The Later Life Part 17

"Yes, my boy, my Addie ... I'm frightened ... I'm frightened...."

"And shall your boy keep you safe, safe from the wind?"

"Yes, my darling, keep me safe!" she said, with a wan little laugh. "For I'm really, really frightened ... I've been sitting alone downstairs ... and it blew so, it blew so: the lamps blew and the shutters banged and I'm so frightened now!..."

The boy drew her on his knees and held her very tight:

"Silly Mummy! Are you really frightened?"

She made herself very small in his arms, between his knees, nestled up against him and repeated, as in a dream:

"Yes, I'm so frightened, I'm so frightened!..."

And, without a further glance at her husband sitting there clouded in the blue smoke of his cigarette, she as it were crept into the heart of her child, whispering, all pale and wan, with a wan smile and her eyes full of anxious wonder:

"I'm frightened, Addie! Save me! Protect me!..."

CHAPTER XIII

"I'm mad!" he thought, as, after a hasty meal at a restaurant in the town, he walked along the Hooge Weg to Scheveningen through the shrieking winter night.

The leafless branches lashed tragically to and fro, as though sweeping the scudding clouds; and the street-lamps seemed like ghostly eyes blinking here and there in the fitful darkness....

"I'm mad! Why did I tell her all that, I ... I who can never talk to women?"

He was walking against the wind, angry with himself and angry with the wind when it barred his way with its widespread hindering arms. The wind whistled very high in the air, along the topmost leafless boughs; and the boughs broke off, as though at the touch of angry fingers, and scattered all around him; and sometimes a heavier branch fell, black, right at his feet. He walked on--his legs were stronger than the wind barring his way, tugging at his flapping coat--walked with his hands in his pockets, his collar turned up, his hat pulled over his eyes; and he walked on and on without an object, only with an eager craving for the sea, for sea and air and wind, to blow and wash everything out of his brain, which otherwise would be sick with dreaming.... Was he still such a dreamer, even though all the rest of his life belied his dreams? What did he mean by suddenly going to that woman, apologizing to her that afternoon because he didn't know how to talk and then suddenly talking, talking like a boy, telling her things--shadowy things of the past--which he had never told to anybody, because they were not things to be told, because, once told, they ceased to exist?... What interest did she take in his childish games and his childish dreams?... He had probably bored her: perhaps she had laughed at him--the cynical little laugh of the society-woman--and at his really too-ridiculous simplicity, the simplicity of a man who had thought and worked and lived and who had yet always remained a child ... in certain little corners of his soul.... He was so much ashamed at the recollection of all that he had dared to say to her, so much ashamed of the irresistible impulse which had driven him to speak to her, at such length, of his childhood and his childish imaginings, that he was now--as though to regain mastery of himself after the strange spell of her presence--that he was now fighting with the wind, to make himself feel strong again and a man.... The wind clung howling to his body, dragged itself by his legs, struck him blinding blows in the face, but he walked on: his strong legs walked on, with a sharp, regular step, ever mightier than the wind, which he trod under foot and kicked out of his path....

"I don't know what it was," he thought, "but, once I was alone with her, I had ... I had to say it.... How can I be of any use in the world, when I am such a dreamer?... Women! Have women ever woven into my life anything beyond the most commonplace threads? Have I ever confided in a woman before, or felt that irresistible impulse to open my heart, as I did this afternoon, in that weak moment of enchantment? Why to her, why to her? Why not to others, before her, and why first to her?... Must my life always be this clumsy groping with dreams on one side and facts on the other? But why, why should I have spoken like that: what was the overpowering impulse that made me tell her those strange things, that made it impossible for me to do anything else? Are our actions then so independent of ourselves that we just behave according to the laws of the most secret forces in and above us?... Do I know what it was in me that made me speak like that, that compelled me to speak like that? It was like an irresistible temptation, it was like a path that sloped down to delectable valleys and it was as if angels or demons--I don't know which--pushed and pushed me and whispered, 'Tell it all ... and go down the path.... You'll see how beautiful it is, you'll see how beautiful it becomes!' She ... just listened, without speaking, without moving. What did she think? Nothing, most likely. She heard nothing, she felt nothing. If she's thinking of me now, she thinks of me as a madman, or at least a crank.... What is she? She has been a woman of the world, of just that world which I hate.... What has her life been? She married a man much older than herself, out of vanity. Then a moment of pa.s.sion, between her and Hans.... What else has there been, what else is there in her? Nothing! How utterly small they all are, these people who don't think, who don't live: who exist like dolls, with dolls' brains and dolls' souls, in a dolls' world! What am I doing among them? Oh, not that I'm big; not that I am worth more than they, but, if I am to do anything--for the world--I must live among real people, different people from them ... or I must live alone, wrapped in myself!... That has always been the everlasting seesaw: doing, dreaming, doing, dreaming.... But there has never been that temptation, that beckoning towards delectable valleys of oblivion and that luxury of allowing myself to be drawn along as though by soul-magnetism, by the strange sympathy of a woman's soul!... Is it then so, in reality! Is it merely a mirage of love? Love has never come into my life: have I ever known what it was? Is there one woman then, only one? Can we find, even late, like this?... Oh, I wish that this wind would blow all this uncertainty, all these vapourings out of my head and my heart ... and leave me strong and simple ... to act alone, to act alone!... And now I will not think about it any more...."

And he quickened his pace and fought more vigorously against the wind, with a wrestler's vigour, and, when at last he saw the sea, foaming pale under the black pall of cloud and roaring with a thousand voices, he thought:

"It all came from one moment of foolishness. It had no real existence. I spoke as I should not have spoken, but what I said was nothing and is being blown out of my heart and out of my head at this very moment...."

But, the next day, waking from a calm sleep, he asked himself:

"Is it not just the unutterable things in us that matter more than anything else to us ... and to those who made us divine them?..."

CHAPTER XIV

A day or two later, Marianne called:

"Auntie," she said, "I haven't seen you for days. What's the matter? Are you vexed with me?"

"Why, no, Marianne."

"Yes, there's something. You're cross with me. Tell me that you're not cross with me. I haven't dined with you for an age. You are vexed with me because I invited myself. Tell me that I'm mistaken, that you're not vexed with me. And do ask me to dinner again, one day.... It's such a busy time just now: parties, dinners, the Court ball the other night. It was very boring.... We never see you. You never call on us. Nor Uncle either. It's all through that Brauws man."

Constance started, with that strange nervous catch in her throat:

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"That old friend of Uncle's, who speaks on Peace. I've heard him: it was splendid, splendid. His speech was topping, I'm mad on Peace. But he takes possession of Uncle; the boys have seen them together twice, in a motor-car. It's all through Brauws that I never see anything of either of you.... I suppose he's been to dinner, too?"

"Once."

"I'm jealous, Auntie. Why should he come when you don't ask me? Doesn't Mr. Van Vreeswijck ever come now either? If you're angry with me, I'll be an angel in the future, I'll never invite myself again. But do invite me again, yourself!"

"But, you silly child, I'm not angry."

"Yes, you are; you're cross with me. You're not the same. You're different towards me. I feel it. I see it."

"But, Marianne...."

"Aren't you? Am I wrong?.... Tell me that you're not cross with me."

She knelt down by Constance, caressingly.

"Marianne, what a baby you are!... I am not cross: there!"

"Say it once more, like a darling."

"I--am--not--cross. There: are you satisfied?"

"Yes, I believe you now. And when am I coming to dinner?"

"You little tyrant!"

"I daren't ask myself again."

"What do you like so much in our dinners?"

"They're just what I do like. The other night, when I was so bored at the Court ball, I thought, 'So long as Auntie asks me again soon, I don't mind anything!'"

"Rubbis.h.!.+ I don't believe a word of it!"

"It's quite true."

"Well, will you come one evening ... with Brauws and Van Vreeswijck? Then I'll ask Uncle Gerrit and Aunt Adeline too."

"Rather! That will be lovely. When?"