The Twilight of the Souls Part 18

And had it not always been so, from the time when he was a child, a boy, a young man? It gave him a melancholy sense of security, in these days; that he was living by himself, living a life taken up exclusively with his military duties, captain for the week, out very early, in the stables from six to seven seeing to the grooming of the horses, the cleaning of their boxes, thinking even more of the horses than of the men and caring more, hussar that he was, for a fresh, clean-smelling stable, with a litter of fresh, clean-smelling straw for the animals, than for the details of the troopers' mess. When the horses had been fed and watered came the ride with his squadron: drilling, target-practice or field-duty; then back again, handing in his report, finis.h.i.+ng any business in the squadron-office. This took up the whole morning; and in the exercise of those minor duties which he loved he had hardly time for thinking; and the officers for the week saw him as they had always seen him: the big, strong, yellow-haired Goth, brisk in his movements, flicking his whip against his riding-boots, broad-chested in his red-frogged uniform, his voice loud and domineering, with a note of kindliness under the bl.u.s.ter, his step quick and firm, giving an impression of energy.... That was all that officers and men saw of him; and he, for the time, was what he appeared, even to himself.... But then he would go home and bolt his sandwich, alone, and would ride his second charger, before going back to barracks in the evening, to supervise the foddering of the horses again. And it was during this afternoon interval that he was accustomed to pick out lonely roads, where he would meet none of his brother-officers; it was then, in that afternoon interval, when loneliness was all around him, that he saw himself and knew himself to be different from what he seemed to his acquaintances, different even to himself.... He saw himself again as a child in Java, a small boy playing with his sister Constance, on the great boulders in the river behind the palace at Buitenzorg. He could see her still in her white _baadje_,[1] with the red flowers at her temples. The thought of it gave him a curious sentimental pang, which made him melancholy, he did not know why. Then he saw himself grown a few years older and in love, perpetually in love, with the earnest amorousness of East-Indian schoolboys for girls of their own age, little _nonnas_[2] who learn so rapidly that they are women and that they attract the boys who ripen so rapidly into men under the burning sun. He, Gerrit, had always been in love, sometimes in romantic fas.h.i.+on, like the fairy princes in the stories which his little sister Constance used to tell him, but more often in rougher style, longing to satisfy his greedy mouth and greedy hands, the gluttonous senses of his l.u.s.ty, growing body, the body of a schoolboy and of a young man in one.... Oh, he still laughed at those recollections. He could see the school distinctly and, at play-time, the boys slyly looking through the reeds by the ditch-side at the schoolgirls' little carts; the young _nonnas_, in their white _baadjes_, peeping through the curtains of the rickshaw; the boys throwing them a kiss with quivering fingers, the girls throwing back the kiss to their boyish lovers in the reeds. And the a.s.signations in the great, dark gardens; the burning and glowing in the childish breast: oh, he remembered it all!... And he saw, as he went on his lonely ride--although he now laughed the laugh of his mature years--he saw before his eyes all the girls with whom he had been in love, as a schoolboy, at Buitenzorg....

There was one delicate, fair-skinned girl, very pale and very pretty.

She soon acquired the purple, laughing lips of the child who, by the time that she is thirteen, becomes a full-grown woman, with a ripe bust and riotous black curls.... And he also remembered a coffee-plantation in the hills, with a young married woman of barely twenty, who had taken him, a lad of fifteen, in her arms and had not released him until the boy had become a man. She had taught him the secret that was seething in his blood, throbbing in his veins, the secret that flushed his cheeks and took away his breath the moment he approached anything in the shape of a woman: the secret which the boy knew by hearsay but not by experience. And, ever since she taught it him, there had been in him, like a healthy hysteria or vigorous sensuality, a great l.u.s.tiness of his adolescent body; a surplus of strength which he must needs dissipate: he never came near a woman now but he at once swiftly appraised her arms, her swinging gait, her bust, the look in her eyes, the laugh on her lips; if he pa.s.sed her in the street, a quick glance printed her whole figure like a photograph on his sensual imagination until the next woman whom he met effaced it with her own, later print.

And, when he came to Holland as a young man and entered as a cadet at Breda, the need for l.u.s.t had developed into an overpowering obsession, as it were an unquenchable thirsting of those new-found senses which were fermenting in the young male body. Afterwards, as a young officer, he had known one quick sensual pa.s.sion after the other, taking each laughing enjoyment with all the carelessness of a youthful conqueror.

His strong const.i.tution and open-air life had enabled him to triumph like that with impunity, for years on end; but even at that time he had often suffered from sudden fits of depression, a secret, silent hopelessness, when everything seemed to be going black before him with needless, useless, menacing gloom. None of his fellow-officers saw it; none of his brothers or sisters. If he put in an appearance on one of those days, he was the same blunt, jovial soldier, the fair-haired, burly giant, rough and noisy, with the mock fierceness in his voice and the love of women in his brown, questing eyes, that went up and down, doing their appraising in a moment. But, secretly, there was within him so great a discontent with himself, that, as soon as he was alone, he would think:

"O G.o.d, what a rotten, filthy life!..."

Then he would fling himself on a couch, under his sword-rack, and wonder whether it was because he had drunk champagne yesterday, or because of something else ... something else ... a strong feeling of discontent. He did not know, but he made up his mind on one point, that he must knock off champagne: the d.a.m.ned fizzy stuff didn't suit him and he wouldn't drink it again. Indeed, he wouldn't drink much at all: no beer, no c.o.c.ktails, for it all flew straight to his temples, like a wave of blood, and throbbed there, madly. And so it came to a secret abstemiousness, of which he never spoke and which he calculated so cunningly that his friends, though they knew that he was no great drinker, did not know that he could not support a drink at all.

Sometimes he was fierce about it, allowed the drink to be poured out and emptied the gla.s.s under the table or broke it deliberately, knocked it over. That beastly drinking drove him mad; the other thing, on the contrary, kept him calm and cool, cleared his blood and his brain. It was after drinking, especially, that he felt depressed; after the other thing, he felt as if he were starting a new life. He was like that as a young officer, like that for years at Deventer, Venlo and the Hague; and his sudden rough outbursts--of insolent gaiety rather than anger--had given him his name as a big, bl.u.s.tering, brainless sort of a.s.s: a pane of gla.s.s smashed, without the slightest occasion; a quarrel with a friend, without occasion; a duel provoked for no reason and then a reconciliation effected, with the greatest difficulty, by the other officers; a need sometimes to go for houses and people like a madman and destroy and break things, more from a sheer animal instinct of wanton gaiety than from anger. When he was angry, he knew what he was doing; a kind of soft-heartedness prevented him from becoming really angry; it was only that madness of his which allowed him to go really far, letting himself be carried away by a strange intoxication, the same intoxication which he felt on horseback, when riding in a steeplechase: a longing to rave and rage and go too far and trample on everything under him, not out of malice but out of madness. That again cooled him, made him feel clear and calm: it was only the confounded drink that drove him mad....

But, as he grew older, he quieted down and mastered his hot blood, so that he was satisfied with a quiet _liaison_ with a little woman whom he went to see at regular intervals; and suddenly, in his secret fits of gloom and blackness, it was borne in upon him that he must get married, that it was that confounded living alone in rooms which gave him the deep-lying discontent which he never spoke about, for it would never have done to let the others notice things which they would think queer and of which he himself was at heart ashamed. And then, as he lay quietly, under his sword-rack, he would think, ah, to get married, to have a dear little wife ... and children, heaps of children ... and not to dissipate your substance for nothing!... But children ... Lord, Lord, how jolly, to have a whole tribe of children round you!... All that was kindly in him and friendly, not to say very romantic and extremely sentimental, now made him wax enthusiastic, under the sword-rack, the great, strong fellow who made the couch crack under him with his weight: Lord, Lord, how jolly! A whole tribe of children: not two or three, but a tribe, a tribe!... He smiled at the thought; after his riotous youth, it was a pleasant prospect: a nice little house, a home of his own, a dear little wife, children.... He talked to his mother about it; and she was delighted; because she had long been thinking that he ought to get married.... He was thirty-five now; yes, really, it would be a good thing to get married.... And she looked about and found Adeline for him: a good family, of French descent; connections in India, which was always nice; no money, but the Van Lowes never looked at money, though they hadn't so very much themselves, comparatively, professing a laughing contempt for the dross which, all the same, they could very well do with. A dear little girl, Adeline, young--she was thirteen years younger than her husband--fair-haired and placid: a regular little mother even as a girl. And Gerrit, though he had had a brief vision of other women, other girls, had thought:

"Oh, well, yes, a bit bread-and-b.u.t.tery; but you want a different sort for your wife than you do for your mistress!"

And, after all, she was round and plump, a little round ball, even as a girl, and nice to hug, even though she was a bit short and though her figure was badly deficient in the lines that set his blood tingling. He never for a moment fell in love with Adeline; but he saw her for what she was: his wife and the mother of his children, the little tribe for which he longed, because it was such a pity and almost mean to go dissipating your substance for nothing, especially when you were getting a bit older and sobering down. He would have a healthy little wife in Adeline; she would give him a healthy little tribe.... She, in her placid way, had come to love him, very simply, because he was big and good-looking and because he was offering her, a penniless girl, a modest position. They had got married and were still living in the same little house, quite a small house, but big enough to harbour what Gerrit had looked for from the start, one citizen of the world after the other.

He thought it rotten now to be alone; and, when Mamma had asked Adeline and the children to the little villa at Nunspeet, he had grumbled that they were leaving him all alone, but gave in: a few weeks in the country would do the wife and the children good; and he ran down once or twice to Nunspeet on Sundays. But the loneliness was bad for him; and the house that had suddenly become lifeless and silent oppressed him with a gloom which weighed upon him so heavily that he could not throw it off: a cursed heavy weight which bore down on his chest. Add to this that, in order not to be alone in the evenings, he allowed the other fellows, at whose mess he dined these days, to persuade him to go with them and have a drink at the Witte ... and it was those confounded drinks which finished him, simply finished him.... He was home by one, at the latest; but he felt, after those drinks, as if he had been up all night: he could not sleep; if he fell asleep at last, he kept on waking up; his heart bounced as if it were trying to reach his temples; he turned about and turned about, dabbed his face and wrists, lay down again, ended by splas.h.i.+ng cold water all over his body; then he crept into bed again, huddling himself up, with his knees drawn up to his chin, like a child; he stuffed the sheets into his ears, hid his watch, so as not to hear it ticking louder and louder, and at last went to sleep. When he woke in the early morning, whole landscapes of misty mountains pressed upon his brain, as though his poor head were the head of an Atlas supporting the world on his neck; persistent, slow-rolling, rocky avalanches crumbled all the way down his spine; and, with his legs stretched out wide in bed, he was so horribly depressed by that waking nightmare that he felt as if he could never make a move to get up, as if he could not stir his little finger. Then, at last, with a groan, he got up, cursing himself for drinking the d.a.m.ned stuff, took his bath, did his dumb-bell exercises, full of wondering admiration for his powerful arms and ingenuously thinking, if he was so strong in his muscles, why couldn't he carry off a drink or two?... Then he would look at his arms with the smiling vanity of a woman contemplating her beautiful curves; and, though his eyelids still hung heavy and round, too weary to roll up, the waking nightmare vanished under the influence of the water and the exercises and the misty mountains rose higher and higher till they vanished out of sight and the avalanche of rocks just tickled his back with a last gritty hail of pebbles. Then he became himself again: his orderly was waiting outside with his horse; in barracks he was the zealous captain, who carefully performed his military duties; none of the officers saw anything the matter with him....

But, though, of course, there were always the other fellows, loneliness seemed to envelop him, an almost tangible loneliness that pressed upon him, something that alarmed him. What was it this time, he would ask himself: was he ill, or had he the blues? Blast those moods, which you couldn't understand yourself! Was he ill, or had he the blues? Was it that beastly worm, rooting away in his carcase with its legs and eating up his marrow, or was he just thinking it rotten that his wife and children were away?... His brain was whirling with it all: first that rotten feeling and then the beastly worm. Sometimes it became such an obsession with him that, during his afternoon rides when he let his horse gallop wildly, he would see the thing wriggling along in front of him.... Then he would think of Ernst; and he felt sorry for the poor chap. What a queer thing it was, a diseased soul; and could he ... could he himself be diseased ... in his soul ... or at any rate in his body?... If he told people what he suspected, n.o.body would believe him.

Outwardly he was such a st.u.r.dy fellow, such a healthy animal. But if only they could take a peep inside him!... That wretched worm thing had been at it again, rooting away in his carcase with its beastly legs, its hundreds of legs, never leaving him in peace. Was it just a queer feeling, was it an illusion, like Ernst's hallucination ... or could it really be a live thing?... No, that was too ridiculous: it wasn't really alive.... And yet he remembered stories of people who always had headaches, headaches which nothing could cure; and, after their death, a nest of earwigs had been found swarming in their brains.... Imagine, if it should be some beastly insect! But no, it wasn't alive, it wasn't alive: he only called it a worm or centipede because that described the beastly sensation.... Should he go and see a doctor, some clever specialist at Amsterdam?... But what was he to say?

"Doctor, there's something crawling about inside my carcase like a beastly centipede!"

And the doctor would tell him to undress and would look at his carcase, still young and fresh, notwithstanding his earlier rackety life, with the muscles in good condition, the joints flexible, the chest broad, the lungs expanded, and would stare at him and think ... he would think ...

the specialist would think that he was mad! He would ask questions about his brothers and sisters ... and he would want to see Ernst ... and he would draw all sorts of learned conclusions, would the clever specialist.... No, hanged if he would go to a doctor; he would be ashamed to say:

"Doctor, there's something crawling about inside my carcase, like a beastly centipede."

He would be ashamed, absolute ashamed....

Or to say:

"Doctor, a gin-and-bitters upsets me."

"Well, captain," the doctor would say, "then you'd better not take a gin-and-bitters."

What was the use of going to a doctor, or even a specialist? He would not do it, he would _not_.... The best thing was to be abstemious, certainly not take any drinks ... and then grapple with that d.a.m.ned sensation--come, he wasn't a girl!--and not think about it, just stop thinking about it.... He must have a little distraction: he was leading such a lonely life these days. And, in that loneliness, without his wife and children, he began to think, with that incurable sentimentality which lay hidden deep down in him, of the comfort it was to belong to a large family, of the way it cheered you up.... Theirs had been a big family: but how it was scattering now! Bertha's little tribe had all broken up.... The others Mamma still kept together; and that Sunday evening was a capital inst.i.tution of Mamma's.... And so he would look in on Karel and Cateau towards dinner-time, hoping that they would ask him to stay and that for once he would not have to dine with the other fellows at the mess; but they did not ask him and, when it was nearly six, Gerrit, feeling almost uncomfortable, heaved his big body out of his chair and went and joined the others, reflecting that Karel and Cateau had little by little become utter strangers.... And, though he was not awfully keen on Adolphine, he sank his pride, invited himself to her house and stayed on for the whole evening; and he had to confess to himself that, upon his word, Adolphine was at her best in her own house and that the evening had not been so bad. Constance was at Baarn one day, at Nunspeet another; Van der Welcke was abroad; but Aunt Ruyvenaer was at the Hague--Uncle had gone to India--and Aunt Lot was always jolly:

"Yes, Herrit.... You showed a ghood nose to come here.... We're having _na.s.si_[3].... You'll stay and lhunch, take pot lhuck, eh, Herrit, what?"

He accepted gratefully, felt a sudden radiant glow inside him, just where loneliness gave him a feeling of icy cold. Yes, he would stay to lunch: he loved the East-Indian "rice-table," the way Aunt and Toetie made it; and he was secretly glad that Uncle was away, for he didn't like Uncle. In Aunt Lot's big, roomy house there was a sort of genial warmth that gave him a delicious sensation and almost left him weak, as though a smell of Java pervaded everything around, reminding him of his childhood. The house was full of j.a.panese porcelain; there were stuffed birds of paradise; under a big square gla.s.s cover was a whole _pa.s.ser_,[4] with tiny dolls as toys: little _warongs_,[5] little herds of cattle; there were Malay weapons on the walls; in Aunt's conservatory there were mats on the floor, as in Java; and Gerrit thought it fun to tease Alima, though she was dressed as a European, and he was only sorry that she was not _latta_,[6] because that reminded him of the _latta_ servants whom he used to tease, in Java, as a child:

"_Boeang, baboe; baboe, boeang_!"[7]

And from the j.a.panese porcelain and the birds of paradise and the _pa.s.ser_ there came that same smell, the smell that pervaded the whole house, a smell of _akar-w.a.n.gi_[8] and sandalwood; and, while Aunt was making "rice-table" and Alima running from the store-room to the kitchen with a basket full of bottles of Indian spices, Gerrit felt his mouth water:

"Aunt, we're going to have a great tuck-in!"

"_Allah_,[9] that boy Herrit!" chortled Aunt Lot, looking terribly fat, with her vast, pendulous bosom, wearing no stays, indoors, but with brilliants the size of turnips in her ears. "_Allah_, that Herrit: he'd murder his own father for _na.s.si_!"

And Aunt went into ecstasies: Aunt, turned into a mobile Hindu idol, ran from kitchen to cellar and store-room; Toetie ran too; Alima ran too.

The aromatic fragrance filled the whole house. There would be _petis_, black and scented and hot.

"Oh, for rice, with a dried fish, and _petis_!" Gerrit rhapsodized.

And Aunt laughed till the tears came, happy and glad because Gerrit was fond of _na.s.si_.

But there would also be _kroepoek_,[10] golden and crisp: the dried fish which, when heated, swelled up into brittle flakes, flakes that cracked in your fingers as you broke them and between your teeth as you crunched them; and then there would be _lodeh_,[11] with a creamy sauce full of floating vegetables and _tjabe_; and, to follow on the rice, Aunt had made _djedjonkong_, the Java sugar-cake, with the icing of white _maizena_[12] on the top; only Aunt was sorry that she could get no _santen_,[13] in "Gholland," and had to do the best she could with milk and cream....

And, when at last they sat down to table--Aunt, the three girls and Gerrit, the enthusiastic Gerrit--Aunt and the little cousins would laugh aloud:

"_Allah_, that boy Herrit!"

And they vied with one another who should help him, very carefully, so that the rice should not make a messy heap on his plate:

"No, _don't_ mix up your food!" Aunt Lot entreated. "That Dhutch _totok_[14] way of mixing up everything together: I can't stand it. Keep your rice clean, as clean as you can."

"Yes, Aunt, as maidenly as a young girl!" cried Gerrit, with sparkling eyes.

And Aunt again laughed till the tears came: too bhad, you know!

"And now your _lodeh_ in the little saucer ... that's it ... so-o! ...

And the _sambal_,[15] neatly on the edge of your plate: don't mix it up, Herrit ... Oh, that boy Herrit! ... Take a taste now: each _sambal_ with a spoonful of rice ... that's it ... so-o! ... The _kroepoek_ on the table-cloth ... that's it ... so-o! ... And now ghobble away ...

_Allah_, that boy Herrit: he'd murder his own father for _na.s.si_! ...

_Ka.s.sian_, Van Lowe!"

This last exclamation was meant to convey that Van Lowe, Gerrit's father, was dead long since and that Gerrit therefore could not murder his father for _na.s.si_ if he wanted to; and this time Aunt's eyes filled with tears of real emotion, not of laughter: _ka.s.sian_, Van Lowe!

Gerrit no longer felt lonely and ceased thinking of those queer feelings of his. He ate his rice with due respect, ate it slowly, so as to spin out the enjoyment as long as he could; but it was an effort, you know, with Aunt and Toetie and Dotje and Poppie vying with one another in turns:

"Herrit, have some more sambal-tomaat[16]... Herrit, fill up your _lodel_-saucer.... Herrit, take some _ketimoen_:[17] that's nice and cool, if your mouth's burning...."

And, though Gerrit's palate was on fire, though the _sambal_ rose to his temples till it congested his brain like a c.o.c.ktail, Gerrit went on eating, took another spoonful of clean rice, took another taste of black _petis_....

"Herrit, there's _djedjonkong_ coming!" Aunt warned him. "You won't leave me in the lurch with my _djedjonkong_, will you, Herrit?"

And Gerrit declared that Aunt was making heavy demands on his stomach, but that he would manage to leave room for the _djedjonkong_; and he banged one fist upon the other, to express that he would bang the _na.s.si_ together in his stomach, to make room for the sugar-cake. Aunt was radiant with pleasure, because Gerrit thought everything so delicious; and, after the _djedjonkong_, as Gerrit sat puffing and blowing, she suggested:

"Come, Herrit, _nappas_[18] a bit now!"

And Gerrit took the liberty of loosing a few b.u.t.tons of his uniform and dropped, with legs wide outstretched, into a wicker deck-chair, while Aunt invited him to be sure and not leave her in the lurch, next day, with the remnants.

The curry lunch at Aunt Lot's put Gerrit in good spirits for the whole day. He puffed and blew more in fun than in reality; he extolled the "rice-table," which is never heavy, the _tjabe_, which clears your blood and your brain; and it was as though Aunt's aromatic and very strong _sambals_ filled him with the joy of life, for that day, and also with a certain tenderness, because it all reminded him of his childhood at Buitenzorg. He took his afternoon ride quietly and pleasantly: excellent exercise, after the generous meal; arrived at the mess in good spirits and did not eat much, ga.s.sing about Aunt Lot's _na.s.si_; and, when he went home, at a reasonable hour in the evening, he asked himself:

"If I can have such good days, why should I have such rotten ones? I shall tell Line to give us _na.s.si_ every day; but Line can't do it as Aunt Lot does...."

Another day, Gerrit, with that sentimental longing for his own people, went and looked up Paul. He found him in his sitting-room, the place beautifully tidy, Paul lying on the sofa in a silk s.h.i.+rt and a white-flannel jacket, reading a modern novel. And Paul was very amiable, even allowed Gerrit to smoke a cigar: one of his own, for Paul did not smoke; only, he asked Gerrit not to make a mess with the ash and to throw the match into the wastepaper-basket at once, because he couldn't stand used matches about the place.