The old woman walked with slow steps along the paths of the garden,
carefully examining each separate rose with her grey eyes. Her legs
seemed to move with difficulty along the narrow gravel-paths that wound
through the front-garden; and her frame was bent, as though deformed. In
a wicker-work chair on the verandah sat the tall, old figure of the
husband, his ivory forehead bulging above the pages of the newspaper
which he held in his large, shrivelled hands....
Evening fell. A nameless grey melancholy fell from the pale summer sky
over the country-roads, along which the peaceful villas faded into the
shadows of their gardens. The old woman looked up at the sky, looked out
over the road, with her hand shading her eyes, walked on again, slowly
and painfully, carefully examining each separate rose.... Then she went
back to the house:
"It is getting cold, Hendrik; don't stay out too long."
"No."
But the old man remained sitting where he was. The old woman went in,
wandered through the sitting-room and the dining-room. She passed her
pocket-handkerchief lightly over the furniture, looking to see if there
was any dust on it; and, as the parlour-maid had cleared the table, she
pulled the cloth straight, put a chair into its proper place, smoothed
away a crease in the curtain. She went into the conservatory, looked
into the back-garden. Her sad grey eyes gazed out into the grey
melancholy of the darkling night. The wind rose, moaned softly through
the topmost twigs of the trees.
The old woman looked round at the old man, but he remained sitting in
the wicker chair, lost in the great pages of his newspaper:
"Don't catch cold, Hendrik," she repeated, gently.
"I'm coming."
But the old man remained sitting where he was. Now the old woman
wandered down the passage, listened at the door of the kitchen and of a
small back-room: voices sounded, the voices of the maids and the butler.
Then she went up the stairs, wandered through the bedrooms, wandered
through the empty spare-rooms, with a sigh, because they never came.
Everything was neatly kept, hushed and quiet, as in a house that lacks
life....
The old woman, bent and tottering, sighed, was restless. She wandered
again through all the bedrooms and wearily made her way downstairs
again, crossed the passage, entered the living-room. The old man was
seated there now; the windows into the garden were closed. He had folded
up his paper and, seated by the window, was still gazing out to where
the road of villas grew darker and darker in the chill dimness of the
late-summer evening, now beginning to rustle with the rising wind. Then,
stifling a sigh, the old woman sat down at the other window, wearily
folded her hands, placed her tired feet side by side on a stool.
The room grew dark, the windows turned grey, just outlined by the
curtains. The road was more and more blurred in the dimness of the windy
night. A grey melancholy reigned without and a grey melancholy reigned
within, with those two old people, each sitting silent at a window,
lonely and forlorn, drearily sunk in their own thoughts. They sat thus
for a long time, quietly, without a word. Then the old woman said:
"It is Henri's birthday to-morrow."
"Yes," said the old man. "He will be thirty-nine."
And they said nothing more and stared before them. Then the old woman
grew, restless again and rose from her chair with difficulty, hobbled
through the room, holding on by the chairs as she went, and rang the
bell:
"Light the gas and bring in the tea, Piet."
The butler lit the gas, drew the curtains and brought the tea. The old
man sat down at the table with a book; and the light fell harshly on his
ivory forehead and his blue-shaven face; his gnarled, bony hands cast
large shadows over the book, turned the pages at regular intervals.
"Here's your tea, Hendrik."
The old man drank his cup of tea.
Then the old woman also took her book and read....
Slowly, in the course of years, she had read her Bible less and less,
because she was wicked after all and because she had never resigned
herself to the sacrifice which she had made, which it was her duty to
make, before God and man. Then she chanced on a wonderful book which
described what happened to people after death. And this book she read
every evening.
But she was unable to read, this evening. As a rule, the old pair read,
over their cup of tea, till ten o'clock, in silence, and then got up and
went to bed. But the old woman could not read this evening. Her aching
feet fidgeted on the stool, her bent body moved in vague discomfort. And
she asked, still casually, nervously:
"Will Henri be thirty-_nine_ to-morrow, Hendrik?"
"Yes."
She knew quite well that he would be thirty-nine, but she wanted to say
it again, wanted to talk of her son. For fifteen long years, she had not
seen him; and his birthdays, the anniversaries of the day on which she
had borne him, her only child, had passed while he was very far away,
too far for her to reach him and take him in her arms. For many years,
she had hoped:
"Now it will come, now it will come nearer."
But it had not come nearer. Until suddenly it was very near, until
suddenly it was there. Now it was here, after long, long years; and yet
it was not here, it was far away....
She could not read, got up, went out of the room, across the hall. The
old man stared after her, went on reading. And it was as though her
disquiet kept increasing, as though a voice--one of those voices of
which she had read in that strange book--said to her:
"Go, go to-morrow!"
Never had a voice spoken so plainly to her, the old woman, and as it
were ordered her to go, to go to-morrow. She was very old, in years, in
movement and in feeling; and she never, never travelled. She lived
quietly in her house beside the country-road, summer and winter alike;
and sometimes she went for a little drive in the neighbourhood: Beyond
that she no longer went, for she was gouty and full of aches and pains
which bent her withered back. For years and years, she had not
travelled, had not sat in the train which, for years, she had heard
whistling at the station, sometimes even heard rumbling. And now the
mysterious voice so plainly and insistently commanded:
"Go!"
Then she went back to the room, sat down and, this time, was unable to
stifle her sigh. She sighed. The old man heard, but did not know how to
ask her why she was sighing. For years, for long years, there had been
so little said between them. Only now, this spring, when Henri's letter
came, they had spoken, but not much. A couple of days after receiving
the letter, the old man said:
"I will write to him."
And that was really the only thing that had been said. But they had not
lived so many years in silence, side by side, without learning to hear
each other speak though both were silent. They knew, without speaking,
what either said, silently in his heart. Only now, though the old man
himself was thinking of Henri that night, he did not know what his wife
was saying to him, silently, without words, in that one sigh; and this
was because he did not read that strange book and never heard the
strange voices. Therefore he sought for a word to say and found it very
difficult to find a word, but at last he did speak and said, simply:
"What is it?"
He did not look up, went on reading his book as he spoke.
Then the old woman's aching feet fidgeted still more nervously on their
stool; the bent shoulders shivered more nervously under their little
black shawl; and she began to cry, softly.
"Come, what is it?"
He pretended to go on reading his book, because talking and crying were
so difficult, and because it was easier to pretend to go on reading.
The old woman said, because his old voice had spoken gently:
"I should like to go to Henri, to-morrow."
Now they were both silent; and the old man went on reading; and the old
woman, waiting for his answer, ceased crying, ceased moving her feet,
her shoulders. And, after a silence, the old man said:
"Take Piet with you, then, to help you."
She nodded her head; and the tears flowed from her eyes, while she drew
her book to her, inwardly pleased that he had said so much and said it
so kindly. She sighed once more, this time with relief, and read on. But
her eyes did not see the words, because she was thinking that to-morrow
she would be going with Piet, the butler, in the train--in which she had
not been for years and years--to the Hague, to see Henri.
"Go!" the voice had said. "Go!" the voice had commanded.
And she was going. It had come at last, come so near that it would be
there to-morrow: not that Henri was coming to her, but that she was
going to Henri, to kiss him, to forgive him....
And she read on, did not see the strange words which told what happened
to people after death, but wept softly, inaudibly, over her book, wept
for still contentment and peace, because he had spoken to her and had
said:
"Take Piet with you, then, to help you."
When it was ten o'clock, he closed his book, stood up. And she would so
much have liked to ask him if he too would come with her to-morrow, in
the train, to Henri, because it was not so difficult and Piet could take
the tickets. But she did not ask him, because she knew that it was even
more difficult for him than for her to travel and go by train, that
train which he also for years had heard whistling and sometimes
rumbling. So she did not ask him, because he would certainly refuse. And
without a doubt he heard within himself what she hesitated to ask him,
for he said, gently:
"I shall not go; but give him many good wishes, from his father."
Then, stiffly and with difficulty, he bent his tall figure and his ivory
forehead, went to her and kissed her on the brow. And she took his
gnarled hand and pressed it gently. Then he went upstairs and she rang
the bell.
The butler entered.
"Piet," she said, hesitatingly and shyly, and she blushed before the
butler. "I am going to-morrow to the Hague, to Mr. Henri. It's his
birthday. And I should like you to take me there."
The man looked up in surprise, smiled:
"Very well, ma'am, as you please."
And, as she went up the stairs, she tried to hold herself more erect;
she felt younger....