No, nobody saw it in him. He could admit that now without hesitation.
Around him there appeared to be--he became more and more conscious of
it--an opaque sphere, like a materialized phantasm, through which no one
could see him, through which no one could penetrate and know him as he
knew himself. This evening, as he sat with Constance, Constance did not
see that he had met Pauline yesterday and gone back with her to her
room. His wife did not notice it; Van der Welcke did not notice it.
There was nothing around him but the everyday circumstances of an
after-dinner chat in Constance' drawing-room, in the soft, cosy light of
the lace-shaded lamps, while the wind outside blew from a great distance
and howled moaning round the little house.... In his easy-chair, with
the glass of grog mixed by Constance at his side, he was just a big,
burly, light-haired fellow in his mufti; and his movements were brisk,
his parade-voice sounded loud.... His wife was sitting there, gentle and
placid, the quiet, resigned little mother; the children were asleep at
home. Oh, his children, how he loved them!... Certainly, all of that
existed, it was no phantasm, it was most certainly the truth; but behind
that truth lay hidden another truth; and that was why it seemed a
phantasm, his outward life as an officer, a husband, a father, while the
real truth was what he always kept to himself: his strange gloom; the
great worm that gnawed at him; his hot, racing blood; his sentimental
and melancholy soul; that wriggling horror in his marrow; that
recrudescence of sensuality in his blood.... The quiet, kindly words
fell softly round the room, like small, sweet things between a brother
and a sister who still have sympathy and affection for each other amid
the inevitable slow moving apart of the family-spheres; but he--though
he talked, though he was lively, though he cracked joke--he saw Pauline
before him, as he had held her in his arms the day before.... Heavens,
he couldn't help it: why was he built like that? A handsome woman,
standing before his eyes, drove him crazy! Well, for years, all the
years of his marriage, he had remained sober and sedate, but he had
gradually begun to feel that this sedateness did not really suit him. It
was no good his thinking it rotten; it was no good his telling himself
that he was a husband and a father--the father of such jolly children
too--and that he oughtn't to think of those things, that all that sort
of thing belonged to his youth, to which he had said good-bye. It had
been all very well to say it. But a thousand memories had gone curling
into the air before his eyes, like swarming spirals; and, when he met
Pauline again--by accident?--he had made an appointment with her for the
next evening, in her room, cursing himself as he did so and swearing at
her, with a torrent of rough words.... No, nobody had kissed him like
that for years! Besides, he was sentimental. Didn't he himself know,
damn it, what a sentimental ass he was? Didn't he know that sometimes,
when he read a book or saw a play, when Mamma told him her troubles, as
she had now got into the habit of doing, when he saw Dorine and felt
sorry for her: didn't he himself know, damn it, that he was a
sentimental ass and that he must pull himself together and not let the
tears come to his eyes.... And Pauline, whether she did or did not know
how sentimental he was: he couldn't see as far as that--not only kissed
him as no one else did and knew how to drive him crazy, but she also
worked upon his sentimentality. Was she making a fool of him, or did she
mean all she said? He had never been able to trust those eyes of hers:
they always retained a glint of mockery; but, when she said to him, "Men
... men are all beasts, every one of them, Gerrit ... except you....
You're not ... you're so nice and gentle ... however rough you may be,"
then she had him by his sentimental side and he did not know how to
shake her off....
"I tell you, Gerrit, that's why I was so glad to see you again ... oh, I
_was_ so glad, Gerrit!"
He had cursed her, asked why she didn't go after a young, rich fellow
rather than him, who was neither young nor rich; but her golden eyes had
gleamed and she had merely repeated:
"Oh, men are all beasts, Gerrit ... beasts, beasts ... every one of
them!"
And--perhaps that was the stupidest thing of all--he had believed her,
believed that he was the only one whom she did not think a beast; and,
when a woman got hold of him by his crazy side and his sentimental side
as well, then he did not find it easy to wrench himself away: oh, he
knew himself well enough for that!
Not one of them knew it, you see, while he sat talking so quietly with
them, while he sipped his grog with enjoyment, his legs stretched out
wide in front of him, and while he heard the raging wind outside come
howling up from the distance.... And now Paul came in, rubbing his
hands: he had driven up in a cab, declaring that he was too old to walk
from the Houtstraat to the Kerkhoflaan in that weather and through such
dirty streets. Why didn't he take the tram? Thank you for nothing: was
there ever such a filthy conveyance as a tram, in wind and rain too? And
a volley of sparkling witticisms flashed out for a moment: tirades
against his dirty country, where it was always, always raining; against
people, against the whole world, all dirty alike.... When he sat down,
he looked round, with a glance that had become a second habit, to see
that there were no bits of fluff on his chair. And he at once ceased
talking, the battery of his words exhausted, sat still, not thinking it
worth while to talk, because nobody appreciated what he said. Gerrit
heard Constance chide him, in her gentle voice, in a sisterly but
serious fashion, because he was growing so elderly, shutting himself up,
giving way to his mania for cleanliness and for thinking everything
dirty. He answered with a couple of whimsical sallies....
Then Constance said that she had asked Dorine also, but that Dorine did
not seem to be coming; and that Aunt Ruyvenaer was too tired, because
she was fixing up the new small house with the girls. And Gerrit
felt--now that Mamma was getting old, very old--how Constance was trying
to keep the elements of the family together in her place. Not in such a
wide and comprehensive manner as Mamma used to do--and still did--but
with some measure of sympathy. Ah, she wouldn't succeed, thought Gerrit!
The circles were not moving closer together: each was just himself; he
was no different from the rest. Was he not thinking of Pauline? Had he
not his silent secret? Had not each of them perhaps his silent secret,
while they sat talking together with such apparent sympathy?...
Addie came in, after finishing his school-work upstairs; and Gerrit
noticed the conciliatory smile with which he at once went up to his
father, who had been sulking of late because his boy had made a choice
of which he altogether disapproved. But for weeks and weeks he had
seemed unable to resist the conciliatory smile; and Gerrit had noticed
that it was Van der Welcke himself who suffered most from his sulking,
which went on because he did not know how to manage a gradual change of
attitude, while the boy's calm smile meant:
"Daddie will have to give in, for what I want is only reasonable...."
And Gerrit enjoyed looking at Addie, hoping that his own boys would grow
up like that; but Paul, as soon as he saw his nephew, flashed forth into
chaff, a chaff which had a speculative interest underlying it and which
the boy took quietly, looking at Paul with his serious, blue eyes, which
gazed so steadily out of his fresh, boyish face.
"Well, learned professor _in ovo_, my dear doctor _in spe_, how are the
patients? Are they keeping you busy just now? Has mankind increased in
vitality and primordial vigour since you entered the therapeutic arena?
O great healer, on whom are you going to try your powers first,
Æsculapius? On members of your family, I suppose? Are you going to make
us live for ever, Addie? Well, you needn't trouble about me.... Can't
you manage to make the human body work a little more cleanly in future?
That's the thing before which we're expected to kneel in admiration: the
Creator's masterpiece, the human body; and what is dirtier than the
human body? A nasty house of flesh, with our poor small soul pining away
inside it.... Addie, when you grow very clever later on, just remove all
that: entrails, intestines, the whole bag of tricks; and put in its
place a little silver machine which a fellow can polish at least ... if
there must be a machine of some sort!"
The boy never got annoyed, but stood in front of his uncle and put his
hand on Paul's shoulder and looked at him and said:
"Why aren't you always so lively, Uncle?"
"Lively? Do you think me lively? He thinks I'm lively, while I sit here
cursing human filthiness! Is that your diagnosis, professor? Well,
you're quite out of it, my boy! You'll never get your ten guilders for
that! Lively? Heavens, boy, I'm far from that!... As long as life
remains as dirty as it is, I shall be as melancholy as melancholy can
be.... Cure me, if you like, but first clean the Augean stable....
There's just one little clean spot left in our soul; but all the rest is
dirty!... Tell me now: whom will you start on? Couldn't you cure Uncle
Gerrit? Give him a better appetite? Sounder sleep? A healthier
complexion? Teach him to buck up that big carcase of his a bit?... Just
see how wasted he looks!..."
There was something in Paul's chaff that grated on Gerrit very
unpleasantly; but he laughed, as though he thought it the best joke he
had ever heard, that Paul should be wishing him a better appetite and
sounder sleep. Was Paul getting at him? Did Paul see through his sham
strength? And would Addie do so, later?... No, nobody saw through it:
the centipede rooted in him unseen by them all....
And he got up, to mix himself another grog; but he mixed it so that it
was hardly more than hot water and lemon.