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 compassion 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 compassion, 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. . . .