The Twilight of the Souls Part 28

She gave a shrill laugh:

"Yes," she said.

"Oh! And have you found a young, rich chap, as I advised you?"

Her laugh sounded still shriller and her golden eyes were full of mockery.

"Yes," she said.

Under his heavy melancholy, he was angry and jealous:

"So you don't want me any more?"

"Want you?... I shall certainly want you, but...."

"But what?"

"It's better for every reason, better not. You mustn't come back, Gerrit."

"Very well."

"And don't be angry, Gerrit."

"I'm not angry. So this evening was the last time?"

"Yes," she said.

They both looked at each other and both read in each other's eyes the memory of their last embrace: the stimulus of despair.

"Very well," he repeated, more gently.

"Good-bye, Gerrit."

"Good-bye, child."

She kissed him and he her. He was ready to go. Suddenly he remembered that he had never given her anything except on that first evening in the Woods, a ten-guilder piece and two rixdollars:

"Pauline," he said, "I should like to give you something. I should like to send you something. What may I give you?"

"I don't mind having something ... but then you mustn't refuse it me...."

"Unless it's impossible...."

"If it's not possible ... then I won't have anything."

"What is it you'd like?"

"You're sure to have a photograph ... a group ... of your children...."

"Do you want that?" he asked, in surprise.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know; I'd like it."

"A photograph of my children?"

"Yes. If you haven't one ... or if you can't give it me ... then I don't want anything, Gerrit. And thank you, Gerrit."

"I'll see," he said, dully.

He kissed her once more:

"So good-bye, Pauline."

"Good-bye, Gerrit."

She kissed him hurriedly, almost drove him out of the room. It was ten o'clock in the evening. Gerrit, in the street outside, heaved a great sigh of relief. Yes, this was all right: he was rid of her now. It had not lasted very long; and the best part of it was that none of his brother-officers, of his friends or of his family had for a moment suspected that connection, for a moment noticed that the past, his memories, his youth had loomed up before him, haunting him and mocking him in Pauline, in her body, in her golden eyes. It had remained a secret; and what might have been a great annoyance in his life as husband and father had been no more than a momentary and unsuspected effort to force back what was long over and done with. It was now over and done with for ever. Oh, it was the first time and the last: never again would he allow himself to be entrapped by the haunting recollections of former years!... But how sad it was to reflect that all that past was really over and done with ... and that everything had been!

During the days and weeks that followed, he went about with heavy, heavy melancholy in his heavy soul. n.o.body noticed anything in him: at the barracks he bl.u.s.tered as usual; at home he romped with the children; he went with Adeline to take tea at Constance' and laughed at the tirades of Paul, who was daily becoming more and more of an elderly gentleman.

n.o.body noticed anything in him; and he himself thought it very strange that the eyes of the world never penetrated to the shuddering soul deep down within him, as though sickening in his great body, with its sham strength. Sick: was his soul sick? No, perhaps not: it was only shrinking into itself under the heavy, heavy melancholy. Sham strength: was his body weak? No, not his muscles ... but the worm was crawling about in his spine, the centipede was eating up his marrow.... And n.o.body in the wide world saw anything--of the centipede, of the worm, of all the horror of his life--even as n.o.body had seen anything of what had come about during the last few weeks between himself and his past: the last flare up of youth, Pauline.... n.o.body saw anything. Life itself seemed blind. It jogged on in the old, plodding way. There were the barracks, always the same: the horses, the men, his brother-officers.

There were his mother, his brothers and sisters. There were his wife and his children.... He saw himself reflected in the blind eyes of plodding life as a rough, kindly fellow, a good officer, a big, fair-haired man, just a little grey, a good sort to his wife, a good father to his children.... Lord, how good he was, reflected in the blind eyes of plodding life!... But there was nothing good about him and he was quite different from what he seemed. He had always been different from what he seemed. Oh, idiot people! Oh, blind, idiot life!

CHAPTER XVI

It was a steadily grey and rainy winter. A winter without frost, but with endless, endless rains, with a firmament of everlasting clouds hanging over the small, murky town, over the flooded streets, through which the gloomy people hurried under the little roofs of their umbrellas, clouds so preternaturally big and heavy that everything seemed to cower beneath their menace, as though the end of the world were slowly approaching. Black-grey were those everlasting clouds; and it seemed as if they cast the shadow of their menace from the first hour of the day; and so short were the days that it was as though it were eternal night and as though the sun had lost itself very far away, circled from the small human world, circled very far behind the immeasurable world of the clouds and the endless firmaments. And, las.h.i.+ng, ever las.h.i.+ng, the whips of the rain beat down, wielded by the angry winds. Gloom and menace hung over the shuddering town and over the shuddering souls of the people. There were but few days of light around them.

The old grandmother sat gloomily at her window, nodding her head understandingly but reproachfully, because old age had not come in the nice and peaceful way which she had always, peacefully, hoped. The shadows of old age had gathered around her like a dark, dreary twilight, were already gathering closer and closer because she saw that, however hard she had tried, she had not been able to keep around her all that she loved. Was the supreme sorrow not coming nearer?... Just as the shadows were gathering around her, so they had already gathered around Bertha, over at Baarn, far away, too far for her, an old woman, to reach her; and, in a sudden flash of clairvoyance, she saw--though no one had ever told her--Bertha sitting at a window, listlessly, with her hands in her lap, saw her sitting and staring, even as she herself stared and sat. In a flash of clairvoyance she saw Karel and Cateau and Adolphine's little tribe far, far away from her, even though they lived in the same town and came regularly on Sunday evenings. Far away from her she saw Paul and Dorine. Very far away from her she saw her poor Ernst, whom she knew to be mad; and her old head nodded in understanding but yet in protest against the cruelty of life, which brought old age to her in such a sad guise and made it gather so darkly and menacingly around her loneliness.... Yes, there was Constance, there was Gerrit: she felt these two to be closest to her; but, though they were closer, it grew black around her, black under the black skies, with the glimpses of light, the flashes of clairvoyance, in the midst of them.... She saw--though no one had told her--a pale, thin girl, Marianne, pining away by Bertha's side.... She saw--though no one knew it--Emilie and Henri toiling in Paris, struggling with life, which came towards them hideous and horrible, bringing with it poverty, which they had never known. She saw it so clearly that she almost felt like speaking of it.... But, because they would not have believed her, she remained silent, enduring all that gloomy life even as the town endured the black skies and the las.h.i.+ng of the rain....

And yonder, far away, too far for her, she saw a woman, old like herself, dying. She saw her dying and by her bedside she saw Constance and she saw Addie. She saw it so clearly, between her eyes and the rain-streaks, as though flung upon the screen of the rain, that she felt like speaking of it, like crying it out.... But, because they would not have believed her, she remained silent, enduring all that gloomy life even as the town endured the black skies.

Then things grew dull around her and she saw nothing more; and the nodding head fell asleep upon her breast; and she sat sleeping, a black, silent figure, while the rain tapped as though with fingers--which would not tap her awake--at the panes of the conservatory-window at which she used to sit....

For hours she would sit thus alone in the shadow of her day and the shadow of her soul; and, when any of her children or friends called, they would find her in low spirits.

"Mamma, don't you feel lonely like this?" Adolphine asked, one afternoon. "We should all like to see you take a companion."

The old woman shook her head irritably:

"A companion? What for? Certainly not."

"Or have Dorine to live with you."