Months had dragged by, when Gerrit, riding out with his squadron, had a meeting that gave him a shock. It was on the Koninginnegracht, one dank autumn morning, dull and dark at that early hour, as if it would not get light all day; the whole roadway was taken up by the horses, whose hoofs clatttered in rhythmical trot over the even cobbles; the maids, in their lilac-print dresses, hung out of the windows to look at the fine hussars. A closed cab came towards the squadron and had to pull up beside the pavement to let the horses pass. And, with a swift glance, Gerrit saw through the dimmed panes of the carriage the face of a woman with a pair of laughing eyes: two brown-gold sparks of laughter, lasting scarce two or three seconds, those two gleams of gay gold. The laughing eyes were all that he saw in the vague expanse of face, pale in the shadow of the cab, under the dark frame of a large hat; but that laughing glance gave him such a shock that he flushed purple, while his blood flew to his temples and set them throbbing as if he had taken a cocktail. He felt a stinging sensation in his neck; and the thought flashed through him:
"I'll be hanged if that wasn't Pauline! I'll be hanged if that wasn't Pauline! Can she be back at the Hague?"
But he pulled himself together, settled himself stiffly and firmly in the saddle and tried to forget his shock and the two brown-gold sparks of those laughing eyes. Well, suppose it were she: what about it? It was all so long ago; and did he not often come across the live memories of his past, looming up suddenly on his path, just like that, in the street, and did he not pass them with hardly a smile of reminiscence lurking under his moustache and just lingering in his glance? Suppose it were she: what then? Was he, who had brought all his old madness within respectable, middle-aged bounds, going to let himself be shocked by a pair of laughing eyes out of the past? . . . No, he felt himself quiet and strong, in the soberness of his later years. If his blood went coursing through his veins like that at the glance of a woman, at a memory looming up on his path, he couldn't help it. . . . Nevertheless, all that autumn day—a day which had opened dull and dark and which had remained dull and dark, with its heavy, clouded sky—was lighted for him by the two or three seconds' gay, golden gleam from those eyes. Yes, what eyes that girl Pauline had . . . Lord, what a pair of eyes! Eyes that laughed even when her mouth did not, eyes full of golden mockery, eyes which knew that they sent him raving mad with their glance, as if he were a brand which a spark from them set on fire! . . . And she knew it, she knew well enough that she sent him mad with her eyes! . . . Was she back at the Hague? At the time, she had suddenly gone to Paris and he had not seen her for years . . . for at least twelve years. He was twelve years older now; she was twelve years older. How rotten, that getting old, that wearing out of your miserable carcase, of the one body which you got in this world and which you took to the grave with you and which you couldn't change, as you change into a new uniform! . . . Well, his was still fit and strong; and Pauline's eyes laughed as they used to do. . . .
Twelve years? Come, he wouldn't think about it any longer! If he once started remembering everything that had happened years and years ago, the day would be too short for his recollections!
And, in the staidness of his riper years, he forgot the meeting on the Koninginnegracht and even thought that he might easily have been mistaken and that it wasn't Pauline at all. . . . He was no longer lonely in his house, now that his wife and the children filled the home once more; and he felt that he must always have it like this in future: the warmth of the snug home around him; that otherwise he would feel unhappy and queer and lonely, as in those months last summer. And the first Sunday evening at Mamma's sent a cheerful glow all through him; and yet it seemed empty here and there in the once crowded drawing-rooms. For the two old aunts no longer came: Mamma, it was true, had not held them accountable for the upset which they had caused with their shrill, childish voices on that most unfortunate evening, when poor Constance had been so excited as it was; Mamma had forced herself always to remain nice to them; but gradually they had fallen into their dotage altogether and never went out now, living in their little villa with a nurse; they had become very badly-behaved and fought and quarrelled with each other; they slept in one bed and refused each other a fair share of the sheets; and once Aunt Rine pushed Aunt Tine on the stairs, so that she fell down and hurt her old ribs severely. So they no longer came. And it was strange, but Gerrit missed the queer, old figures of those two antiquated spinsters, who used to sit, each with a great piece of crochet-work in her bony hands, on either side of the conservatory-doors all through the Sunday evening, now and again hissing into each other's ears spiteful observations which the children heard and understood and laughed at; looking with their greedy old eyes, sweet-toothed old ladies that they were, at the cakes and lemonade; consuming them at last, with gloating satisfaction; then getting up suddenly, both at the same time, and going downstairs, under the careful conduct of the little nieces, to the four-wheeler with the reliable driver, who always brought them safe home. The Sunday evenings were no longer the same, thought Gerrit, without those two characteristic, traditional figures, about whom they all cracked a lot of jokes, but who nevertheless had so long retained something of life's immutability and pathetic monotony . . . until suddenly the change came and the two figures disappeared. . . . They would go on living for years, perhaps, wrangling and quarrelling, clinging desperately to the world with their bony hands: for years, as though death couldn't get at them; but they would never sit there again, one by each of the conservatory-doors. . . .
But a great void had been caused by the dispersal of Bertha's little band. For Bertha never came to the Hague now; and all who had been to see her at Baarn were agreed that she was becoming very strange and sat in a very strange way at her window, almost without moving, as if, after her busy, stirring life, she, the society-woman, had suddenly, upon her husband's death, felt that there was no need to do anything more and had let that atmosphere of listlessness and apathy submerge her and become the element in which she vegetated. She hardly ever spoke, took no interest in anything, just sat and looked out of the window, never going outside the house; and, though she had the full use of her senses, she had lapsed into a sort of staring torpor, submitting to the passing of the years, the unnecessary, sombre years that would glide noiselessly over her soul, bringing with them the dreary twilight, unillumined by a ray of hope, in which her soul would sit, waiting for the coming darkness. . . . In that house of mourning, in her silent, passionless grief, she had kept no one with her but Marianne, though Marietje was to come home later. The family knew about Emilie and Henri now, for Emilie, proud of her new life, had been unable to hold her tongue, had bragged of what they were doing and how they were making money in Paris; and the whole family had been astounded and shocked at it. Adolphine and Cateau had made them all swear never, whatever they did, to let out that Emilie painted fans or that Henri had become a circus-clown! True, they had not been able to hide Emilie's fans from Mamma van Lowe, because Emilie herself had presented her grandmother with one; but that scandal about Henri the old woman fortunately had not heard: it might have given her a shock that would have been fatal. . . . Gerrit knew that people at the Hague were incessantly telling stories about Emilie and Henri and he would rather have told the thing out, so that people should know the truth; but the others, even Constance, implored him to hold his tongue and so he would hold his tongue with the rest, as if it concerned a disgraceful family-secret. . . .
Ernst, it is true, had never come regularly to the Sunday evenings; but none the less his absence—down at Nunspeet—cast a sad shadow. What was even sadder was that Aunt Lot still came with the girls, but was full of bitter lamentation, saying that things were going altogether wrong with the sugar and that these were r-r-rotten times. And, as a matter of fact, suddenly, one Sunday, Aunt came with much emotion and tears, the girls more resigned, good, simple souls that they were; and Aunt told in a torrent of words how they were as good as ruined—Uncle had sent cable after cable from Java—as good as ruined: they were leaving their big house at once; they already had in view a tiny little house at Duinoord; and they would manage there till better times came. It created great consternation in the family, where money never counted but had always been very useful; yet Gerrit, in spite of Aunt Lot's tragic attitude and the tearful voice in which she lamented her fate all through the evening, admired a certain keen practical sense in her; in the girls there was also an unruffled calm, a quiet determination to accept the situation sensibly, without keeping up the appearance of former luxury, and to retire into poverty with a modest resignation that left no room for false shame. . . . A tiny little house, one servant: yes, Herrit, but Aunt would ask him to nassi all the same, for there was no living without sambal, eh, Herrit? . . . And Gerrit admired it all, admired that practical notion of at once cutting your coat according to your cloth in spite of the tragedy of tears and gestures and exclamations of "Ye-es, kassian!"[1] And he said, speaking to Constance:
"Do you think that real Dutch people could ever behave like that? No, to begin with, they wouldn't trumpet it forth; then they would go quietly abroad; but good old Aunt Lot trumpets it forth and started being practical yesterday and isn't ashamed to move into a smaller house; and, as I live, she's already asking me to nassi!"
Yes, that was the good, old-fashioned East-Indian way; the simple soul, the simple views of life; the real thing, without show; the cordial hospitality surviving, even though there was no money left; and all this attracted Gerrit, for all Auntie's East-Indian accent, for all her look of a Hindu idol, with the capacious, rolling bosom and the brilliants as big as turnips. . . . And the three girls, no longer young—why had those good children never married, in "Gholland"?—so quiet and practical, laughing already at the thought of the one servant: they'd make their own beds; but Alima, of course, was remaining—dressed just like a lady, stays and all, splendid!—sharing prosperity and misfortune with her njonja,[2] just simply, without stopping for a moment to think whether she hadn't better look out for a better place.
"Yes, Constance, say what you like, it does me good, in this cold Dutch air of ours, a glimpse like that of the simple, warmhearted, old-Indian way!"
And, in spite of all, there were still cards and cakes on Sunday evenings; but, though Mamma stuck to it, though she was still the centre of her circle, though the children left her outside most minor quarrels and difficulties, she still seemed to feel that something was cracking and tearing and breaking. No, she could no longer deny it to herself; and her once bright old face had changed, had lost its cheerfulness and had come to wear, with those new wrinkles round the mouth, a melancholy, moping look: the family was a grandeur déchue!
And things were no better when Constance, making her voice as gentle and sympathetic as she could, spoke to her about Addie; and, on one of those Sunday evenings, the old woman said to Van der Welcke, in a harsh voice, which was beginning to tremble with the sound of broken harp-strings:
"So Addie . . . has changed his mind. Constance has told me."
It had been a great disappointment to Van der Welcke too, so great that he could not forgive Addie and would hardly speak to him. And he also shrugged his shoulders, angrily, as if he couldn't help it:
"What am I to say, Mamma? Addie is such a very determined boy. He spoke to his mother at Nunspeet and his mother agrees with him. I don't."
The old woman's head dropped to her breast and went nodding softly up and down.
"The older we become," she said, "the more disappointment we find in life. . . ."
She looked up; there was resentment in her eyes. She beckoned Addie to her, with that imperative gesture which she sometimes employed even to the oldest of her children.
The boy came:
"What is it, Grandmamma?"
She looked at him; and something within her at once grew softer, when she saw him standing before her, with a grave, gentle smile on his fair boyish face, the face which was at the same time so virile in its strength. Still, she shook her grey head, as though to say that she knew all about it; and there was reproach in her flickering eyes.
"Well, well," she said. "Mamma has been speaking to me, Addie. And Mamma tells me that you have changed your mind . . . that you want to be a doctor."
"Yes, Granny."
"Well, well . . . and Papa and Mamma and Grandmamma, who would so much have liked to see you make your way in the diplomatic service."
"Granny, really, I don't feel that I have the vocation."
"And as a doctor?"
"As a doctor, yes, Granny."
"Then I suppose it can't be helped, Addie," said the old woman; and she suddenly broke down and began to sob quietly.
Van der Welcke looked gloomy. The boy looked down upon them where he stood, in front of his father and his grandmother. He liked the old woman and he adored his father and had been hurt by his father's fit of sulkiness. But he couldn't help seeing that it was their vanity that was wounded; and, without wishing to be cruel, he couldn't help saying, very gently:
"Granny, Mamma understood. I should be so glad, Granny, if you and Papa could also understand. . . ."
But Van der Welcke's jealousy of Constance stabbed ruthlessly at his heart: he rose and moved to the card-table.
"Mamma understood, Addie?" the old lady repeated, resentfully. "Oh, Mamma knows that she can't refuse you anything, you see. Papa too; and now he's upset, poor Papa. . . . Our illusions become fewer and fewer, Addie, as we grow older; and therefore it's so terribly sad, dear, when we have to lose the very last of them. We had all placed our hopes in you, my boy."
"But, even if I don't go in for the diplomatic service, Granny, that's no reason why I . . ."
The old woman raised her hand almost angrily, imposing silence upon him:
"Diplomacy is the finest profession in the world," she said, sharply. "There's nothing above it. . . . It's just those new ideas, dear, which Granny can't keep up with and which make her so sad, because she doesn't understand them. . . ."
"Granny, I can't bear to see you crying like this."
He sat down beside her, took her hand, looked into her eyes. She mistook his gentleness:
"Won't you think it over, Addie?" she asked, softly and coaxingly.
"No, Granny," he said, in a calm, decided tone. "I can't do that."
"You mean, you won't."
"I can't, I mustn't, Granny."
"You mustn't?"
"No, Granny. Do try to realize, Granny dear, that I mustn't."
The old woman's head went up and down, nodding bitter reproaches. . . .
"Granny, may I promise you to try my hardest . . . to do you credit, one of these days . . . as a doctor?"
She gave an angry, contemptuous smile through her tears. He kissed her very tenderly. . . .
"Ah," he thought to himself, "how we all drag with us—every one of us—that burden of vanity in our souls . . . which prevents us from living, from really living! . . .