The Twilight of the Souls Part 6

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Malay: "Poor dear!"

CHAPTER III

Constance went to the Nieuwe Uitleg next morning; the landlady, shaking her head, let her in; Dr. van der Ouwe met her in the pa.s.sage:

"I thank you for coming, mevrouw. It won't do for Ernst to remain here any longer; I should like to take him down to Nunspeet, with one of you, as soon as possible, to-morrow. But it won't be an easy matter ... poor fellow!"

"I'll do my best," said Constance, doubtfully.

"Then I'll leave you alone with him. You won't be nervous? No, you're not nervous. He's quite quiet, poor fellow. Don't be afraid: I shall be near."

Constance went upstairs, with her heart thumping in her breast. She tapped softly at the door and received no answer:

"Ernst!" she called; and her voice was not very steady. "Ernst...."

But there was no reply.

She slowly opened the door. The door-handle grated into her very soul; and before entering she asked once more:

"Ernst.... May I come in?"

He still did not answer and she walked into the room. She had made up her mind to smile at once, to come up to him with a smile, so that the expression of her face might put her poor brother at his ease. And so she smiled as she entered, looking for him with kindly eyes, as though there were nothing at all out of the common.

But her smile seemed to freeze on her lips when she saw him sitting huddled in a corner of the room, in a flannel s.h.i.+rt and an old pair of trousers, with his long hair hanging unkempt. Nevertheless she controlled herself and said, in as natural a tone as she could command:

"Good-morning, Ernst. I've come to see how you are."

He looked at her suspiciously from his corner and asked:

"Why?"

"Because I heard that you were not well. So I thought I would see how you were getting on."

"I'm not ill," he said, in a low voice.

"Why are you sitting in that corner, Ernst? Are you comfortable there?"

"Ss.h.!.+" he said. "They're asleep. Don't speak too loud."

"No. But I may talk quietly, mayn't I, Ernst?... Can't you get up from your chair? For there's no room there to sit beside you. Come, dear, won't you get up?"

And she smiled and held out both her hands to him.

He smiled back and said:

"Ss.h.!.+ Don't wake them."

"No, no. But do get up."

He gave way at last and, grasping her hands warily, allowed her to pull him up, out of his corner, and once more said, earnestly:

"You must promise me not to wake them. All my visitors wake them, the brutes! The doctor woke them too."

"No, Ernst, we'll let them sleep. There, it's nice of you to have got up. Shall we sit down here?"

"Yes. Why have you come? You never come to see me...."

There was in his words an unconscious reproach that startled her. It was quite true: she never came to see him. Since that first time, eighteen months ago, when he had asked her to his rooms on her return to Holland, the day when she had lunched here with him, when he had toasted her with two fingers of champagne out of a quaint old gla.s.s, she had never once been back. She reproached herself for it now: she, who did feel all that affection for her family, why had she left that brother to himself, as all the others did, just because he was queer? If she had overcome that vague feeling of distaste, almost of repugnance; if she had felt for him always as she suddenly felt for him now, perhaps he would not have been so self-centred, perhaps he would have retained his sanity.

"No, Ernst," she confessed, "I never came to see you. It wasn't nice of me, was it?"

"No, it wasn't nice of you," he said. "For I'm very fond of you, Constance."

Her heart began to fail her. Her breath came in gasps; her eyes filled with tears. She put her arm over his shoulder and, without restraining her emotion, she cried:

"Did we all leave you so much alone, Ernst?"

"No," he said, quietly, "I am never alone. They are all of them around me, always. There are some of every century. Sometimes they are magnificently dressed and sing with exquisite voices. But latterly,"

mournfully shaking his head, "latterly they have not been like that.

They are all grey, like ghosts; they no longer sing their beautiful tunes; they weep and wail and gnash their teeth. They used to come out into the middle of the room ... and laugh and sing and glitter. But now, oh, Constance, I don't know what they suffer, but they suffer something terrible ... a purgatory! They crowd round me, they suffocate me, till I can't draw my breath.... Hush, there they are, waking again!..."

"No, Ernst, no, Ernst, they're asleep!"

He turned to her with a knowing laugh:

"Yes," he whispered, "you are kind, you love them, you are sorry for them ... you let them sleep ... you don't wake them...."

And they sat quietly together for a moment, without speaking, she with her arm round his shoulder.

"What a lot of pretty things you have, Ernst!" she said, looking round the room.

"Yes," he said, "I collected them ... gradually, very gradually. There was one in every piece."

"Ernst," she said, gently, "perhaps it would be a good thing if you went to the country this summer."

At once he seemed to stiffen and shrink under her touch, as though all his limbs were becoming tense and stark:

"I won't leave here," he said.

"Ernst, it would be so good for you. Do you know Nunspeet?"

She felt him go rigid; and he looked at her angrily and harshly: