The winter months dragged sadly and monotonously past, with their continual rains and no frost: even such snow as fell melted at once in the raw, damp atmosphere. But the wind blew all the time, kept on blowing from some mysterious cloud-realm, carrying the clouds with it, violet clouds and grey clouds, a never-ending succession, which came sailing over the trees in the Woods as though over the sea. And Constance followed them with her eyes, vaguely and dreamily, dreaming on and on in an endless reverie. The clouds sailed everlastingly on the wind; and the wind blew everlastingly, like an everlasting storm, not always raging, but always rustling, sometimes high up above the trees, sometimes straight through the trees themselves. Constance remained mostly at home and sat by her window during those short afternoons, which she lengthened out in the dim shadows of the fire-lit room, where at three o'clock dusk was falling . . . The everyday life went on, regularly and monotonously: when the weather was tolerable, Van der Welcke went bicycling; but for the rest he stayed upstairs a great deal, seldom going to the Witte or the Plaats, smoking, cursing inwardly because he was not rich enough to buy a "sewing-machine" of his own. Addie went to and fro between home and school; and it was he that enlivened the meals . . .
And Constance, in her drawing-room, sat at the window and gazed at the clouds, looked out at the rain. Through the silent monotony of her short, grey days a dream began to weave itself, as with a luminous thread, so that she was not oppressed by the sombre melancholy of the rainy winter. When Van der Welcke went upstairs, cursing because it was raining again and because he had nothing to do, she settled herself in her drawing-room—in that room in which she lived and which was tinged as it were with her own personality—and looked out at the clouds, at the rain. She sat dreaming. She smiled, wide-eyed. She liked the ever louring skies, the ever drifting clouds; and, though at times the gusty squalls still made her start with that sudden catch in her throat and breast, she loved the raging and rustling winds, listened to them, content for them to blow and blow, high above her head, her house, her trees—hers—till, blowing, they lost themselves in the infinities beyond . . . She had her work beside her, a book; but she did not sew, did not read: she dreamt . . . She smiled, looking out, looking up at the endlessly rolling skies . . . The clouds sailed by, sometimes high, sometimes low, above the houses, above the people's heads, like passions disdaining mankind: dank, monstrous passions riding arrogantly by upon the passion of the winds, from a far-off land of sheer passion, sullen and tempestuous; and the threatening cohorts rolled on, great and majestic, like Olympian deities towering above the petty human strife hidden under the roofs over which they passed, ever opening their mighty flood-gates . . . When Constance looked up at them, the vast, phantom monsters, coming she knew not whence and going she knew not whither, just shadowing across her life and followed by new monsters, no less vast and no less big with mystery, she was not afraid or sad, for she felt safe in her dream. The sombre skies had always attracted her, even in the old days, though they used to frighten her then, she did not know why; but now, now for the first time she smiled, because she felt safe. A soft radiance shone from her eyes, which gazed up at the phantom monsters. When the wind whistled, soughed, moaned and bellowed round the house, like a giant soul in pain, she remained as it were looking up at the wind, let her soul swell softly in unison with its dirges, like something that surrenders itself, small and weak but peaceful, to a mighty force. In her little house, as she gazed out at the dreary road, on these winter days, especially when it grew dark of an afternoon, the wind and the rain round about her seemed almost one element, vast and sad as life, which came from over the sea, which drifted away over the town and which continued to hold her and her house in its embrace . . .
She looked outside, she smiled. Sometimes she heard her husband's step in the passages, as he went through the house, grumbling, muttering, cursing, because he wanted to go out . . . Then she would think for a moment:
"He hasn't seen Marianne for days."
But then she would think no more about either of them; and her dream shone out before her again. The dream shone softly and unfalteringly, like a gentle, steady ray: a path of soft light that issued as it were from her eyes to the sombre, frowning clouds out yonder. Over the soft-shining path something seemed to be wafted from her outwards, upwards, far and wide and then back again, to where she sat . . . It was so strange that she smiled at it, closed her eyes; and, when she opened them, it was once more as though she saw her dream, that path of light, always . . . Her dream took no more definite shape and remained thus, a gentle, kindly glow, a pale, soft ray from her to the sombre skies . . . It was dusk now and she sat on, quite lost in the misty, shadowy darkness all around her, quite invisible in the black room; and her eyes continued to stare outside, at the last wan streaks in the darkening heavens . . . The road outside was black . . . A street-lamp shone out, throwing its harsh light upon a puddle . . .
Then she covered her face with her hands, ashamed because she had sat musing so long, ashamed especially because she had allowed herself to wander along that luminous thread, the path of her dream . . . She rang, had the lamps lit and waited for Addie, who would soon be home.
But those were the lonely afternoons . . . Sometimes in those wet, dull afternoons when it grew dark so early, she saw his figure pass the window, heard him ring. It was Brauws. She did not move and she heard him go upstairs first, when Van der Welcke was in. But, since he had recommenced his visits to their house, he had got into the way of saying to Van der Welcke, in half an hour or so:
"Now I'll go and pay my respects to your wife."
The first few times, Van der Welcke had gone with him to the drawing-room; but, now that Brauws had taken to calling in a more informal fashion, Van der Welcke stayed upstairs, let him go his own way. And, after the first shock which Brauws' ideas had produced in their house, his friendship became something cheering and comforting which both Van der Welcke and Constance continued to appreciate for their own and each other's sakes. He and Van Vreeswijck were now the only friends whom they both really liked, the two regular visitors to their otherwise lonely house. And for that reason Van der Welcke let Brauws go to Constance alone, staying away, never entering his wife's drawing-room unnecessarily . . . except when he heard the little bells of Marianne's voice and laugh.
Constance' heart beat when she heard Brauws' voice on the stairs:
"Now I'll go and pay my respects to your wife. She's at home, isn't she?"
"Sure to be, in this beastly weather."
She heard Brauws' step, which made the stairs creak as it came down them. Then she felt a violent emotion, of which she was secretly ashamed, ashamed for herself. For she was severe with herself: she was afraid of becoming ridiculous in her own eyes. When she felt her emotion grow too violent, she at once conjured up Addie's image: he was fourteen now. The mother of a son of fourteen! Then a smile of ironic indulgence would curve the dimples by her lips; and it was with the greatest composure that she welcomed Brauws:
"Isn't it dark early? But it's only half-past three and really too soon to light the lamp."
"There are times when twilight upsets me," he said, "and times when it makes me feel very calm and peaceful."
He sat down near her, contentedly, and his broad figure loomed darkly in the little room, among the other shadows. The street-lamps were already lighted outside, glittering harshly on the wet road.
"It's been awful weather lately."
"Yes, so I prefer to stay indoors."
"You're too much indoors."
"I go out whenever it's fine."
"You don't care for going out 'in all weathers.'"
"I like looking at the weather from here. It's a different sky every day . . ."
Then they talked on all sorts of subjects. He often spoke of Addie, with a sort of enthusiasm which he had conceived for the lad. Her face would glow with pride as she listened. And, almost involuntarily, she told him how the boy had always been a comfort to them, to Van der Welcke as well as to her. And, when she mentioned her husband's name, he often answered, as though with a touch of reproach:
"I'm very fond of Hans. He is a child; and still I'm fond of him . . ."
Then she would feel ashamed, because she had just had a wordy dispute with Van der Welcke—about nothing at all—and she would veer round and say:
"It can't be helped. We can not get on. We endure each other as well as we can. To separate would be too silly . . . and also very sad for Addie. He is fond of both of us."
And their conversation again turned on the boy. Then she had to tell him about Brussels and even about Rome.
"It's strange," he said. "When you were in Brussels . . . I was living at Schaerbeek."
"And we never met."
"No, never. And, when you and Hans went to the Riviera, I was there in the same year."
"Did you come often to Monte Carlo?"
"Once or twice, at any rate. Attracted by just that vivid contrast between the atmosphere out there, where money has no value, and my own ideas. It was a sort of self-inflicted torture. And we never saw each other there . . . And, when you were here, in the Hague, as a girl, I used often to come to the Hague and I even remember often passing your parents' house, where your mother still lives, in the Alexanderstraat, and reading your name on the door: Van Lowe . . ."
"We were destined never to meet," she said, trying to laugh softly; and in spite of herself her voice broke, as though sadly.
"No," he said, quietly, "we were destined not to meet."
"The fatality of meeting is sometimes very strange," she said.
"There are thousands and millions, in our lives . . ."
"Don't you think that we often, day after day, for months on end, pass quite close to somebody . . ."
"Somebody who, if we met him or her, would influence our lives? . . ."
"Yes, that's what I mean."
"I'm certain of it."
"It's curious to think of . . . In the street, sometimes, one's always meeting the same people, without knowing them."
"Yes, I know what you mean. In New York, when I was a tram-driver, there was a woman who always got into my car; and, without being in love with her, I used to think I should like to speak to her, to know her, to meet her . . ."
"And how often it is the other way round! I have met thousands of people and forgotten their names and what they said to me. They were like ghosts. That is how we meet people in society."
"Yes, it's all so futile . . ."
"You exchange names, exchange a few sentences . . . and nothing remains, not the slightest recollection . . ."
"Yes, it all vanishes."
"I was so often tired . . . of so many people, so many ghosts . . . I couldn't live like that now."
"Yet you have remained a society-woman."
"Oh, no, I am no longer that!"
And she told him how she had once thought of making her reappearance in Hague society; she told him about Van Naghel and Bertha.
"Are you on bad terms with your sister now?"
"Not on bad terms . . ."
"He died suddenly . . .?"
"Yes, quite suddenly. They had just had a dinner-party . . . It was a terrible blow for my sister. And I hear there are serious financial difficulties. It is all very sad . . . But this doesn't interest you. Tell me about yourself."
"Again?"
"It interests me."
"Tell me about your own life."
"I've just been telling you."
"Yes, about Rome and Brussels. Now tell me about Buitenzorg."
"Why about that?"
"The childhood of my friends—I hope I may number you among my friends?—always interests me."
"About Buitenzorg? I don't remember anything . . . I was a little girl . . . There was nothing in particular . . ."
"Your brother Gerrit . . ."
She turned pale, but he did not see it, in the dim room.
"What has he been saying?"
"Your brother Gerrit remembers it all. The other night, after your dinner here, he told me about it while we were smoking."
"Gerrit?" she said, anxiously.
"Yes: how prettily you used to play on the great boulders in the river . . ."
She flushed scarlet, in the friendly dusk:
"He's mad!" she said, harshly. "What does he want to talk about that for?"
He laughed:
"Mayn't he? He idolizes you . . . and he idolized you at that time . . ."
"He's always teasing me with those reminiscences . . . They're ridiculous now."
"Why?"
"Because I'm old. Those memories are pretty enough when you are young . . . When you grow older, you let them sleep . . . in the dead, silent years. For, when you're old, they become ridiculous."
Her voice sounded hard. He was silent.
"Don't you think I'm right?" she asked.
"Perhaps," he said, very gently. "Perhaps you are right. But it is a pity."
"Why?" she forced herself to ask.
He gave a very deep sigh:
"Because it reminds us of all that we lose as we grow older . . . even the right to our memories."
"The right to our memories," she echoed almost under her breath. And, in a firmer voice, she repeated, severely, "Certainly. When we grow older, we lose our right . . . There are memories to which we lose our right as we grow old . . ."
"Tell me," he said, "is it hard for a woman to grow old?"
"I don't know," she answered, softly. "I believe that I shall grow old, that I am growing old as it is, without finding it hard."
"But you're not old," he said.
"I am forty-three," she replied, "and my son is fourteen."
She was determined to show herself no mercy.
"And now tell me about yourself," she went on.
"Why should I?" he asked, almost dejectedly. "You would never understand me, however long I spoke. No, I can't speak about myself to-day."
"It's not only to-day: it's very often."
"Yes, very often. The idea suddenly comes to me . . . that everything has been of no use. That I have done nothing that was worth while. That my life ought to have been quite different . . . to be worth while."
"What do you mean by worth while?"
"Worth while for people, for humanity. It always obsessed me, after my games in the woods. You remember my telling you how I used to play in the woods?"
"Yes," she said, very softly.
"Tell me," he suddenly broke in. "Are those memories to which I have no right?"
"You are a man," said she.
"Have I more right to memories, as a man?"
"Why not . . . to these?" she said, softly.
"They do not make your years ridiculous . . . as mine do mine."
"Are you so much afraid . . . of ridicule?"
"Yes," she said, frankly. "I am as unwilling to be ashamed in my own eyes . . . as in those of the world."
"So you abdicate . . ."
"My youth," she said, gently.
He was silent. Then he said:
"I interrupted myself just now. I meant to tell you that, after my games as a child, it was always my obsession . . . to be something. To be somebody. To be a man. To be a man among men. That was when I was a boy of sixteen or seventeen. Afterwards, at the university, I was amazed at the childishness of Hans and Van Vreeswijck and the others. They never thought; I was always thinking . . . I worked hard, I wanted to know everything. When I knew a good deal, I said to myself, 'Why go on learning all this that others have thought out? Think things out for yourself!' . . . Then I had a feeling of utter helplessness . . . But I'm boring you."
"No," she said, impatiently.
"I felt utterly helpless . . . Then I said to myself, 'If you can't think things out, do something. Be somebody. Be a man. Work!' . . . Then I read Marx, Fourier, Saint-Simon: do you know them?"
"I've never read them," said she, "but I've heard their names often enough to follow you. Go on."
"When I had read them, I started thinking, I thought a great deal . . . and then I wanted to work. As a labourer. So as to understand all those who were destitute . . . God, how difficult words are! I simply can't speak to you about myself."
"And about Peace you speak . . . as if you were inspired!"
"About Peace . . . perhaps, but not about myself. I went to America, I became a workman. But the terrible thing was that I felt I was not a workman. I had money. I gave it all to the poor . . . nearly. But I kept just enough never to be hungry, to live a little more comfortably than my mates, to take a day's rest when I was tired, to buy meat and wine and medicines when I wanted them . . . to go to the theatre dressed as a gentleman. Do you understand? I was a Sunday workman. I was an amateur labourer. I remained a gentleman, a 'toff.' I come of a good middle-class family: well, over there, in America, while I was a workman, I remained—I became even more than I had been—an aristocrat. I felt that I was far above my fellow-workmen. I knew more than they, I knew a great deal: they could tell it by listening to me. I was finer-grained, more delicately constituted than they: they could tell it by looking at me. They regarded me as a wastrel who had been kicked out of doors, who had 'seen better days;' but they continued to think me a gentleman and I myself felt a gentleman, a 'toff.' I never became a proper workman. I should have liked to, so as to understand the workman thoroughly and afterwards, in the light of my knowledge, to work for his welfare, back in my own country, in my own station of life. But, though I was living among working people, I did not understand them. I shuddered involuntarily at their jokes, their oaths, their drinking, their friendship even. I remained a gentleman, a 'toff.' I remained of a different blood and a different culture. My ideas and my theories would have had me resemble my mates; but all my former life—my birth, my upbringing, my education—all my own and my parents' past, all my inherited instincts were against it. I simply could not fraternize with them. I kept on trying something different, thinking it was that that was amiss: a different sort of work, a different occupation. Nothing made any difference. I remained a harmless, inquisitive amateur; and just that settled conviction, that I could leave off at any time if I wished, was the reason why my life never became the profoundly serious thing which I would have had it. It remained amateurish. It became almost a mockery of the life of my mates. I was free and they were slaves. I was vigorous and they were worked to death. To me, after my brainwork, that manual and muscular labour came as a tonic. If I was overtired, I rested, left my job, looked for something else after a few weeks. The others would be sweated, right up to their old age, till they had yielded the last ounce of their working-power. I should work just as long as I took pleasure in it. I looked healthy and well, even though my face and hands became rough. I ate in proportion to the hardness of my work. And I thought: if they could all eat as I do, it would be all right. Then I felt ashamed of myself, distributed all my money, secretly, among the poor and lived solely on my wages . . . until I fell ill . . . and cured myself with my money. It became absurd. And never more so than when I, habitually well-fed, looked down upon my mates because their unalterable ideal appeared to be . . . to eat beef every day! Do they long for nothing better and higher and nobler, I thought, than to eat beef? It was easy for me to think like that and look down on them, I who ate beef whenever I wanted to! Well-fed, even though tired with my work, I could think of nobler things than beef. And yet . . . and yet, though I felt all this at the time, I still continued to despise them for their base ideal. That was because of my blood and my birth, but especially because of my superior training and education. And then I became very despondent and thought, 'I shall never feel myself their brother; I shall remain a gentleman, a "toff;" it is not my fault: it is the fault of everything, of all my past life.' . . . Then, suddenly, without any transition, I went back to Europe. I have lectured here . . . on Peace. In a year's time, perhaps, I shall be lecturing on War. I am still seeking. I no longer know anything. Properly speaking, I never did know anything. I seek and seek . . . But why have I talked to you at such length about myself? I am ashamed of myself, I am ashamed. Perhaps I have no right to go on seeking. A man seeks when he is young, does he not? When he has come to my age, which is the same as yours, he ought to have found and he has no right to go on seeking. And, if he hasn't found, then he looks back upon his life as one colossal failure, as one huge mistake—mistake upon mistake—and then things become hopeless, hopeless, hopeless . . ."
She was silent . . .
She thought of her own life, her small feminine life—the life of a small soul that had not thought and had not felt, that was only just beginning to feel and only just beginning at rare intervals to think—and she saw her own small life also wasting the years in mistake upon mistake.
"Oh," he said, in a voice filled with longing, "to have found what one might have gone on seeking for years! To have found, when young, happiness . . . for one's self . . . and for others! Oh, to be young, to be once more young! . . . And then to seek . . . and then to find when young . . . and to meet when young . . . and to be happy when young and to make others—everybody!—happy! . . . To be young, oh, to be young!"
"But you are not old," she said. "You are in the prime of life."
"I hate that phrase," he said, gloomily. "The prime of life occurs at my age in people who do not seek, but who have quietly travelled a definite, known path. Those are the people who, when they are my age, are in the prime of life. I am not: I have sought; I have never found. I now feel all the sadness of my wasted efforts; I now feel . . . old. I feel old. What more can I do now? Think a little more; try to keep abreast of modern thought and modern conditions; seek a little, like a blind man. And," with a bitter laugh, "I have even lost that right: the right to seek. You seek only when you are very young, or else it becomes absurd."
"You are echoing me," she said, in gentle reproach.
"But you were right, you were right. It is so. There is nothing left, at our age; not even our memories . . ."
"Our memories," she murmured, very softly.
"The memories of our childhood . . ."
"Of our childhood," she repeated.
"Not even that."
"Not even that," she repeated, as though hypnotized.
"No, there is nothing left . . . for us . . ."
The door opened suddenly: they started.
"Mamma, are you there?"
It was Addie.
"Yes, my boy . . ."
"I can't see you. It is quite dark."
"And here is Mr. Brauws."
"I can see nothing and nobody. May I light one of the lamps?"
"Yes, do."
He bustled through the room, hunted for matches, lit a lamp in the corner:
"That's it. Now at least I can see you."
He came nearer: a young, handsome, bright boy, with his good-looking, healthy face and his serious, blue eyes; broad and strong, shedding a note of joy in the melancholy room, which lit up softly with the glow of its one lamp, behind Constance. She smiled at him, drew him down beside her, put her arms round him while he kissed her:
"He is left!" she said, softly, with a glance at Brauws, referring to the last words which he had spoken.
He understood:
"Yes," he answered—and his gloom seemed suddenly to brighten into a sort of rueful gladness, a yearning hope that all was not yet lost, that his dreams might be realized not by myself, but by another, by Addie—and he repeated her own, radiant words, "Yes, yes, he is left!"
The boy did not understand, looked at them both by turns and smiled enquiringly, receiving only their smiles in answer . . .