Constance went to the Nieuwe Uitleg next morning; the landlady, shaking
her head, let her in; Dr. van der Ouwe met her in the passage:
"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 shirt 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?"
"Ssh!" 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:
"Ssh! 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 glass, 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:
"The doctor wants to get me to Nunspeet," he answered, craftily. He
laughed scornfully: "I know all about it. You people think I'm mad. But
I'm not mad," he went on, haughtily. "You people are stupid: stupid and
mad is what you are. You see nothing and hear nothing, you with your
dull brute senses; and then you just think, because some one else sees
and hears and feels, that he's mad ... whereas it's you yourselves who
are mad. I shall stay here; I won't go to Nunspeet."
But suddenly he grew alarmed and asked:
"I say, Constance, you won't force me, surely? You won't beat me? That
beastly cad down below, that fellow, that cad: he hit me ... and woke
them ... and trod on them! He stood treading on them, the great fool,
the blockhead!... Tell me, Constance, you will leave me here, won't
you?"
"No, Ernst, no one wants to force you. But it would be a good thing if
you went to Nunspeet."
"But why? I'm all right here."
"You would be among kind people ... who will be fond of you."
"No one has ever been fond of me," he said.
"Ernst!" she cried, with a sob.
"No one has ever been fond of me," he repeated, bluntly. "Not Mamma ...
nor any of you ... not one. If I had not had all of them ... oh, if I
had not had all of them! My darlings, my darlings! Oh, what can be the
matter with them? Now they're waking up! Now they're awake! Oh, listen
to them moaning! Oh dear, listen to them screaming! They're screaming,
they're yelling! ... _Is_ it purgatory? Oh, dear, how they're crowding
round me! They're stifling me, they're stifling me!... Oh dear, it's
more than I can bear!"
He rushed to the open window; and she was afraid that he wanted to throw
himself out, so that she caught him round the body with both her arms.
The old doctor came in. He shut the window.
"I can do nothing," she murmured to the old man, in despair.
"Yes, you can," said the doctor, calmly. "Yes, you can, mevrouw."
"You are all of you my enemies," said Ernst. "My enemies and theirs."
And he went and sat in his corner, huddled up, with his arms round his
knees.
"Go away," he said, addressing both of them.
"I'm going, Ernst," said the old doctor. "But Constance may as well
stay."
He sometimes called her by her Christian name, the old doctor who had
brought them into the world in India; and to Constance it was touching,
to hear that name from under his grey moustache; it called up those old,
old days.
"Constance can stay?"
"Very well," said Ernst.
The doctor left them alone: the nurse would be on his guard.
"Ernst," said Constance, "suppose we went together ... to Nunspeet?"
"Why? Why?" he asked, vehemently. "I'm all right here.... And we can't
take them with us there," he whispered, more gently. "Ssh! You're waking
them."
"It will be quieter for them, perhaps, if you leave them here, dear,"
she said, kneeling on the floor beside him, feeling for his hand, with
her eyes full of tears.
"No, no ... that woman's brother down there ... that cad...."
"But, Ernst," she said, more firmly, with her eyes on his, "dear Ernst,
do let me tell you: they don't exist. They exist only in your
imagination. You must really get rid of the idea: then you will be well
again, quite well.... Ernst, dear Ernst, they don't exist. Do look round
you: there's nothing to see but the room, your furniture, your books,
your vases. There's nothing else, except our two selves.... Oh, Ernst,
do try to see it: there's nothing.... That you feel as if you were
suffocating comes from always being so much alone, never going out,
never walking. At Nunspeet, we will walk ... on the heath, over the
dunes ... and then you will get quite well again, Ernst.... For,
honestly, you are ill.... There's nothing here, nothing. Look for
yourself: there's only you and I ... and your furniture and books...."
He quietly let her talk; an ironical smile curled round his lips; and at
last he gave her a glance of pitying contempt, gave a little shrug of
his shoulders. Then he softly stroked her hand, patted it gently, in a
fatherly manner:
"You are kind and nice, Constance, but," shaking his head, "you have no
sense! I believe you mean what you say, but that's just it: you're
narrow, you're limited. You don't see, you don't hear," putting his hand
to his eyes and ears, "what I see, what I hear with my eyes and my
ears...."
"But, Ernst, you must surely understand that those are all illusions.
The doctor says that they are hallucinations."
He continued to smile, looked at her with his contemptuous pity, looked
hard out of his black Van Lowe eyes.
"They are hallucinations, Ernst."
"And you?"
"No, I'm not."
"And the room, the books, the vases?..."
"No, they are not. They are all around you, they exist."
"Well ... and why not all of them, the souls?"
"They don't exist, Ernst. They are hallucinations."
He just closed his eyelids, smiled, shrugged his shoulders, to convey
that he was utterly at a loss to understand such exceedingly limited
perceptions. Then he said, gently and kindly:
"No, Constance dear, you're not clever ... if you mean all you say. I
believe you do mean it, but that's just it: you live like a blind
person; you don't see, you don't hear. That's the way you all of you
live and exist, in a dream, with closed eyes and deaf ears. You none of
you see, hear or understand anything. You know nothing. You are as
unfeeling as stones. You can't help it, Constance, but it's a pity, for
you are so nice. There might have been something to be made of you, if
you had learnt to see and hear and feel. It's too late now, Constance.
You are stupid now, like all the rest; but I'm sorry, for you are very
nice. Your hand is soft, your voice is soft; and you did your best not
to tread on my poor darlings ... and not to drag them away on their
chains, which are riveted so fast to my heart that they hurt me
sometimes, here!"
He put his hand to his heart. A weariness came over her brain, as though
she were exhausting herself in the effort to speak and to give
understanding to an intelligence and a soul which remained very far
away, miles away, and which her words could only reach through a dense
cloud of darkness. And suddenly that sense of weariness and impotence
became crueller and harder within her: it was as though she were talking
to a stone, to a wall; she felt her own words beating back against her
forehead like tennis-balls striking the wall.
"But, Ernst," she tried once more, "won't you come to Nunspeet with me
... to please _me_, to walk on the heath with _me_? You would be giving
me such immense pleasure. It would be good for _me_...."
"And all of them, here, around me?..."
He pointed round the room, cautiously.
"We will leave them to sleep here."
"And that cad, downstairs?..."
"He sha'n't interfere with them, I promise you.... We'll lock up the
room, Ernst, and they shall sleep peacefully."
She humoured him, not knowing if she was doing right, but feeling too
tired to convince him.
"You promise?" he asked, suddenly. "You promise that they shall sleep
peacefully?"
"Yes."
"That the cad downstairs won't wake them and tread on them?"
"Yes, yes."
"You promise that?"
"Yes."
"We'll lock up the room very quietly?"
"Yes."
"And nobody at all will come in?"
"No."
"You promise that?"
"Yes."
"Will you swear it?"
"Yes, Ernst."
"All right, then."
"Will you come?" she cried, rejoicing and unable to believe her ears.
"Yes. Because you would so much like to go for walks ... on the heath.
You're nice...."
He spoke gently, pityingly; and his contempt was not as great as it had
been, for he looked upon her as a nice but stupid child that needed his
help and his protection.
She smiled at him in return, stood up where she had been kneeling beside
him, put out her hands to him, inviting him to get up from his corner
also. He let her pull him up; he was a heavy weight: she drew him out of
his corner like a lump of lead.
"Then we start to-morrow, Ernst?"
He nodded yes, good-naturedly: she was very nice ... and she was longing
for those walks ... and she was so weak, so stupid, she knew nothing,
saw, heard and felt nothing, absolutely nothing. He must help her and
guide her and support her.
"And shall we pack a trunk now, while I am here?"
He did not understand that a trunk was necessary: he looked at her
blankly; but he wanted to please her and said:
"All right. But don't make a noise."
The doctor returned.
"He's coming," she whispered. "We're going to pack his trunk."
The doctor pressed her hand. Ernst looked down upon them both, smiling,
as upon poor, unfortunate people who cannot help being so stupid ... so
slow of understanding ... so limited in their knowledge ... so dull of
perception....
And, while Constance and the doctor opened the clothes-press in his
bedroom, he warned them, quietly, but with dignity:
"Ssh! Be careful, you know. Don't let the door of the wardrobe creak.
Don't wake them!..."