The Twilight of the Souls Part 47

"Line ... and all our children...."

"Don't, Gerrit!"

"Won't they think ... if I die ... that I had no business to die ...

because I ought to have lived and been a father to them?..."

"But, Gerrit, you're not going to die!"

"I should like to go on living, Line ... for you, dear, and for the children. But I fear I'm very ill...."

"Will you see the doctor, Gerrit?..."

"No, no.... Stay like this, quietly, for a minute, on your husband's knees.... Line, Gerdy has become frightened of me. Tell me, Line, are you also frightened of your skeleton of a husband?"

"Gerrit, Gerrit, no! Gerdy isn't frightened ... and I ... I'm not frightened...."

"Put your arms round me."

She put her arms right round him. She hugged him, warmed him against herself, while she sat upon his knees:

"I'm not frightened, Gerrit. Why should I be frightened of you? Because you've been ill, because you've grown thin? Aren't you still my husband, whom I love, whom I have always loved? Sha'n't I nurse you till you are yourself again, till you're quite well ... and strong?... Oh, Gerrit, even if it should take weeks ... months ... a year! Gerrit, what is a year? In a year's time, you will be yourself again and well ... and strong ... and then we shall be happy once more ... and then our children will grow up...."

"Yes, dear ... if only it doesn't get dark...."

"Gerrit...."

"If only it doesn't get so dark!... Do you know that it got very dark around Ernst? It's getting lighter around him now ... but there's some twilight around him still ... even now. ... Do you know that it is getting dark around Mamma ... and that it will get darker and darker?...

Do you know that the twilight is closing around Bertha ... and that there's twilight around the others?... Line, darling, I'm frightened.

I'm frightened ... when it gets dark. As a child, I remember, I used to be frightened ... when it grew dark.... You've lit the gas now, you see, Line.... Is there only one light burning? The flame of a gas-jet ... and yet ... and yet it's getting dark...."

"Gerrit, my Gerrit, is the fever returning? Would you like to go to bed?"

"Yes, Line, I want to go to bed.... Put your baby to bed, Line ... it's tired, it's not well. Put it to bed, Line, and tuck the nice, warm clothes round its cold back ... and promise to stay and sit with it ...

till it's asleep ... till it's asleep.... Put it to bed, Line.... And, Line, if your baby ... if your baby dies ... if it dies ... will you promise never ... to think ... that it did not love you ... as much as it ought to?..."

She had gently forced him to rise from his chair and she opened the part.i.tion-door. He stood in the middle of the little room while she busied herself in the bedroom and lit the gas and then came back for him and helped him undress.

"It's getting dark ... it's getting dark," he muttered, s.h.i.+vering, while his teeth chattered with the cold.

And he felt that it was not the cold of fever, but a cold in his veins and his spine, because the beast had sucked all his blood and marrow with its voluptuous licks, had eaten him up from the days of his childhood, had devoured him until now, in the twilight, his soul shrank and withered in his body, which had no more sap to feed it....

"It's getting dark," he muttered.

CHAPTER XXVII

It was snowing heavily. For days the great snowflakes had been falling over the small town out of an infinite sky-land, out of infinite sky-plains of infinite snow. And, after all the gloom of the dark days that had been, the days under the grey skies of storm and rain, it was now snowing whiter and whiter out of a denser greyness of sky-plains and sky-land, flakes falling upon flakes in a soft white shroud of oblivion that enveloped houses and people. And, in that ever-falling snow from the great, grey infinity above the small town and the small people, the town seemed still smaller, with the outline of its houses now scarcely defined against the all-effacing oblivion, which fell and fell without ceasing, and the people also seemed still smaller, as they moved about the town or looked through the windows of their small houses at the white flakes descending from the grey infinity overhead.

For old Mrs. van Lowe the white days dragged on monotonously from Sunday to Sunday: only the Sunday gave her a glimpse of light; but the other days had become so white and blank, so white and blank in their twilight emptiness. Even though the children called to see her regularly, she no longer knew that they had been. It was only on Sundays that she missed them: when she did not see all of those whom she still carried in her mind gathered in her large rooms, rooms which not the largest fires now seemed able to warm, a mournful reproach swelled up in her heart; and her head nodded in sad understanding and protest against the sorrows of old age....

"But here is Ernst, Mamma, coming again as he used to," said Constance, leading Ernst by the hand to her mother.

He now came up once a week from Nunspeet, for the day, in order to reaccustom himself to all the familiar things at the Hague, to the houses and the people; and, though still a little shy, as usual, he had lost all his nervous restlessness and become quite calm.

"Ernst?" asked Mamma.

"Yes, Mamma, he is coming again as he used to."

"Has he been long away?"

"Yes, Mamma."

Light seemed to break upon the old woman and she smiled, becoming younger in her smile, now that she remembered. She took her son's hands and looked at Constance with unclouded eyes:

"Is he better now?"

"Yes, Mamma," said Constance.

"Are you better now, Ernst?"

"Yes, Mamma, I am much better."

She looked very glad, as though a flood of light were s.h.i.+ning around her:

"Don't you hear ... any of those ... of those strange things?"

"No, Mamma," he answered, smiling gently.

"And don't you see ... don't you see any ... of those strange things?"

"No, Mamma."

"That's good."

She said it with grateful, s.h.i.+ning eyes, the flood of light making everything very clear.

"I have been very strange, I believe," Ernst admitted, softly and shyly.

"That's all cured now, Ernst," said Constance.

"But Aunt Lot?" asked Mamma. "What's become of her ... and the girls?"

"They've gone to Java, Mamma."

"To Java?..."