Old Mrs. van Lowe had taken a furnished villa at Nunspeet for a few
weeks and gone to stay there with Adeline and her flaxen-haired little
tribe. She wanted to be near Ernst; and the doctors had not objected to
her going to Nunspeet and even seeing him once or twice: there was no
question of an isolation-cure; on the contrary, the patient had always
been too lonely; and something in the way of kindly sympathy, which
would counteract his shyness, might even have a salutary effect.
Gerrit ran down once or twice from the Hague. But there was hardly room
for him in the villa, which was full up with the children's little beds;
and also he was secretly hurt that Ernst had taken a dislike to him.
And, when he was back at the Hague, alone in his house, he pondered over
it all, over the difference and the resemblance between them: Ernst
belonging to the dark Van Lowes, Papa's blood; he, like Constance and
Paul, to the fair ones, Mamma's blood, though they all had black or at
least very dark-brown eyes, with that rather hard, beady glance. But
what struck him as very singular was that he more or less understood why
Ernst had become as he was: a little odd, he called it, nothing more;
whereas Ernst saw nothing in Gerrit, saw nothing but a nature entirely
antipathetic to his own: no doubt his deceptive muscular strength, which
was antipathetic to the morbid sensitiveness of the shy, lonely,
studious brother.... But did any one see him, Gerrit, really as he was?
And had it not always been so, from the time when he was a child, a boy,
a young man? It gave him a melancholy sense of security, in these days;
that he was living by himself, living a life taken up exclusively with
his military duties, captain for the week, out very early, in the
stables from six to seven seeing to the grooming of the horses, the
cleaning of their boxes, thinking even more of the horses than of the
men and caring more, hussar that he was, for a fresh, clean-smelling
stable, with a litter of fresh, clean-smelling straw for the animals,
than for the details of the troopers' mess. When the horses had been fed
and watered came the ride with his squadron: drilling, target-practice
or field-duty; then back again, handing in his report, finishing any
business in the squadron-office. This took up the whole morning; and in
the exercise of those minor duties which he loved he had hardly time for
thinking; and the officers for the week saw him as they had always seen
him: the big, strong, yellow-haired Goth, brisk in his movements,
flicking his whip against his riding-boots, broad-chested in his
red-frogged uniform, his voice loud and domineering, with a note of
kindliness under the bluster, his step quick and firm, giving an
impression of energy.... That was all that officers and men saw of him;
and he, for the time, was what he appeared, even to himself.... But then
he would go home and bolt his sandwich, alone, and would ride his second
charger, before going back to barracks in the evening, to supervise the
foddering of the horses again. And it was during this afternoon interval
that he was accustomed to pick out lonely roads, where he would meet
none of his brother-officers; it was then, in that afternoon interval,
when loneliness was all around him, that he saw himself and knew himself
to be different from what he seemed to his acquaintances, different even
to himself.... He saw himself again as a child in Java, a small boy
playing with his sister Constance, on the great boulders in the river
behind the palace at Buitenzorg. He could see her still in her white
_baadje_,[1] with the red flowers at her temples. The thought of it gave
him a curious sentimental pang, which made him melancholy, he did not
know why. Then he saw himself grown a few years older and in love,
perpetually in love, with the earnest amorousness of East-Indian
schoolboys for girls of their own age, little _nonnas_[2] who learn so
rapidly that they are women and that they attract the boys who ripen so
rapidly into men under the burning sun. He, Gerrit, had always been in
love, sometimes in romantic fashion, like the fairy princes in the
stories which his little sister Constance used to tell him, but more
often in rougher style, longing to satisfy his greedy mouth and greedy
hands, the gluttonous senses of his lusty, growing body, the body of a
schoolboy and of a young man in one.... Oh, he still laughed at those
recollections. He could see the school distinctly and, at play-time, the
boys slyly looking through the reeds by the ditch-side at the
schoolgirls' little carts; the young _nonnas_, in their white _baadjes_,
peeping through the curtains of the rickshaw; the boys throwing them a
kiss with quivering fingers, the girls throwing back the kiss to their
boyish lovers in the reeds. And the assignations in the great, dark
gardens; the burning and glowing in the childish breast: oh, he
remembered it all!... And he saw, as he went on his lonely
ride--although he now laughed the laugh of his mature years--he saw
before his eyes all the girls with whom he had been in love, as a
schoolboy, at Buitenzorg....
There was one delicate, fair-skinned girl, very pale and very pretty.
She soon acquired the purple, laughing lips of the child who, by the
time that she is thirteen, becomes a full-grown woman, with a ripe bust
and riotous black curls.... And he also remembered a coffee-plantation
in the hills, with a young married woman of barely twenty, who had taken
him, a lad of fifteen, in her arms and had not released him until the
boy had become a man. She had taught him the secret that was seething in
his blood, throbbing in his veins, the secret that flushed his cheeks
and took away his breath the moment he approached anything in the shape
of a woman: the secret which the boy knew by hearsay but not by
experience. And, ever since she taught it him, there had been in him,
like a healthy hysteria or vigorous sensuality, a great lustiness of his
adolescent body; a surplus of strength which he must needs dissipate: he
never came near a woman now but he at once swiftly appraised her arms,
her swinging gait, her bust, the look in her eyes, the laugh on her
lips; if he passed her in the street, a quick glance printed her whole
figure like a photograph on his sensual imagination until the next woman
whom he met effaced it with her own, later print.
And, when he came to Holland as a young man and entered as a cadet at
Breda, the need for lust had developed into an overpowering obsession,
as it were an unquenchable thirsting of those new-found senses which
were fermenting in the young male body. Afterwards, as a young officer,
he had known one quick sensual passion after the other, taking each
laughing enjoyment with all the carelessness of a youthful conqueror.
His strong constitution and open-air life had enabled him to triumph
like that with impunity, for years on end; but even at that time he had
often suffered from sudden fits of depression, a secret, silent
hopelessness, when everything seemed to be going black before him with
needless, useless, menacing gloom. None of his fellow-officers saw it;
none of his brothers or sisters. If he put in an appearance on one of
those days, he was the same blunt, jovial soldier, the fair-haired,
burly giant, rough and noisy, with the mock fierceness in his voice and
the love of women in his brown, questing eyes, that went up and down,
doing their appraising in a moment. But, secretly, there was within him
so great a discontent with himself, that, as soon as he was alone, he
would think:
"O God, what a rotten, filthy life!..."
Then he would fling himself on a couch, under his sword-rack, and wonder
whether it was because he had drunk champagne yesterday, or because of
something else ... something else ... a strong feeling of discontent. He
did not know, but he made up his mind on one point, that he must knock
off champagne: the damned fizzy stuff didn't suit him and he wouldn't
drink it again. Indeed, he wouldn't drink much at all: no beer, no
cocktails, for it all flew straight to his temples, like a wave of
blood, and throbbed there, madly. And so it came to a secret
abstemiousness, of which he never spoke and which he calculated so
cunningly that his friends, though they knew that he was no great
drinker, did not know that he could not support a drink at all.
Sometimes he was fierce about it, allowed the drink to be poured out and
emptied the glass under the table or broke it deliberately, knocked it
over. That beastly drinking drove him mad; the other thing, on the
contrary, kept him calm and cool, cleared his blood and his brain. It
was after drinking, especially, that he felt depressed; after the other
thing, he felt as if he were starting a new life. He was like that as a
young officer, like that for years at Deventer, Venlo and the Hague; and
his sudden rough outbursts--of insolent gaiety rather than anger--had
given him his name as a big, blustering, brainless sort of ass: a pane
of glass smashed, without the slightest occasion; a quarrel with a
friend, without occasion; a duel provoked for no reason and then a
reconciliation effected, with the greatest difficulty, by the other
officers; a need sometimes to go for houses and people like a madman and
destroy and break things, more from a sheer animal instinct of wanton
gaiety than from anger. When he was angry, he knew what he was doing; a
kind of soft-heartedness prevented him from becoming really angry; it
was only that madness of his which allowed him to go really far, letting
himself be carried away by a strange intoxication, the same intoxication
which he felt on horseback, when riding in a steeplechase: a longing to
rave and rage and go too far and trample on everything under him, not
out of malice but out of madness. That again cooled him, made him feel
clear and calm: it was only the confounded drink that drove him mad....
But, as he grew older, he quieted down and mastered his hot blood, so
that he was satisfied with a quiet _liaison_ with a little woman whom he
went to see at regular intervals; and suddenly, in his secret fits of
gloom and blackness, it was borne in upon him that he must get married,
that it was that confounded living alone in rooms which gave him the
deep-lying discontent which he never spoke about, for it would never
have done to let the others notice things which they would think queer
and of which he himself was at heart ashamed. And then, as he lay
quietly, under his sword-rack, he would think, ah, to get married, to
have a dear little wife ... and children, heaps of children ... and not
to dissipate your substance for nothing!... But children ... Lord, Lord,
how jolly, to have a whole tribe of children round you!... All that was
kindly in him and friendly, not to say very romantic and extremely
sentimental, now made him wax enthusiastic, under the sword-rack, the
great, strong fellow who made the couch crack under him with his weight:
Lord, Lord, how jolly! A whole tribe of children: not two or three, but
a tribe, a tribe!... He smiled at the thought; after his riotous youth,
it was a pleasant prospect: a nice little house, a home of his own, a
dear little wife, children.... He talked to his mother about it; and she
was delighted; because she had long been thinking that he ought to get
married.... He was thirty-five now; yes, really, it would be a good
thing to get married.... And she looked about and found Adeline for him:
a good family, of French descent; connections in India, which was always
nice; no money, but the Van Lowes never looked at money, though they
hadn't so very much themselves, comparatively, professing a laughing
contempt for the dross which, all the same, they could very well do
with. A dear little girl, Adeline, young--she was thirteen years younger
than her husband--fair-haired and placid: a regular little mother even
as a girl. And Gerrit, though he had had a brief vision of other women,
other girls, had thought:
"Oh, well, yes, a bit bread-and-buttery; but you want a different sort
for your wife than you do for your mistress!"
And, after all, she was round and plump, a little round ball, even as a
girl, and nice to hug, even though she was a bit short and though her
figure was badly deficient in the lines that set his blood tingling. He
never for a moment fell in love with Adeline; but he saw her for what
she was: his wife and the mother of his children, the little tribe for
which he longed, because it was such a pity and almost mean to go
dissipating your substance for nothing, especially when you were getting
a bit older and sobering down. He would have a healthy little wife in
Adeline; she would give him a healthy little tribe.... She, in her
placid way, had come to love him, very simply, because he was big and
good-looking and because he was offering her, a penniless girl, a modest
position. They had got married and were still living in the same little
house, quite a small house, but big enough to harbour what Gerrit had
looked for from the start, one citizen of the world after the other.
He thought it rotten now to be alone; and, when Mamma had asked Adeline
and the children to the little villa at Nunspeet, he had grumbled that
they were leaving him all alone, but gave in: a few weeks in the country
would do the wife and the children good; and he ran down once or twice
to Nunspeet on Sundays. But the loneliness was bad for him; and the
house that had suddenly become lifeless and silent oppressed him with a
gloom which weighed upon him so heavily that he could not throw it off:
a cursed heavy weight which bore down on his chest. Add to this that, in
order not to be alone in the evenings, he allowed the other fellows, at
whose mess he dined these days, to persuade him to go with them and have
a drink at the Witte ... and it was those confounded drinks which
finished him, simply finished him.... He was home by one, at the latest;
but he felt, after those drinks, as if he had been up all night: he
could not sleep; if he fell asleep at last, he kept on waking up; his
heart bounced as if it were trying to reach his temples; he turned about
and turned about, dabbed his face and wrists, lay down again, ended by
splashing cold water all over his body; then he crept into bed again,
huddling himself up, with his knees drawn up to his chin, like a child;
he stuffed the sheets into his ears, hid his watch, so as not to hear it
ticking louder and louder, and at last went to sleep. When he woke in
the early morning, whole landscapes of misty mountains pressed upon his
brain, as though his poor head were the head of an Atlas supporting the
world on his neck; persistent, slow-rolling, rocky avalanches crumbled
all the way down his spine; and, with his legs stretched out wide in
bed, he was so horribly depressed by that waking nightmare that he felt
as if he could never make a move to get up, as if he could not stir his
little finger. Then, at last, with a groan, he got up, cursing himself
for drinking the damned stuff, took his bath, did his dumb-bell
exercises, full of wondering admiration for his powerful arms and
ingenuously thinking, if he was so strong in his muscles, why couldn't
he carry off a drink or two?... Then he would look at his arms with the
smiling vanity of a woman contemplating her beautiful curves; and,
though his eyelids still hung heavy and round, too weary to roll up, the
waking nightmare vanished under the influence of the water and the
exercises and the misty mountains rose higher and higher till they
vanished out of sight and the avalanche of rocks just tickled his back
with a last gritty hail of pebbles. Then he became himself again: his
orderly was waiting outside with his horse; in barracks he was the
zealous captain, who carefully performed his military duties; none of
the officers saw anything the matter with him....
But, though, of course, there were always the other fellows, loneliness
seemed to envelop him, an almost tangible loneliness that pressed upon
him, something that alarmed him. What was it this time, he would ask
himself: was he ill, or had he the blues? Blast those moods, which you
couldn't understand yourself! Was he ill, or had he the blues? Was it
that beastly worm, rooting away in his carcase with its legs and eating
up his marrow, or was he just thinking it rotten that his wife and
children were away?... His brain was whirling with it all: first that
rotten feeling and then the beastly worm. Sometimes it became such an
obsession with him that, during his afternoon rides when he let his
horse gallop wildly, he would see the thing wriggling along in front of
him.... Then he would think of Ernst; and he felt sorry for the poor
chap. What a queer thing it was, a diseased soul; and could he ... could
he himself be diseased ... in his soul ... or at any rate in his
body?... If he told people what he suspected, nobody would believe him.
Outwardly he was such a sturdy fellow, such a healthy animal. But if
only they could take a peep inside him!... That wretched worm thing had
been at it again, rooting away in his carcase with its beastly legs, its
hundreds of legs, never leaving him in peace. Was it just a queer
feeling, was it an illusion, like Ernst's hallucination ... or could it
really be a live thing?... No, that was too ridiculous: it wasn't really
alive.... And yet he remembered stories of people who always had
headaches, headaches which nothing could cure; and, after their death, a
nest of earwigs had been found swarming in their brains.... Imagine, if
it should be some beastly insect! But no, it wasn't alive, it wasn't
alive: he only called it a worm or centipede because that described the
beastly sensation.... Should he go and see a doctor, some clever
specialist at Amsterdam?... But what was he to say?
"Doctor, there's something crawling about inside my carcase like a
beastly centipede!"
And the doctor would tell him to undress and would look at his carcase,
still young and fresh, notwithstanding his earlier rackety life, with
the muscles in good condition, the joints flexible, the chest broad, the
lungs expanded, and would stare at him and think ... he would think ...
the specialist would think that he was mad! He would ask questions about
his brothers and sisters ... and he would want to see Ernst ... and he
would draw all sorts of learned conclusions, would the clever
specialist.... No, hanged if he would go to a doctor; he would be
ashamed to say:
"Doctor, there's something crawling about inside my carcase, like a
beastly centipede."
He would be ashamed, absolute ashamed....
Or to say:
"Doctor, a gin-and-bitters upsets me."
"Well, captain," the doctor would say, "then you'd better not take a
gin-and-bitters."
What was the use of going to a doctor, or even a specialist? He would
not do it, he would _not_.... The best thing was to be abstemious,
certainly not take any drinks ... and then grapple with that damned
sensation--come, he wasn't a girl!--and not think about it, just stop
thinking about it.... He must have a little distraction: he was leading
such a lonely life these days. And, in that loneliness, without his wife
and children, he began to think, with that incurable sentimentality
which lay hidden deep down in him, of the comfort it was to belong to a
large family, of the way it cheered you up.... Theirs had been a big
family: but how it was scattering now! Bertha's little tribe had all
broken up.... The others Mamma still kept together; and that Sunday
evening was a capital institution of Mamma's.... And so he would look in
on Karel and Cateau towards dinner-time, hoping that they would ask him
to stay and that for once he would not have to dine with the other
fellows at the mess; but they did not ask him and, when it was nearly
six, Gerrit, feeling almost uncomfortable, heaved his big body out of
his chair and went and joined the others, reflecting that Karel and
Cateau had little by little become utter strangers.... And, though he
was not awfully keen on Adolphine, he sank his pride, invited himself to
her house and stayed on for the whole evening; and he had to confess to
himself that, upon his word, Adolphine was at her best in her own house
and that the evening had not been so bad. Constance was at Baarn one
day, at Nunspeet another; Van der Welcke was abroad; but Aunt Ruyvenaer
was at the Hague--Uncle had gone to India--and Aunt Lot was always
jolly:
"Yes, Herrit.... You showed a ghood nose to come here.... We're having
_nassi_[3].... You'll stay and lhunch, take pot lhuck, eh, Herrit,
what?"
He accepted gratefully, felt a sudden radiant glow inside him, just
where loneliness gave him a feeling of icy cold. Yes, he would stay to
lunch: he loved the East-Indian "rice-table," the way Aunt and Toetie
made it; and he was secretly glad that Uncle was away, for he didn't
like Uncle. In Aunt Lot's big, roomy house there was a sort of genial
warmth that gave him a delicious sensation and almost left him weak, as
though a smell of Java pervaded everything around, reminding him of his
childhood. The house was full of Japanese porcelain; there were stuffed
birds of paradise; under a big square glass cover was a whole
_passer_,[4] with tiny dolls as toys: little _warongs_,[5] little herds
of cattle; there were Malay weapons on the walls; in Aunt's conservatory
there were mats on the floor, as in Java; and Gerrit thought it fun to
tease Alima, though she was dressed as a European, and he was only sorry
that she was not _latta_,[6] because that reminded him of the _latta_
servants whom he used to tease, in Java, as a child:
"_Boeang, baboe; baboe, boeang_!"[7]
And from the Japanese porcelain and the birds of paradise and the
_passer_ there came that same smell, the smell that pervaded the whole
house, a smell of _akar-wangi_[8] and sandalwood; and, while Aunt was
making "rice-table" and Alima running from the store-room to the kitchen
with a basket full of bottles of Indian spices, Gerrit felt his mouth
water:
"Aunt, we're going to have a great tuck-in!"
"_Allah_,[9] that boy Herrit!" chortled Aunt Lot, looking terribly fat,
with her vast, pendulous bosom, wearing no stays, indoors, but with
brilliants the size of turnips in her ears. "_Allah_, that Herrit: he'd
murder his own father for _nassi_!"
And Aunt went into ecstasies: Aunt, turned into a mobile Hindu idol, ran
from kitchen to cellar and store-room; Toetie ran too; Alima ran too.
The aromatic fragrance filled the whole house. There would be _petis_,
black and scented and hot.
"Oh, for rice, with a dried fish, and _petis_!" Gerrit rhapsodized.
And Aunt laughed till the tears came, happy and glad because Gerrit was
fond of _nassi_.
But there would also be _kroepoek_,[10] golden and crisp: the dried fish
which, when heated, swelled up into brittle flakes, flakes that cracked
in your fingers as you broke them and between your teeth as you crunched
them; and then there would be _lodeh_,[11] with a creamy sauce full of
floating vegetables and _tjabé_; and, to follow on the rice, Aunt had
made _djedjonkong_, the Java sugar-cake, with the icing of white
_maizena_[12] on the top; only Aunt was sorry that she could get no
_santen_,[13] in "Gholland," and had to do the best she could with milk
and cream....
And, when at last they sat down to table--Aunt, the three girls and
Gerrit, the enthusiastic Gerrit--Aunt and the little cousins would laugh
aloud:
"_Allah_, that boy Herrit!"
And they vied with one another who should help him, very carefully, so
that the rice should not make a messy heap on his plate:
"No, _don't_ mix up your food!" Aunt Lot entreated. "That Dhutch
_totok_[14] way of mixing up everything together: I can't stand it. Keep
your rice clean, as clean as you can."
"Yes, Aunt, as maidenly as a young girl!" cried Gerrit, with sparkling
eyes.
And Aunt again laughed till the tears came: too bhad, you know!
"And now your _lodeh_ in the little saucer ... that's it ... so-o! ...
And the _sambal_,[15] neatly on the edge of your plate: don't mix it up,
Herrit ... Oh, that boy Herrit! ... Take a taste now: each _sambal_ with
a spoonful of rice ... that's it ... so-o! ... The _kroepoek_ on the
table-cloth ... that's it ... so-o! ... And now ghobble away ...
_Allah_, that boy Herrit: he'd murder his own father for _nassi_! ...
_Kassian_, Van Lowe!"
This last exclamation was meant to convey that Van Lowe, Gerrit's
father, was dead long since and that Gerrit therefore could not murder
his father for _nassi_ if he wanted to; and this time Aunt's eyes filled
with tears of real emotion, not of laughter: _kassian_, Van Lowe!
Gerrit no longer felt lonely and ceased thinking of those queer feelings
of his. He ate his rice with due respect, ate it slowly, so as to spin
out the enjoyment as long as he could; but it was an effort, you know,
with Aunt and Toetie and Dotje and Poppie vying with one another in
turns:
"Herrit, have some more sambal-tomaat[16]... Herrit, fill up your
_lodel_-saucer.... Herrit, take some _ketimoen_:[17] that's nice and
cool, if your mouth's burning...."
And, though Gerrit's palate was on fire, though the _sambal_ rose to his
temples till it congested his brain like a cocktail, Gerrit went on
eating, took another spoonful of clean rice, took another taste of black
_petis_....
"Herrit, there's _djedjonkong_ coming!" Aunt warned him. "You won't
leave me in the lurch with my _djedjonkong_, will you, Herrit?"
And Gerrit declared that Aunt was making heavy demands on his stomach,
but that he would manage to leave room for the _djedjonkong_; and he
banged one fist upon the other, to express that he would bang the
_nassi_ together in his stomach, to make room for the sugar-cake. Aunt
was radiant with pleasure, because Gerrit thought everything so
delicious; and, after the _djedjonkong_, as Gerrit sat puffing and
blowing, she suggested:
"Come, Herrit, _nappas_[18] a bit now!"
And Gerrit took the liberty of loosing a few buttons of his uniform and
dropped, with legs wide outstretched, into a wicker deck-chair, while
Aunt invited him to be sure and not leave her in the lurch, next day,
with the remnants.
The curry lunch at Aunt Lot's put Gerrit in good spirits for the whole
day. He puffed and blew more in fun than in reality; he extolled the
"rice-table," which is never heavy, the _tjabé_, which clears your blood
and your brain; and it was as though Aunt's aromatic and very strong
_sambals_ filled him with the joy of life, for that day, and also with a
certain tenderness, because it all reminded him of his childhood at
Buitenzorg. He took his afternoon ride quietly and pleasantly: excellent
exercise, after the generous meal; arrived at the mess in good spirits
and did not eat much, gassing about Aunt Lot's _nassi_; and, when he
went home, at a reasonable hour in the evening, he asked himself:
"If I can have such good days, why should I have such rotten ones? I
shall tell Line to give us _nassi_ every day; but Line can't do it as
Aunt Lot does...."
Another day, Gerrit, with that sentimental longing for his own people,
went and looked up Paul. He found him in his sitting-room, the place
beautifully tidy, Paul lying on the sofa in a silk shirt and a
white-flannel jacket, reading a modern novel. And Paul was very amiable,
even allowed Gerrit to smoke a cigar: one of his own, for Paul did not
smoke; only, he asked Gerrit not to make a mess with the ash and to
throw the match into the wastepaper-basket at once, because he couldn't
stand used matches about the place.
"Aren't you going away this summer?" asked Gerrit.
"Not I, my dear fellow!" said Paul, decidedly. "It's such dirty work,
travelling: your skin gets black, your nails get black in the train;
your clothes get creased in your trunk; and you never know what sort of
bed awaits you. No, I'm getting too old to go away...."
"But aren't you even going to Nunspeet?"
"Oh, my dear Gerrit," Paul implored, "what _is_ the use of my going to
Nunspeet? Mamma has Adeline and the children with her; Constance is
devoting herself to Ernst: what earthly use would it be for me to go to
Nunspeet?... All that travelling is such a nuisance; and going to
Nunspeet would make me almost as dirty as going to Switzerland.... No, I
shall stay where I am. The landlady's very clean and so is the maid;
and, though I have to see to a lot myself, of course, things are fairly
well cared for ... and not _too_ dirty...."
"But, Paul," said Gerrit, with a sort of "Look here, drop it!" gesture,
"that cleanliness of yours is becoming a mania!"
"And why shouldn't I have a mania as well as any one else?" asked Paul,
in an offended voice. "Every one has a mania. You have a mania for
bringing children into the world. Mine is comparatively sterile, but has
just as much right to exist as yours."
"But, Paul, you're becoming an old fogey at this rate, never moving, for
fear of a speck of dirt. If you go on like this, you'll get rooted in a
little selfish circle of your own, you'll cease to take an interest in
anything ... and you're young still, only just thirty-eight...."
"I've taken an interest in the world for years," said Paul, "but I
consider the world such a vile, dirty rubbish-heap, such a
conglomeration of human wretchedness, such a rotten, scurvy, stinking,
filthy dustbin...."
"But, Paul, you're absurd!"
"Because I choose at last to retire into my room, where at least things
are clean!" said Paul, with a gesture of irritation.
"My dear chap, you don't mean what you say: I can't tell if you're
serious or humbugging."
"Serious? You say I'm not serious?" cried Paul, grinning scornfully and
working himself into a real temper. "Do you think I'm not serious?"
"Well, if you're serious, then I say that you're simply diseased."
"Diseased?"
"Yes, diseased: just as much as Ernst is diseased. That tidiness of
yours is a mania; that way of looking upon the world as a dustbin is a
disease. You were always a humbug, but at least you used to be good
company, you used to be a brilliant talker; and nowadays, for some time
past, you show yourself nowhere, you shut yourself up, you're becoming
impossible and a bore...."
"I'm becoming older," said Paul, soberly. "A brilliant talker? I may
have been, perhaps. But it's not worth while. The moment you fashion a
thought into words and try to express it, no one listens to you. People
are just as sloppy and messy in their conversation as in everything
else. It's not worth while.... And yet," he said, with a touch of
melancholy, "you're right: I used to be different. But it's really not
worth while, old fellow, in my case. You have your wife and your
children: not that I'm yearning for a wife and children, especially such
an ant-hill as you've brought into the world. But what have I? The club
bores me. Doing anything bores me. I am too modern for the old ideas and
not modern enough for the new ones."
His eyes lit up as he heard himself beginning to talk:
"Yes, the old ideas," he repeated; and his voice became fuller and
recovered the rather sing-song rhythm of earlier days, when he used to
unbosom himself at great length of all sorts of ironical theories and
mock philosophy, very often superficial, but always brilliant. "The old
ideas. There's rank, for instance. I've been thinking about it lately. I
like rank. But do you know how I like it? Just as Ernst loves an antique
vase, even so I am sometimes attracted by an old title. I should like to
be a count or a marquis, not from snobbery: don't imagine that I want to
be a count or a marquis out of snobbery, for that's not the idea at all.
But just as Ernst admires an antique vase, or an old book, or a piece of
brocade, I admire a count's or marquis' title; and my title, besides,
would be much cleaner than the piece of brocade, which is full of
microbes. But, for goodness' sake, don't run away with the idea that I
want to be a count or a marquis out of snobbery. You understand, don't
you? I should only care for it from the decorative and traditional point
of view.... But a modern title of _jonkheer_,[19] Gerrit, dating back to
William I.,[20] I wouldn't have if you paid me! To begin with, I think
_jonkheer_ an ugly word; and then I think that a title of that sort
looks like a modern-art signboard, like one of those _art-nouveau_
posters with their everlasting stiff, upright, squirmy lines; and those
conventional poppies are positively revolting to my mind because they
symbolize to me the cant and hypocrisy of our modern world.... Yes,
there's a great deal of poetry, Gerrit, in old ideas. We people are
crammed full of old ideas: we inherited them; they're in our blood. And
we live in a society in which the new ideas are already putting forth
shoots, the real, new ideas, the true, the beautiful ideas, the three or
four beautiful ideas that already exist. But I, for my part, have my
blood so full of old ideas that I can't advance with the rest.... New
ideas: look here, one new idea, a really beautiful new idea, in our
time, is pity. Gerrit, what could be more beautiful and more delightful
and newer than pity: genuine pity for all human wretchedness? I feel it
myself, even though I never leave my sofa. I feel it myself. But, even
as I feel it and never leave my sofa, so the whole world feels the new
idea of pity ... and never leaves its sofa.... Lord, my dear chap,
there's blood sticking to everything; the world is nothing but mean
selfishness and hypocrisy; there's war, injustice and all sorts of
rottenness; and we know it's there and we condemn it and we feel pity
for everything that is trampled underfoot and sucked dry.... And what do
we do? Nothing. I do just as little as the great powers do. The Tsar
does nothing; there's not a government, not an individual that does a
thing. You don't do anything either.... Meanwhile, there is war, there
is injustice, not only in South Africa, but everywhere, Gerrit,
everywhere: you've only to go outside and you'll come upon injustice in
the Hoogstraat; you've only to go travelling and get black with grime
and dirt ... and you'll find injustice everywhere.... And, meanwhile,
that idea is stirring in this filthy world of ours: the idea of pity....
And, just as I am powerless, everything and everybody is powerless....
Then am I not right to withdraw from the whole business into my room ...
and to stay on my sofa?..."
He went on talking; and at last Gerrit got up, glad that he had been to
see Paul and that Paul had talked as usual, long-winded though he might
have been. But he was hardly gone, before Paul rose from his sofa. He
flung open the shutters, to air the room of Gerrit's smoke; he rang the
bell, to have the ash cleared away; he put the chairs straight and
removed every trace of Gerrit's visit:
"There, I let myself be persuaded into talking!" thought Paul,
irritably. "But d'you think the chap grasped it and valued it for a
moment? Of course he didn't: not what I said of the old and not what I
said of the new ideas!... It's not worth while taking the trouble to be
a brilliant talker.... The world is dirty and stupid ... and Gerrit is
stupid also, with his nine children, and dirty, with those cigars of his
... and besides he's a melancholy beggar, who has his manias ... just as
Ernst has ... and I ... and everybody...."
And he flung himself angrily on his cushions and read his modern novel,
all day long, without so much as stirring....
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Shirt.
[2] Half-castes.
[3] Malay: rice, currie.
[4] Market-place, bazaar.
[5] Booths.
[6] Attractive, pretty.
[7] "Put the baby down, nurse; nurse, put baby down."
[8] Cedarwood, or any other scented wood.
[9] Lord!
[10] The dried fish known in British India as Bombay duck.
[11] A sort of cocoa-nut.
[12] Indian cornflour.
[13] Cocoa-nut milk.
[14] The nickname given by the half-castes to the pure bred
Dutch.
[15] Red pepper, capsicum.
[16] Tomato-capsicum.
[17] Cucumber, gherkin.
[18] Take breath.
[19] The lowest title of nobility in Holland, ranking after the
barons and hereditary knights or _ridders_. The highest title is that of
count. There are no marquises or dukes in the Northern Netherlands.
[20] 1814.