Old People and the Things that Pass/Chapter XXX
CHAPTER XXX
editTHE sunny days had come, at the end of April, in Naples; and Lot, from his room, across the green-lacquered palms of the Villa Nazionale, saw the sea stretch blue, a calm, straight, azure expanse, hazing away, farther towards the horizon, in a pearly mist, from which, in dreamy unreality, Castellamare stood out with brighter, square white patches....
He looked out of his high window, feeling a little tired after his walk with Steyn, who had just gone, after sitting with him for a long time. He had been glad to see Steyn, feeling lonely at the departure of old Mr. Pauws, who had gone back to Brussels after spending two months with Lot. Yes, the old gentleman had been unable to stand it: the scorching April heat in Naples was too much for him, whereas it sent Lot into the seventh heaven. Lot was quite well again. That had been a pleasant time with Papa: they had gone for long excursions in the Campaigna and latterly in the environs of Naples; and this constant living in the open air, without fatiguing himself, had done Lot a world of good: he felt himself growing stronger daily. Then old Pauws left him: Lot himself had insisted upon Papa's going, dreading that the sun-swept, southern spring, in Naples of all places, would affect the old gentleman's health, hale and hearty though he might be. And so old Pauws went back, regretting that he had to leave Lot by himself, but pleased with the time which they had spent together and with the harmony that existed between him and his son, who was so very different from him.
This was all because of Lot's character; he gave Lot full credit for it, for he himself was a brusque, somewhat rough, masterful man, but Lot, with his yielding gentleness and his not so very cynical laugh, smoothed away, with native ease, anything that might provoke a conflict or want of harmony between an old father and a son who was still young.
Yes, Lot was glad that Steyn had broken his journey and put in a day or two at Naples. Though Lot had acquaintances at Naples and he saw them regularly, he had found in Steyn something to remind him of home and his country and his family. It happened fortunately that Steyn arrived after Lot's father had left, so that there was no possibility of a painful meeting between these two husbands of his mother. And yet they had nothing to reproach each other with: "Mr." Trevelley came in between them! ...
But Lot was very tired after his talk with Steyn. It all whirled before his mind, it swam before his eyes, which gazed out at the white fairy-city, at Castellamare in the pearly distance.... Steyn had said so much to him, revealed to him so much that he did not know, so much that Lot would probably never have known but for Steyn, things to which he was a stranger, which were strange to him, but which nevertheless made him seize and grasp and understand all sorts of things, suddenly, suddenly: sensations experienced as a child, in the little house in the Nassaulaan, Grandmamma's house. ... Yes, Steyn, in the confidence arising from their association, after first lunching together, had told him of the letter which he had read, in the act of tearing it up, with Adèle Takma in the old gentleman's study; and Lot, in utter stupefaction, had heard everything: Lot now knew ... and thought that he alone knew, together with Steyn and Aunt Adèle.... How terrible, those passions of former days, of hatred, of love, of murder! He now saw, in that narrow drawing-room, each at a window, those two very old people sitting and waiting ... waiting ... waiting.... Now, now it had come, what they had so long waited for.... Now, now they were both dead.... Oh, to grow so old, under so heavy a life's secret: he could never do it, he thought it too terrible! ... And, gazing wearily into the pearly evening distance, which began to turn pink and purple in the reflection of the setting sun, he felt—he, the grandchild of those two murderers—felt dread descending upon him, gigantic, as a still invisible but already palpable, wide-winged shadow: the dread of old age. O God, O God, to grow so old, to wait so patiently, to see things pass so slowly! ... It took away his breath; and he shivered, closed the window, looked out through the closed window. ... Oh, he had not the passion that had filled those old people; his neutral-tinted soul would never let itself be tempted to any sort of passion; his disillusioned, nerveless, dilettante nature contemplated the violent things of this life with a slightly bitter little smile, thought them superfluous, asked itself, why? ... So heavy a life's secret he would never have to bear, no; but there was so much else—so much melancholy, so much silent suffering and loneliness—that, feeling the shadowy dread sink down upon him, he asked:
"O God, O my God, can I ever grow so old? So old as those two old people were? ... Is it possible that I shall slowly wither and fade, gradually dying and dragging myself along, always with that same gnawing at my heart, always with that same sorrow, a sorrow which I cannot yet utter to anybody, to anybody ... not even to Steyn ... because I will not judge, because I can not judge ... because Elly is right from her point of view ... because she lives in what she is now doing and would pine if she always remained with me, by whose side she feels herself to be useless ... aimless ... aimless? ..."
O God, no, let him not grow old, let him die young, die young and not, year after year, feel the dread pressing more and more heavily on his small, vain soul, his soul so childishly terrified of what was to come! ... Let him not, year after year, feel that dread gnawing more and more at his heart, like an animal eating his heart away, and let him not, for years and years on end, feel that silent sorrow weeping within him, never uttered or shown, not even to Elly, if she ever came back, because he would want to assure her with a smile that he understood her aspirations and respected them and approved and admired them!
Loneliness was all around him now: his father was gone, Steyn was gone; Elly was so far from him, in a sphere to which, despite her letters, he was so little able to follow her in thought, a sphere of terror and horror so great that he kept on asking himself:
"Can she do that? ... Has she the strength to keep it up? ... Those hospitals ... the din of the battlefield thundering in her ears ... the sufferings of the wounded ... their cries ... their blood: could she hear and see all that ... and devote herself ... and act? ..."
When he saw it looming up out of her hurried letters, it was so terrible a vision that he did not see Elly in it: she faded and passed into somebody else, he did not know her, hardly knew her even in the photograph which she had sent him and in which he vacantly looked for his wife among a number of other Red Cross nurses.... No, in this photograph she looked neither like him nor Mamma: she was herself this time, another, some one quite different.... The energy of her undreaming, harder eyes startled him: in this portrait he saw, in a sort of bewildered ecstasy, a willing, a striving perhaps to transcend the bounds which she already saw before her! ... Oh, was it possible that she might soon return, worn out, and fall asleep in his arms? Had he the right to wish it, for himself ... and for her? Ought he not rather to hope that she would persevere and live according to the career which she herself had chosen? Perhaps so ... but to him it was such an unspeakable grief that she was not there, that she was not by his side, she whom he had come to love as he never thought that he could love! ...
And this made everything so lonely around him. What were a few pleasant, intelligent, artistic friends at Naples, with whom he chatted and dined now and again at a restaurant? And beyond that there was nothing, nothing; and that ... that perhaps was how he would have to grow old: ninety-three, ninety-seven years old! Oh, how that dread shuddered, that shadowing dread, which would always grow colder and colder still, as he grew older! O God, no, no, let him die young, while still in the flower of his youth, though his life was morbid; let him die young! ...
Even Mamma was not with him now! She was in London: there lay her last letter; and in her angry written words she complained that Hugh was such a man for girls, always out with girls, leaving her alone! ... She saw John now and again, saw Mary now and again; but she suffered agonies because Hugh neglected her, though he always knew how to come to her when he wanted money! It was the first letter in which she expressed herself so angrily, unable to restrain herself, because she suffered so from the sting of jealousy in the flesh of her heart: jealousy because Hugh amused himself with other women, with girls, more than with his mother! And Lot pictured her, alone, spending a long, dreary evening in her room at the hotel, while Hugh was out, with his girls.... Poor Mamma! ... Was it beginning so early? But, now that she had Hugh, whom she worshipped, it would last as long as she had any money left ... and only then, when it was all finished, would she come back to him, to Lot ... and, if Elly had returned by that time, then she would be jealous of Elly!...
Yes, that would be the future, without a doubt ... Beyond a doubt, he had not seen Elly for the last time; beyond a doubt she would come back, wearied, and sleep, sleep off her weariness in his arms.... And he would see his mother again also: older, an older woman, worn out, penniless; and she would cry out her grief, cry out her grief in his arms.... And he, with a little laugh of disillusionment, would find a chaffing word of consolation ... and the days would drag by, the things would pass ... pass very, very slowly .... not full of red remorse and hatred, passion and murder, as they had passed for those two very old people ... but full of an inner canker, inner grief and inner, painful suffering, which he would never express and which would be his secret, his, his secret: an innocent secret, free from all crime and other scarlet things, but as torturing as a hidden, gnawing disease....
It was evening now. Well, he would not go out to look for his friends. He would stay indoors, sup off a couple of eggs.... It was late; and the best way to forget was to light the lamp cosily ... and to work, to work quietly, in his loneliness. ... Come! He had made the room look homely; there were green plants and white plaster casts and warm-coloured pieces of drapery; there were fine brown photographs on the walls; and he had a big table to write at and the lamp was burning nicely now, after spluttering a little at first.... Come, to work: his dilettante work, the work which he could do best.... To recast and rewrite those articles on the Medicis—O sweet memories of Florence!—that was his work for this evening. ... Come, every one must be the best judge of his destiny: Elly of hers, he of his; and that this was so was really not worth distressing yourself for all your life long. There were beautiful and interesting things left, especially in Italy; and spring in the south was such an undiluted joy..... Come, let him soak himself in it now, quietly and in solitude ... and work, work hard and forget. ... There was nothing like work: it took your thoughts off yourself and all those dreadful things; and, though you withered and faded in working, still you withered and faded with no time for repining.... And yet it was terrible, terrible; ... that one could become as old as Grandmamma had become ... as Mr. Takma had become! ... Well, suppose he wrote a novel: a novel about two old people like that ... and about the murder in Java?
He smiled and shook his head:
"No," he thought, almost speaking aloud, "it would be too romantic for me.... And then there are so many novels nowadays: I'll keep to my two.... That is enough, more than enough. Better by far rewrite the Medici series...."
And, as the chill of sunset was over and the starry night outside was growing sultry, he flung open the windows again, drew a deep breath and sat down to his big table, by his bright lamp.... His fair and delicate face bent low over his papers; and, so close to the lamp, it could be seen that he was growing very grey at the temples.