CHAPTER XXX
Conviction had conquered doubt and reigned triumphant. When Constance awoke early that morning, she was full of proud, calm confidence, as though she knew the future positively. She hesitated to go to her husband in his room; and he seemed to avoid her too, for as early as seven o'clock she saw him, from her window, riding off on his bicycle. Since their conversation, she had not seen him, did not know what he thought; and it struck her that he was not dashing away, as he had done so often lately, like a madman, but that he pedalled along quietly, with a certain melancholy resignation in his face, which she just saw flickering past under his bicycling-cap.
She listened to hear if Addie was awake, but he seemed to be still asleep; also it was holiday-time. And she began to think of Van Vreeswijck and made up her mind to write to him, just a line, to ask him to come, a single line which however would at once allow him to read, between the letters, that Marianne could not love him . . . And, while thinking, with a tender pity for him amid her own calm certainty, she bit her pen, looked out of the window . . .
The August morning was already sunny at that hour: there was a blue sky with white, fleecy clouds, which passed like flocks of snowy sheep through a blue meadow; the wind urged the sheep before it, like an impetuous drover. And, while she searched for those difficult words, her mind recalled the night before and the lightning yonder, above the sea, which she divined in the distance . . . It was strange, but now, in that morning light, with that placid sky at which she gazed, thinking of Van Vreeswijck and how to tell him in a single, merciful word with that summer blue full of fleecy white, at which she was gazing so fixedly after the ecstasy and winged bliss that had uplifted her the night before it was as if her calm, proud confidence in her knowledge of the future was wavering . . . She did not know why, for after all she thought that Henri would consent to their divorcing . . .
They would be divorced . . .
And Marianne would . . .
Suddenly, she began to write. She wrote more than she intended to write: she now wrote the truth straight away, in an impulse of honesty, and at the end of her letter she asked Van Vreeswijck to call on her that evening.
She had just finished, when Addie came in. He kissed her and waited until she had signed her letter.
"Why aren't you bicycling with Papa?" she asked.
He said that his father had asked him to speak to her . . .
And now, sitting beside her, with her hand in his, he told her, without once mentioning Marianne's name, what Papa had said. His calm, almost cold, business-like words sobered her completely, while she continued pensively to look at the sky, which seemed now to be wearing a blue smile of ignorance and indifference . . . Suddenly it seemed to her as if she had been dreaming . . . Not that her thoughts took any definite form, for first the ideal vision whose realization had seemed so certain, then the morning doubts and now the disenchantment of the sober facts had all followed too swiftly upon one another; and she could not take it all in; she did not know what she thought. It only seemed to her as if she had been dreaming.
Automatically, she said:
"Perhaps it is better so."
She had not expected it!
She had never thought that Henri's answer would be the one which she now heard from the mouth of their son!
Did one ever know another person, though one lived with that person for years? Did she know her son, did she know herself?
But the boy held her hand affectionately.
And he read the stupefaction in her eyes:
"Tell me, honestly, Mamma. Are you disappointed?"
She was silent, gazed at the placid sky.
"Would you rather have started a fresh life . . . away from Papa?"
She bowed her head, let it rest upon his shoulder:
"Addie," she said.
She made an attempt to pick her words, but her honesty was once more too strong for her:
"Yes," she said, simply.
"Then you would rather have had it so . . . for your own sake?"
"I would rather have had it so, yes."
They were silent.
"I had even pictured it . . . like that," she said, presently.
"Shall I speak to Papa again then, Mamma? If I tell him that you had already been thinking of it . . ."
"You believe . . .?"
"He will agree."
"Do you think so?"
"If it means the happiness of both of you . . ."
"Tell me what Papa said."
"I can't remember exactly . . . Only Papa thought . . . that not to see me for six months at a time would be more than he could bear."
"Is that all that Papa said?"
"Yes."
But he gave just a smile of melancholy resignation; and his look told that that was not all. She understood. She understood that they had spoken of Marianne.
"So Papa . . ." she repeated.
"Would rather stay with us, Mamma."
"With us," she repeated. "We three together?"
"Yes."
"It means going on living . . . a lie," she said, in a blank voice.
"Then I will speak to Papa again."
"No, Addie."
"Why not? . . ."
"No, don't do that. Don't ask Papa . . . to think it over again. It is perhaps too late, after all; and besides . . . Papa is right. About you."
"About me?"
"He could not go six months without you. And I . . ."
"And you, Mamma . . ."
"I couldn't either."
"Yes, you could."
"No, I couldn't either."
She suddenly passed her hands along his face, along his shoulders, his knees, as though she wished to feel him, to feel the reality . . . the reality of her life. He . . . he was the real thing, the truth; but all the rest between her husband and her was falsehood, remained falsehood . . . because of people. Could they not even for Addie's sake purge that falsehood into truth? No, no, not even for him. Would falsehood then always cleave to them? . . .
"We are too small," she thought and murmured her thought aloud.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing . . . Very well, Addie . . . Tell Papa that it shall be as he says, that I am quite content . . . that I could not do without you either . . . for six months!"
She looked at him, looked into his serious blue eyes, as though she had forgotten him and were now remembering him for the first time. Six months . . . six months without him! The new life, the new paths, the new cities, on those far-off, new horizons . . . and six months . . . six months without Addie! . . .
Had she then been dreaming? Had she just been dazzled by that glittering vision? Was it just intoxication, ecstasy? Was it just glamour and enchantment? . . .
He left her. She dressed and went downstairs.
She felt as if she were back from a long journey and seeing her house again after an absence of months. Her movements were almost like those of a sleep-walker; the house seemed something remote and impersonal, though she had always loved it, looked after it, made it her beautiful home by a thousand intimate touches. She now went through the house mechanically performing her usual little housewifely duties, still half dreaming, in a condition of semi-consciousness. It was as if her thoughts were standing still, as if she no longer knew, nor for that matter thought, remembering only the night before, that lonely evening of inward conviction . . . The morning had dawned, placid, with its cloudless sky; Addie had come: she now knew what Henri thought. It surprised her just a little that Henri thought like that . . . and then she realized that, after all, he did not love Marianne very much . . . that he must love her less than Addie. Poor Marianne, she thought; and she reflected that women love more absolutely than men . . . She spoke to the servant, gave her orders, did all the actual, everyday things, in between her thoughts. And suddenly she looked deep down into herself, once more saw so completely into her own clear depths that she was startled at herself and shuddered. She saw that, if Henri had made the same proposal to her that she had made to him, she would have accepted it in her desire for happiness, for happiness with the man whom she loved and who—she felt it!—loved her. She saw that she would have accepted and that she would not have hesitated because of her son! . . . Her son! He was certain to be leaving them soon in any case . . . to seek his own life! . . . Her son! To provide him for a few years more with the paternal house, that wretched fabric of lies, which he, the boy, alone kept together . . . for his sake and for the sake of that joint falsehood, she would have to reject the new life of truth! . . . It was as if she were standing in a maze; but she was certain that she would not have hesitated in that maze, if the decision had been left to her . . . that she would have known how to take the path of simple honesty . . . that she would have elected to separate, in spite of Addie . . . that she loved her new life—and the stranger—more than her child!
She had learnt to know herself in that new atmosphere of pure truth; and now . . . now she saw so far into those translucent depths that she was frightened and shuddered as in the presence of something monstrous; for it seemed monstrous to her to place anything above her child, above the dear solace of so many years . . .
Just then Van der Welcke came home; she heard him put away his bicycle, go up the stairs . . . and then turn back, as if reflecting that he could no longer avoid his wife. He entered, abruptly. She, trembling, had sat down, because she felt on the verge of falling . . .
"Has Addie told you?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, in a low voice.
"And . . . you think it is the best thing? . . ."
"Yes . . . I do . . ."
"So everything remains . . ." he said, hesitatingly.
"As it was," she replied, almost inaudibly; and her voice hesitated also.
"He told you . . . the reason?" he went on.
"Yes."
"I could not do without him . . . all the time that he would be with you, Constance. And you couldn't do without the boy either, could you, while he was with me?"
"No," she said, automatically; and, as her voice failed her, she repeated, more firmly, "No, I should not be able to do without him."
At that moment, she did not know if she was speaking the truth or not. Only she had a vague sensation . . . as though that fair, unsullied truth were retreating a little farther from her . . . like a glittering cloud . . .
"Then we might try to be more patient with each other," he said. "But still I should like to tell you, Constance, that I appreciate your thought . . . your intention . . ."
"Yes," she said, vaguely.
"Your thought for me . . ."
"Yes."
But she now found it impossible to let that retreating truth slip still farther from her; and she said:
"I was thinking of myself also, Henri . . . but it was not clear to me what I thought . . . I don't quite know . . . Henri, it is better like this, for everything to remain . . . as it was."
"And we both of us love our boy."
"Yes, both of us . . ."
He saw her turn very pale as she leant back in her chair, her arms hanging limply beside her. He had a sudden impulse to say something kind, to give her a kiss; but at the same time he was conscious that neither his words nor his caress would reach her. And he thought, what was the good of it? They had no love for each other. They would remain strangers, in spite of all that they had felt for each other during these days: she suggesting for his happiness something dead against convention; he thrilling with genuine gratitude . . .
"Well, that is settled then," was all that he said in conclusion, quietly; and he went out, gently closing the door behind him.
She did not move, but sat there, gazing dully into space. Yes, she had counted her son a lesser thing than her new life! That was the simple truth, just as much as the new life itself . . . And now . . . now, as though her mind were wandering, she saw that new life like a crystal city around her, threatening to crack, to rend asunder, to be shattered in one mighty spasm of despair. Her eyes began to burn from staring into those distant, cruel thoughts. In her breast she felt a physical pain. The house, the room stifled her. She felt impelled to fly from that house, from the narrow circles, which whirled giddily around her, to fly from herself. She was so much perplexed in her own being, no longer knowing what was right, what was honest, what true . . . that she yearned for space and air. Her breast was wrung with grief and that gasping for breath. Still, she controlled herself, took up a hat, pinned it on and found the strength to say to the servant:
"Truitje, I am going out . . ."
She was outside now, in the road. She had become afraid of the loneliness of her room and of herself, a loneliness which in other ways had become so dear to her. Now she was seeking something more than spaciousness of air and forest; but the road, in which a few people were walking, made her keep herself under control. She turned down a side-path, went through the Woods. Here again there were people taking their morning stroll. . . . Suddenly, she gave a violent start: she saw Brauws, sitting on a bench. She felt as if she would faint; and, without knowing what she was doing, she turned round and walked back . . . By this time, she had lost all her self-command. He had seen her, however, and his hand had already gone up to his hat. Suddenly, she heard his step behind her; he came up with her:
"Is this how you run away from your friends?" he said, making an attempt to joke, but in obvious astonishment.
She looked at him; and he was struck with her confusion.
"Don't be angry," she said, frankly, "but I was startled at seeing you."
"I was not welcome," he said, roughly. "Forgive me, mevrouw. I ought not to have come after you. But I'm a tactless beggar in these matters. I am not one of your society-men."
"Don't be angry," she repeated, almost entreatingly. "Society indeed! I certainly showed myself no society-woman . . . to . . . unexpectedly to . . ."
She did not know what she wanted to say.
"To turn your back on me," he said, completing the sentence.
"To turn my back on you," she repeated.
"Well, now that I have said good-morning . . ."
He lifted his hat, moved as though to go back.
"Stay!" she entreated. "Walk a little way with me. Now that I happen to have met you . . ."
"I came back yesterday . . . I meant to call on you to-day or to-morrow . . ."
"Walk with me," she said, almost entreatingly. "I want to speak to you . . ."
"What about?"
"I suggested to Henri . . ."
She drew a deep breath; there were people passing. They were near the Ponds. She ceased speaking; and they walked on silently . . .
"I suggested to Henri," she repeated, at last, "that we should . . ."
The word died away on her lips, but he understood. They were both silent, both walked on without speaking. He led the way; and it seemed to her that they were making for a goal, she knew not where, which he would know . . .
At last, she said:
"I wanted . . . as you are our friend . . . to tell you . . ."
He was determined to make her say the word:
"You suggested what?"
"That we should be divorced . . ."
They walked on for some minutes. Suddenly, round about her, she saw the dunes, the distant sea, the sea which she had divined the night before, over which the pale gleams, the lightning-flashes had revealed themselves. Now, the sky overhead was revealed, a vague opal, with white clouds curling like steam . . .
"I suggested that we should be divorced," she repeated.
He drew a breath, in the salt breath of the sea, even as he had breathed in the Alps, when contemplating those ice-bound horizons. And he remembered . . . that vision . . . and the yearning . . . for the one soul . . . the meeting with which would have been a consolation amid the constant disappointment encountered with the many souls, the thousands . . . And a swift, keen hope seemed to flash before him . . . not only of having found at last . . . in silence . . . but of venturing to utter it . . . once; and so keen, so dazzling was the hope that at first he did not hear her say:
"But Henri . . . thinks it is better . . . not . . ."
"What?" he asked, as though deaf, as though blind.
She repeated:
"Henri thinks it is better not. . . . Because of our boy . . . of Addie . . ."
The keen hope had flashed for only a second, swiftly, with its dizzying rays . . .
Uttered it would never be . . . To have found in silence: alas, that was all illusion . . . a dream . . . when one is very young . . .
"He is right," he said, in a low voice.
"Is he right?" she asked, sadly. And, more firmly, she repeated, "Yes, he is right . . ."
"I should have been sorry . . . for Addie's sake," he said.
"Yes," she repeated, as though in a trance. "I should have been sorry for Addie's sake. But I had thought that I should be able to live at last—my God, at last!—in absolute truth and sincerity . . . and not in a narrow ring of convention, not in terror of people and what they may think absurd and cannot understand . . . and . . . and . . ."
"And . . . ?" he asked.
"And . . . in that thought, in that hope . . . I had forgotten my boy. And yet he is the reality!"
"And yet he . . . is the reality."
"And now I am sacrificing . . . the dream . . . the illusion ... to him."
"Yes . . . the dream . . . the illusion," he said, with a smile that was full of pain.
"It hurts me!" she confessed, with a sob. "Yesterday—oh, only yesterday, last night!—I thought that the dream, the illusion . . . was truth . . . But what for young people can be a dream, an illusion . . . which comes true . . ."
"Is at our age . . ."
"Absurd?" she asked, still wavering.
"Not absurd perhaps . . . but impossible. We go bent under too heavy a burden of the past to permit ourselves youthful dreams and illusions. We no longer have any right . . . even to memories . . ."
"I have some . . . from my childhood," she stammered, vaguely.
"There are no memories left for us," he said, gently, with his smile that was full of pain.
"No, there are none left for us," she repeated. And she confessed, "I have dreamed . . . and thought . . . too late. I . . . I have begun to live too late . . ."
"I," he said, "I thought . . . that I had lived; but I have done nothing . . . but seek . . ."
"You never found?"
"Perhaps . . . almost. But, when I had found . . . I was not allowed to put out my hand . . ."
"Because . . . of the past?" she asked, softly.
"And of the present. Because of what is and has younger, fresher rights than mine . . . which are no rights . . . but the forbidden illusions of an old man . . ."
"Not old . . ."
"Older every day. He alone is in the prime of life . . . who has found . . . or thinks that he has found . . ."
"Yes, that is so," she said; and her voice sounded like a wail. "I have begun to live too late. I could have lived . . . even now . . . perhaps; but it is all too late. I once told you . . . that I was abdicating my youth . . ."
"Once, months ago . . ."
"Since then, I have thought, dreamt, lived too much . . . not to feel young . . . for a few moments . . . But it was all an illusion . . . and it is all too late . . ."
They looked at each other. He bowed his head, in gentle acquiescence, with his smile that was full of pain:
"Yes, it is so," he said; and it was almost as if he were joking. "Come, let us be strong. I shall go on seeking . . . and you . . ."
"Oh, I have my boy!" she murmured. "He has always comforted me."
They walked back slowly and took leave of each other at the door, a friends' leave-taking.
"Will you come again soon?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said. "You know, you no sooner see me than I am gone . . . I may go to England in the autumn, to lecture on Peace. The world is full of mighty problems; and we . . . we are pigmies . . . in the tiny worlds of our own selves . . ."
"Yes . . . we are nothing . . ."
He left her; she was conscious of a sort of farewell in the pressure of his hand. She went in, with her head swimming; and her son was there. And she embraced him, as though asking his forgiveness.
"Addie," she said, softly, "Papa was right, Papa was right . . . I believe that I now know for certain, dear, that I know for certain that Papa was right . . . Oh, Addie, whatever I may lose . . . you will not let me lose you? . . ."