and she reflected what a good thing it was that she always chose old servants. She thought of it with a certain mischievous joy, glad that Steyn had no chance, with elderly servants. The house was now quiet for the night, though it was not yet eleven....

Had she been asleep? Why did she wake suddenly? What was that creaking on the stairs? Was it Lot coming home? Or was it Steyn sneaking out again? Was it Lot? Was it Steyn? Her heart thumped in her chest. And she got out of bed quickly and, before she knew what she was doing, opened the door and saw a match struck flickering in the hall....

"Is that you, Lot?"

"No, it's I."

"You, Frans?"

"Yes, what's the matter?"

His voice sounded irritated, because she had heard him.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going out."

"At this time of night?"

"Yes. I can't sleep. I'm going for a walk."

"You're going for a walk at this hour?"

"Yes."

"Frans, you're not faithful to me!"

"Oh, rot! Not faithful to you! Go back to bed."

"Frans, I Won't have you go out."

"Look here!"

"Do stay at home, Frans! Lot isn't back yet and I'm frightened, alone.

Do, Frans!"

Her voice sounded like that of a pleading child.

"I want some air."

"You want... "

She did not finish her sentence, suddenly choking with anger. On the top floor—she knew it—the old servant-maid was standing with her door ajar, laughing and grinning. She knew it. She felt stifled with rage, with nervous rage; she quivered all over her body, shivering in her nightdress. The hall-door had opened and shut. Steyn was outside; and she... she was still standing on the stairs above. She clenched her fists, she panted; she could have run after him, in her night-dress; the big tears sprang from her child-eyes; but, ashamed because of the maid, she went back to her room.

She cried, cried very softly, so as not to let the maid hear, so that the maid should not have that added enjoyment. Oh, that pain, that sting, here, in her heart, a physical pain, a physical pain! No one who did not feel it as she did could know the physical pain which it gave her, the sort of pain one describes to a doctor. Where could Steyn be going? He was still so young, he still looked so well-set-up. And yet he was her husband, her husband! Oh, why had he not remained nice to her, old though she was? She never even felt the touch of his hand now! And how at one time she had felt that touch tingle through all her being! Oh, never again, never even a kiss, a kind kiss, such as old people still exchange at times!

She did not go to bed; she waited up. Would Steyn come back soon? Was that... was that he coming now? No, it was Lot: it was his key she heard, his lighter footstep.

And she opened the door:

"Lot!"

"Mummy, aren't you in bed yet?"

"No, dear. Lot, Lot, come here!"

He went into her room.

"Lot, Steyn is out."

"Out?"

"Yes, he went to his room first... and then I heard him go quietly down the stairs; then he went out of the hall-door, quietly."

"He didn't want to wake you, Mummy."

"Ah, but where has he gone to?"

"For a walk. He often does. It's very hot and close."

"Gone for a walk, Lot, gone for a walk? No, he's gone... "

She stood in front of him—he could see it by the candle-light—blazing with passion. Her little figure in the white night-dress was like that of a fury with the curly yellow hair, shot with grey, all shining; everything that was sweet in her seethed up into a raging temper, as though she were irritated to the utmost, and she felt an impulse suddenly to raise her hand and box Lot's ears with its small, quivering fingers for daring to defend Steyn. She controlled herself and controlled her wrath, but words of vulgar invective and burning reproach came foaming to her trembling lips.

"Come, Mummy, Mummy! Come!"

Lot tried to calm her. And he took her in his arms and patted her back, as one does to an excited child:

"Come, Mummy, come!"

She now burst into sobs. But he remonstrated with her gently, said that she was exaggerating, that she had been overwrought lately, that he absolutely refused to get married if she did not become calmer; and very prettily he flirted with her in this way and persuaded her to go to bed, tucked her in, shook up her pillows:

"Come, Mummy, go to sleep now and don't be silly. Let Steyn go for his walk in peace, don't think of Steyn, don't think of anything...."

She acquiesced, under the stroke of his delicate hand on her hair, her cheek.

"Will you go to sleep now, you silly Mummy?... I say, Mummy, what a soft skin you have!..."

[1] Pronounced "Lo," as in the French "Chariot."

[2] The Witte and the Plaats are the two leading clubs at the Hague.

[3] Dutch East Indies: Java.

[4] British India.

CHAPTER II

Elly Takma was very happy and looked better than she had done for a long time. Well, thought Cousin Adèle, who had long kept house for Grandpapa Takma—she was a Takma too and unmarried—well, a first little love-romance which a girl experiences when not much over twenty and which makes her feel unhappy, an engagement broken off with a fellow who used to go and see his mistress after spending the evening with his betrothed: a romance of that sort does not influence a girl's life; and, though Elly had moped for a while, Lot Pauws was making her happy and making her look better, with a glad laugh on her lips and a bright colour in her cheeks.

Cousin Adèle—Aunt Adèle, as Elly called her, Indian-fashion—buxom, full-figured, fresh and young-looking for her age, had nothing of a poor relation employed to do the housekeeping, but was altogether the capable mistress of the house, seeing to everything, caring for nothing but the details of her household and proud of her orderly home. She had never been in India and ruled Grandpapa's house with true Dutch conscientiousness, leaving Elly entirely to her hobby of the moment; for Elly had her hobbies, which she rode until she attained absolute perfection, after which she would take up a fresh one. At eighteen, she had been a famous tennis-player, winning medals in tournaments, well-known for her exquisite, powerful and graceful play, mentioned in all the sporting-papers. After achieving perfection in tennis, she had suddenly grown bored with it, hung up her racket, studded round with the medals, by a pink ribbon in her bedroom and begun to work zealously for the Charity Organization Society, doing much practical slumming and sick-visiting; they thought highly of her in the committee. One day, however, when a sick man showed her his leg with a hole in it, she fainted and considered that she had overstepped her philanthropic limits. She resigned the work; and, feeling a certain handiness quivering at the tips of her sensitive fingers, she started making her own hats and also modelling. She was successful in both pursuits: the hats were so pretty that she thought seriously of setting up as a milliner and working for her living. The modelling too was most charming: after the first few lessons, she was modelling from the life; and her head of A Beggar Boy was accepted for exhibition. Then Elly had fallen in love and was very much in love; her engagement lasted three months; then it was broken off; and Elly, who did nothing by halves, for all her varying interests, had suffered a great deal and faded and pined and been dangerously ill, until one day she recovered, with a feeling of melancholy as her only remembrance.

She was then twenty-three and had taken to writing. Under a pseudonym, she published her own engagement in the form of a short story: it was not a bad short story. Her new hobby brought her gradually into contact with Charles Pauws, who also wrote, mostly for the newspapers: articles, causeries . Elly was of opinion that she had soon reached her literary limits. After this short story, which had blossomed in her and blossomed out of her heart, she would never write anything more. She was twenty-three, she was old. She had lived her life, with different vicissitudes. Still there was something, there was Charles. Soft, weak, passably witty, with his mother's attractive eyes, with his fair hair carefully brushed, with his too pale blue ties, he was not the man of her dreams; and she still felt, sometimes very grievously, the sadness of her sorrow. But she was fond of him, she was very fond of him and she considered that he was wasting his talent on trivial work, on journalism, which he did with remarkable ease—after all, it was an art in itself, Charles would retort—whereas his two novels were so good; and he had attempted no serious work for the last ten years. And in this girl, with her thoroughness—within limits—there arose, on the now somewhat romantic ground of her melancholy and her sorrow, the mission to rouse Lot to work, to produce real work, fine work. She must work no longer for herself but for another, for Lot, who possessed so many good qualities, but did not cultivate them earnestly She saw more and more of him; she had him to tea; they talked, talked at great length; Lot, though not physically in love with her, thought it really pleasant to be with Elly, allowed himself to be stimulated, began a novel, stuck in the middle. She created in his mind the suggestion that he wanted her. And he proposed to her. She was very happy and he too, though they were not passionately in love. They were attracted by the prospect of being together, talking together, living, working, travelling together, in the smiling sympathy of their two souls: his a rather small, vain, cynical, artistic soul, with above all much kindly indulgence for others and a tinge of laughing bitterness and one great dread, which utterly swayed his soul, the dread of growing old; hers, at this moment, full of the serious thought of remaining true to her mission and giving her life a noble object by wrapping it up in another's.

Elly, that morning, was singing while the wind sent the early autumn leaves driving in a shower of golden sunlight along the window-panes. She was busy altering a winter hat, with a talent which she had not quite lost, when Cousin—Aunt—Adèle entered the room:

"Grandpapa has had a bad night; I kept on hearing him moving."

"Yes, then he's troubled with buzzings which are just like voices," said Elly. "Grandpapa is always hearing those voices, you know. Dr. Thielens looks upon them as a premonitory symptom of total deafness. Poor Grandad! I'll go to him at once... I must just finish my hat first: I want to wear it to-day. We are going to old Mrs. Dercksz and to Aunt Stefanie. ... Auntie, I am so happy. Lot is so nice. And he is so clever. I am certain that we shall be very happy. I want to travel a great deal. Lot loves travelling.... There is some talk of our living with Steyn and Ottilie I don't know what to say. I would rather we were by ourselves. Still, I don't know. I'm very fond of Mamma; and she's Lot's mother after all. But I like harmony around me; and Steyn and she quarrel. I call him Steyn, simply. Meneer is too stiff; and I can't call him Papa. Besides, Lot calls him Steyn too. It's difficult, that sort of household. Steyn himself would think it odd if I called him Papa.... Do you like the hat like this? I'll alter yours to-morrow. Look, it's an absolutely new hat!... I'll go to Grandpapa now Poor Grandad, so he's had a bad night?... "

She left the door open. Aunt Adèle looked round: the room was lumbered with hat-trimmings. The Beggar Boy smiled in a corner; the medals were studded round the racket, on its pink ribbon; the writing-table was tesselated with squares of note-paper.

"What a litter!" said Aunt Adèle.

She dared not touch the papers, though she would have liked to tidy them: she could not bear to see such a heap of scattered papers and she had to restrain her itching fingers. But she cleared up the hat-trimmings, quickly, and put them away in cardboard boxes. Then she went downstairs, where the maids were turning out the dining-room. Elly, flitting up the stairs, heard the blows beating on an arm-chair, felt them almost on her own back, ran still quicker up the stairs, to the next floor, where Grandpapa's room was. She stopped outside his door, recovered her breath, knocked, opened the door and went in with a calm step:

"How are you this morning, Grandad?"

The old gentleman sat at a knee-hole table, looking in a drawer; he locked it quietly when Elly entered. She went up and kissed him:

"I hear you did not sleep well?"

"No, child, I don't think I slept at all. But Grandad can do without sleep."

Grandpapa Takma was ninety-three: married late in life and his son married late made it possible for him to have a granddaughter of Elly's age. He looked younger, however, much younger, perhaps because he tactfully mingled a seeming indifference to his outward appearance with a really studied care. A thin garland of grey hair still fringed the ivory skull; the clean-shaven face was like a stained parchment, but the mouth, because of the artificial teeth, had retained its young and laughing outline and the eyes were a clear brown, bright and even keen behind his spectacles. His figure was small, slender and slight as a young man's; and a very short jacket hung over his slightly-arched and emaciated back: it was open in front and hung in folds behind. The hands, too large in proportion to the man's short stature, but delicately veined and neatly kept, trembled incessantly; and there was a jerk in the muscles of the neck that twitched the head at intervals. His tone was cheerful and lively, a little too genial not to be forced; and the words came slowly and well-weighed, however simple the things which they expressed. When he sat, he sat upright, on an ordinary chair, never huddled together, as though he were always on his guard; when he walked, he walked briskly, with very short steps of his stiff legs, so as not to betray their rheumatism. He had been an Indian civil servant, ending as a member of the Indian Council, and had been pensioned years ago; his conversation showed that he kept pace with politics, kept pace with colonial matters: he laughed at them, with mild irony. In his intercourse with others, who were always his juniors—for he had no contemporaries save old Mrs. Dercksz, née Dillenhof, who was ninety-seven, and Dr. Roelofsz, eighty-eight—in his intercourse he was kindly and condescending, realizing that the world must seem other to people even of sixty and seventy than it did to him; but the geniality was too great, was sometimes too exuberant not to be assumed and not to make people feel that he never thought as he spoke. He gave the impression of being a diplomatist who, himself always on his guard, was sounding another to find out what he knew. Sometimes, in his bright eyes, a spark shone behind the spectacles, as though he had suddenly been struck by something, a very acute perception; and the jerk of the neck would throw his head on one side, as though he suddenly heard something. His mouth would then distort itself into a laugh and he would hurriedly agree with whomever he was addressing.

What was most striking in him was that quick, tremulous lucidity in so very old a man. It was as though some strange capacity had sharpened his senses so that they remained sound and serviceable, for he still read a great deal, with glasses; he was sharp of hearing; he was particular in the matter of wine, with an unimpaired sense of smell; he could find things in the dark. Only, sometimes, in the midst of a conversation, it was as though an invincible drowsiness overcame him; and his eyes would suddenly stare glassily in front of him and he would fall asleep. They left him alone and had the civility not to let him know it; and, five minutes later, he would wake up, go on talking, oblivious of that momentary unconsciousness. The inward shock with which he had woke was visible to no one.

Elly went to see her grandfather in the morning, always for a minute.

"We are going to pay calls this afternoon," said Elly. "On the family. We have been nowhere yet."

"Not even to Grandmamma."

"We shall go to her first this afternoon. Grandad, we've been engaged three days. And you can't go troubling everybody with your happiness immediately. "

"And you are happy, child," Grandpapa began, genially.

"I think so.... "

"I'm sorry I can't keep you with me, you and Lot," he continued, lightly: he sometimes had an airy way of treating serious topics; and his thin voice then lacked emphasis. "But you see, I'm too old for that: a young household grafted on mine! Besides, to live by yourselves is more charming.... Baby, we never talk of money, you and I. As you know, Papa left nothing and he ran through your mother's money, lost it in different businesses in Java; they none of them succeeded. Your poor parents never had any luck. Well, Baby, I'm not a rich man, but I can live like this, on my Mauritskade, because an old man doesn't want much and Aunt Adèle manages things so cleverly. I've worked out that I can give you two hundred guilders a month. But that's all, child, that's all."

"But, Grandad, it's really very handsome...."

"Well, you can accept it from your grandfather. You're my heiress, after all, though you're not all alone; no, Grandfather has others: kind acquaintances, good friends.... It won't last very long now, child. You won't be rich, for my house is my only luxury. All the rest, as you know, is on an economical scale. But you will have enough, especially later on; and Lot appears to make a good bit. Oh, it's not money that matters to him, child: what matters to him is... is... "

"What, Grandad?"

A drowsiness suddenly overcame the old man. But, in a few minutes, he resumed:

"There is some talk of your living with Steyn...."

"Yes, but nothing's decided."

"Ottilie is nice, but hot-tempered," said the old gentleman, sunk in thought: he seemed to be thinking of other things, of more important things especially.

"If I do, it will be for Mamma's sake, Grandad, because she is so much attached to Lot. I would rather have my own little house. But we shall travel a good deal in any case. Lot says that he can travel cheaply."