Small Souls Part 18

He now went up to her and kissed her, to please her:

"So you see, I must find Papa before seven o'clock, or he'll be angry,"

he said, keeping to the point.

"Well, shall we go round to the Witte together?" asked Paul.

"Oh, Uncle, that would be awfully good of you!"

"But I can't take you in, old chap!"

"No, Uncle, I'll wait outside, if you'll just look for Papa and tell him I want to speak to him."

"About a house you've taken for him!"

"No, don't be silly, Uncle."

"Good-bye, Constance; good-bye, Mamma: I'm going with my Nephew Addie ... to the Witte!"

And Paul stood up, choking with laughter, while Addie, afraid of missing his father, urged him to hurry.

"But, my dear," asked Mrs. van Lowe, "does your boy always take the law into his own hands like that?"

"Oh, Mamma, he is such a help to us!"

"But what a way to bring him up! That's not a boy of thirteen!"

"He is a very uncommon child. Where should we be if he didn't help us."

"So you think Van der Welcke will take the house near the Woods?"

"I'm sure of it!... And I'm quite sure too that, if Addie hadn't interfered, in another six months we should still be at the hotel!"

Next day, Van der Welcke, Constance and Addie went to have one more look at the house near the Woods.

And the house was taken, on a five years' lease.

CHAPTER XIII

While Constance went in and out of the shops, on her numberless errands, Paul never left her side:

"You see," he said, glad to have some one to listen to him for the first time in his life, "what I call human wretchedness is not confined to the social question, but exists everywhere, everywhere.... Look around you, in the street. It's raining; and people are walking under dripping umbrellas. Look at those women in front of us: wet skirts; muddy shoes, worn at heel, splas.h.i.+ng through the puddles: that is human wretchedness.... Look at that man over there: fat stomach; squinting eyes; gouty fingers clutching a shabby umbrella-handle: that is human wretchedness.... Everything that is ugly, squalid, muddy, drab, abnormal from any one point of view is human wretchedness.... Look at all those shops, where you buy--or don't buy--trashy manufactured things that have blood clinging to them, things which you are now pretending that you need for your house: that is human wretchedness.... It's all ugly; and the trail of a morbid civilization shows through it all.... Look around you, at those big, lying letters, those gaudy posters: that is human wretchedness. One cheats the other; and the whole thing has become such a matter of system that n.o.body is really taken in. It's the same with politics and religion as with a pound of sugar or a box of throat-lozenges. It is all humbug and all human wretchedness. And it drags on, piecemeal, through any average human life. It is all squalid, vulgar, insincere, selfish, ugly and full of human wretchedness. You think me a pessimist? Far from it. I am an idealist: in my own mind, I see everything in a rosy light. My power of imagination is so strong that I see everything white and gold and blue, like the marble statues of ancient temples, with their blue sky and golden sun. But, when I take leave of my imagination, then I see that everything is human wretchedness: wars; politics; the fat stomach of our friend yonder; the rain; and those pots and pans which you're wanting for your kitchen. All life, high and low, general and individual, in the ma.s.ses and in the cla.s.ses, is squalid, ugly, insincere and full of human wretchedness.

Look at that creature over there. What a miserable object: she is knock-kneed; her nose is a yard long; and the reason why she's in this filthy street is absurd! You think I don't know what I'm talking about, but I do. You never see anything beautiful except at the theatre, or in a book, or in a picture or an etching ... or in a great writer taking up his pen in defence of some outcast, as Zola did. But even then there is very little; and I at once see the human wretchedness through it all: the pose, the affectation--even that of soberness--the ambition to succeed, or to imitate some one or other. No one has a pure thought for purity's sake ... except a fellow like Zola. There's no beauty anywhere.

Have you ever noticed, in a train, or in a tram-car, or at a theatre, all those stupid, ugly faces, those crooked bodies, either too fat or too thin, one with a blink--like this--another with a squint--like that--this one with little hairs in his ears and that one with hands that make you sick. I don't know if you understand me; but all of this, with politics and the social question and those swarms of fat stomachs like our friend's just now: all of this is what I call human wretchedness.... I may write a book about it some day; but perhaps my book itself would be merely human wretchedness...."

In the meantime, he had been following his sister into three shops, one after the other, and she had managed to make her purchases in between his philosophizings. Whenever he saw his chance, he went on speaking, walking aslant beside her and talking into her ear, constantly having to move off the narrow pavements of the Hoogstraat and Veenestraat, losing her for a moment, because they were separated by a couple of carriages going at a foot-pace, but soon catching her up again. And he never lost the thread of his thoughts:

"I see that you have never reflected much, just like most women. What I say is quite new to you. You have not even observed much. You should observe, you should note all the queer things and people about you. Not that you and I ourselves are not queer and behave queerly. We can't help it. We too stumble along in our human wretchedness. But in your boy--it was quite attractive--I saw something funny; and yet he was very serious, much too serious for a child. Your boy, your boy is certainly a man of the future. Sometimes you see a thing like that in a child: then you say to yourself, 'He'll be this, he'll be that, he'll be the other, later on, when he grows up.' Do you follow me? No, I see you don't follow me. It's just your motherly vanity that feels flattered! Oh, how small you are! That is your human wretchedness! Don't you see the sunniness in your boy? No, you don't see it. I saw it at once. It was most attractive. Not one of Bertha's or Gerrit's or Adolphine's children has it. I can't explain it to you, you know, if you don't understand....

Yes, Sissy, life is not gay. You are forty-two and I am only thirty-five, but I find it no gayer than you do. I see through everything too clearly. I should never be able, consciously, to join in anything that had to do with human wretchedness, to join in rus.h.i.+ng after an unnecessary object. That is why I do nothing, except observe.

I'm a dilettante, you see. My income is enough to live on; and I loathe myself for playing the capitalist with a bit of money like that, like the middle-cla.s.ses; but I can't help it, you know. I ought to have been rich, very rich. I should have planted a castle on a mountain-top, amid the whiteness of the Alps, and I would have done a great deal to mend human wretchedness; but I would not have had it around me. I hate it so: I turn sick at the smell of a beggar; and meantime my heart breaks and I feel a physical compa.s.sion for the poor devil. It's the fault of my stomach or my nerves: they simply turn. It's very unfortunate when you're built that way.... How do you like my new overcoat, with the velvet turn-back cuffs? They're rather neat, aren't they? Pity they're getting wet. But it's good velvet, it doesn't spoil.... And yet, yesterday, I was really alarmed when I saw my back in two looking-gla.s.ses. I had no idea that I had such a rotten back, a back full of human wretchedness, in spite of my fine overcoat. The line went like that, with a sort of hump. It was terrible; it upset me for all the rest of the day. Then, in the evening, I sat down at my piano and played _Isolde's Liebestod_; and then it all pa.s.sed.... You can't make your little brother out, eh? A mad chap, you think, what? Yes, I am--almost--the maddest of the bunch. Bertha is very well-balanced; only, her eyes are always blinking.... Karel: what he might have become, I don't know; but now he is a round nought, kept in equilibrium by the roundness of Cateau with her owl's eyes.... Then you have Gerrit: he looks well-balanced, but isn't; puts on a jovial and genial air; and is a melancholy dreamer all the time. You don't believe it? You'll see it for yourself, when you know him better.... Next come you: well, you yourself tell me you've had a strange life with your two husbands....

After that, they all go down-hill: Ernst behaves very oddly; Dorine too is sometimes queer, with that everlasting trotting about; and I look at all their queerness and have a tile loose myself.... So you think we are a very sensible family? My dear Constance, we have a great crack running right through us, slanting, like that! But we are nice people and we don't let the world know. You wait: you'll see. And now, Sissy, here's your tram and here I leave you..."

He helped her in; and she saw him walk away under his umbrella, carefully drying with his handkerchief the velvet turn-back cuffs of his new overcoat.

CHAPTER XIV

Those were busy days at the Van Naghels, full of all kinds of excitement. Emilie was to be married in three weeks; and in a fortnight Van Naghel and Bertha expected their son Otto back from India, with his young wife and their two children.

Otto had taken his degree early, married and gone to Java at twenty-four with a billet in the civil service. But he was unable to stay, because his wife had fallen ill on the day of their arrival at Batavia and she had been ill ever since. It annoyed Van Naghel to see his son's career interrupted, even though he was still young and Van Naghel could easily find him another appointment in Holland. But he had always been against this match: a delicate Dutch girl, with no money. They would have to take charge of the children, in Holland; and, though he was well off, though his wife had some money of her own, though he had his salary as a minister, it was, all told, scarcely enough for the very expensive establishment which they kept up: the eldest son on his way home from India with his wife and two children; two boys, Frans and Henri, who had been at Leiden for over two years and who were obviously in no hurry to take their degrees; three girls who were all out, the second of whom was now going to be married; another boy, of sixteen, and a girl of fourteen; their _salon_, to gratify Van Naghel's ambition, an official _salon_, a meeting-place for members of the higher government-circles, while the diplomatic set just pa.s.sed through it; so expensive an establishment, from first to last, that Bertha had to work miracles of economy to keep things going on fifty thousand guilders, more or less, a year. And everything was growing dearer: the two boys, Frans and Henri, cost almost three times as much as Otto had cost; Emilie and Marianne, of whom the former had been out three years and the other just one, had much grander ideas, in every way, than Louise, who had been out six; the boys at Leiden were both to take part in the masque this year; Emilie was receiving a trousseau that cost three times as much as the one which Bertha had had in her day from Papa and Mamma van Lowe; Marianne must have her simplest dresses lined with silk; Karel, the schoolboy, a tall, thin, weakly lad, but nevertheless a member of all sorts of football-, cricket- and tennis-clubs, had an allowance for pocket-money that was positively ridiculous; and Bertha saw tendencies in her youngest girl that made her anxious for the future. And so, outwardly, it was a great house full of movement: Papa a minister, the girls presented at Court, the boys spending money l.u.s.tily; and, inwardly, there was many a despondent conversation between Van Naghel and Bertha as to how they could possibly economize: of course, Otto must be helped first; the boys, of course, must take their degrees first; the girls, of course, were bound to go out; and Karel, of course, was obliged to keep up his football- and cricket-clubs. They might give one dinner less each winter, but that was really the only thing. And, if the boys, after taking their degrees, were to cost as much money as Otto was costing now; if Louise and Marianne also got married and had to have the same trousseau as Emilie: if it was to go on like that, always and always, with never a moment for taking breath and saving a little: then they did not know what they were to do; for, let Bertha calculate as much as she pleased, the thing was not to be done on fifty thousand guilders a year.

Then, if Van Naghel lost his temper, he reproached Bertha, saying that it was all her fault, that she was a Van Lowe, that the Van Lowes had never been able to calculate, that the Van Lowes' own housekeeping had been run on much too extravagant a scale, in the old days; but Bertha, blinking her eyes unmoved, reminded him that he owed his career to Papa van Lowe, to Papa's connections in the years, following upon his term as governor-general, when he still had a great deal of influence in Holland; and she showed him her housekeeping-accounts, in which she had carefully made the different entries, telling him that, if he absolutely insisted upon living on the scale they did, it could not be done for less, with the best will in the world.... And, seeing no way out of it, they made friends again and did not mention the subject of money for another month; and, outwardly, it was the regular household of a minister of state, full of solid Dutch comfort, with a tinge of modernity superadded: the children very much up-to-date, but the parents, nevertheless, sensible people of weight and distinction, quite aware how far they themselves could go and how far they could let the children go. The real position was not even suspected by a soul. Bertha never spoke to anybody, not even to her mother, of anything that had the faintest connection with money. To their relations and friends, the house in the Bezuidenhout spread its broad front with such an air of solid dignity, the staircases, the drawing-rooms and dining-room with their stately, handsome furniture, the children's rooms--more modern in style, but still with no flimsy affectation of tawdry elegance--all made so great an impression of imperishable prosperity that no one could ever have suspected that the two parents sometimes sat reckoning up for hours at a time to see whether they could reduce their expenses by as much as a thousand guilders that month. In this house of theirs, notwithstanding all the bustle, the dinners, the approaching wedding, the approaching home-coming of the eldest son, for whom a set of rooms was being prepared on the top floor, everything seemed to go so methodically, without any trouble--busily, it is true, but quite harmoniously--that no one would ever have suspected the least difficulty. Mamma van Lowe was constantly at Bertha's during these days and even neglected Constance a little; but she loved this bustle: the alterations on the top floor; the fuss about the trousseau; the rehearsals of the wedding-theatricals; the long tables to be laid, the flowers to be arranged, the visits to be discussed; dresses brought home; the undergraduates constantly at the Hague, noisy, merry and young: the old woman loved all this; it reminded her of her own house in the old days; it was like a repet.i.tion of her young life: only, she thought, she herself had often worried about money, even though Van Lowe had been able to save during his term as governor-general, and Bertha was so entirely without financial cares!

How delightful that was! And she, as the grandmother, also interested herself in Emilie's trousseau; she gave her advice and never thought about money; she slowly climbed the stairs to the top floor, to see the nursery which had been got ready for her two great-grandchildren on the way home from India, proud of that fourth generation, delighting in that large family, that busy household, all that movement, which she missed so greatly in her own house, where her quiet life was interrupted only by those family-gatherings every Sunday evening. Yes, she loved being with Van Naghel and Bertha; she loved to see her son-in-law take a prominent place in society, as her husband had done in his time; she loved the solid, dignified, official house; and the modernity of the children, although now and again she would shake her head in disapproval, made her smile for all that, because she thought that people must go with the times and that Van Naghel and Bertha were very sensible not to hold the reins too tightly. It was true, there were manners which she did not like: that going out of young girls alone, letting themselves in at night with their latch-keys; but then it was only to a few personal friends, said Bertha, and it was impossible to make other arrangements. Yes, the old woman loved being here, in the house of her eldest daughter; and, though she cared for all her children, because they were her children, she felt more in her element at Bertha's than in the comfortable, middle-cla.s.s, selfish house of Karel and Cateau, whom she blamed for having no children; and, though, she also liked Gerrit and Adeline's younger household, with the children ranging from eight years down to ten months, a troop of fair-haired mites, things were too simple and everyday for her there, did not remind her of her ancient splendours; she could not stand Gerrit sometimes, when he made fun of his old mother for mentioning, quite casually, that she had met the Russian envoy at Bertha's. And going to Adolphine and Van Saetzema's always vexed her: it was as though she did not recognize her child in Adolphine, with her badly-arranged, common house and Adolphine so bitter and so envious and jealous of Bertha, especially now that Floortje was engaged and her trousseau, of course, could not be as fine as Emilie's. Yes, she went to Adolphine's and discussed the trousseau there also, but she did not care about it: not because it was simple--a trousseau could be very nice in spite of that--but because Adolphine was always so spiteful, with her perpetual "Yes, that's good enough for us; but, of course, at Bertha's!..." She felt herself a mother to all her children--had she a favourite? She thought not--but she was very fond of going to Bertha's, because she found her own past there.

And what the old woman loved above all things in Bertha's house was the mutual sympathy, the family-affection which she had always fostered in her own house, which she still fostered, thanks to the inst.i.tution of those Sunday evenings, to keep the children together at all costs. Yes, in Van Naghel and Bertha that sentiment, that constant thought for the children was very strong; and there was one thing which Mamma van Lowe had not done and which Bertha was doing, which was to receive the son again, after he had once left the house, now that he was returning with a sick wife and two little children. It touched her: oh, how good they were to their tribe; and what a thousand pities that that little doll-wife was so ill! And the children, too, had that same family-affection among themselves. Otto had always kept up a busy correspondence with his eldest sister, Louise, who was twenty-five and came next to him in age; the two Leiden boys were exceedingly nice to their three fas.h.i.+onable little sisters and Henri was even a little bit jealous because Emilie was engaged; only Karel was perhaps rather too much out of doors and away from the family-circle for so young a boy, with all his clubs and his importance; and, because of that, Marietje, the youngest girl, of fourteen, was left a good deal alone. And yet they all liked Marietje: her big brothers, the other girls.... Yes, that was the charming thing with all those children: the family-affection, the fondness for one another, the pride in the names of Van Lowe and Van Naghel, the refusal to suffer any outsider to say a word against a member of the family, even though criticism was not spared within the home itself. But that any acquaintance should dare to reflect upon a member of the family, that they would none of them permit. They had felt that fondness, that tenderness, even for Constance, because she was a sister. And the old lady remembered, in so far as concerned Constance, the philosophical reflexions of her youngest son, Paul; the trouble which Dorine had taken to a.s.semble all the brothers and sisters on that first Sunday-evening; the ready compliance of all her children, for, out of respect to her, none of them had criticized that erring sister in front of her. She saw it in all of them: the family-affection for one another. They all felt themselves to be brothers and sisters; they stood up for one another, even though there were differences of opinion sometimes and even jealousy; they felt united within the family-circle.

That was the crowning glory of her old age, as a mother and grandmother.

It represented to her a beautiful idea, a natural ideal, an illusion attained: a comfort for the peaceful declining years of the lonely woman in her big house. That she preferred to be lonely in her big house and would not have Dorine, nor Ernst, nor Paul to live with her was an eccentricity which in no way detracted from her cult of the beautiful idea, from her perfect happiness at seeing the ideal realized, the illusion attained. She had a happy old age. She had also had much sorrow in her big household, in spite of all her splendour, but not more than her natural share: money-troubles, because neither Van Lowe nor she was economical; two children lost, one after the other; while Constance'

false step was certainly a very heavy blow, under which she suspected that Van Lowe had really succ.u.mbed, suffering silently and incessantly because of the grief which his favourite daughter had caused him.... But she, though she too had suffered, had shown greater elasticity, had not counted all that sorrow for more than her human lot, such as might befall any large household. And that she now, in her extreme old age, had all her children gathered about her in the same town, in a close family-circle, in an affectionate family-life: this she considered a great happiness; she thanked G.o.d for it. She had no more religion of the church-going kind than was held to be correct in her circle, which was very different from the orthodox Calvinistic circle of a few old Hague families; but she was grateful to G.o.d in her heart. She thanked G.o.d for her happiness, for her happy old age. All was well, now that she had Constance back also, back with the others at the Hague. Next to Buitenzorg, the Hague had always been to her the ideal place of residence. The Court was there; and her husband had taught her to love splendour. There was an atmosphere of official eminence in their circle in which she took pleasure as in an element that had become natural to her and in which Van Naghel and Bertha also had attained their distinction and their high position. Karel had returned to the Hague, after burgomastering elsewhere; and in him she had her son back again, although, in her secret heart, she did not like Cateau. Gerrit, who had been a subaltern at Deventer and Venlo, was now a captain at the Hague.

And the other children had never left the Hague; she had always been able to keep them round her.

She was happy and she was not unthankful. She was even thankful that Otto was returning--although the reason, his wife's illness, was a sad one--because she would see her great-grandchildren. They were her first; she felt a new joy because of them, an unknown emotion. She had felt something like it when Otto himself was born, her first grandchild; but now that feeling was almost more intense, perhaps because it was a fourth generation, a continuation of the family, even though they were Van Naghels and not Van Lowes. She was a woman: she did not care so much about the name. Bertha was her daughter, Otto her grandson, his children her grandchildren. She traced them back in this way to herself and the sound of the name mattered less to her. They were her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren; and she loved them all, with one great love, with a clannish love. That she lived alone in her big house was because she was old and could bear bustle only when it was expected, when she could prepare for it. The Sunday evenings were bustling, but they did not tire her. But to have Paul or Dorine living with her, to be for ever hearing them going in and out would have worked on her nerves.

She wandered daily through all the rooms of the big house to see if everything was tidy and in its place. Dorine was slovenly; and Paul was anything but easy to get on with; and Ernst, with his collection of curiosities, she would never be able to have with her, because she was afraid of all the microbes that hang about those old things. But nevertheless she loved them all and she was glad that they lived at the Hague and that she saw them regularly. She was like that and no otherwise.

And she now came every day to Bertha's, waiting for Otto and his children, until Constance grew jealous and reproached her, saying that she never came to her new house near the Woods.

CHAPTER XV

The Van Naghels gave an evening-party at the Oude Doelen Hotel, two days subsequent to the signing of the marriage-contract between Emilie and Van Raven: a dinner, for relations and intimate friends, of nearly a hundred covers. After that, the young people were to do some theatricals; and, after that, there was a dance. Dinner was over; and Adolphine asked Uncle Ruyvenaer:

"Were you at their dinner-party two nights ago?"

"What dinner-party?"

"The day before yesterday, after the contract. They gave a dinner at their house. About sixty people. Only their smart friends and their Court set. We were not asked. Mamma went. But none of the brothers and sisters."

"I did not even know there was a dinner. We called in the afternoon to congratulate the bride and bridegroom."