Well, if he treated it like that, he thought, he could reduce the danger
to a minimum. He had allowed himself to be taken in; and the only thing
now was to disentangle himself, slowly, gradually; and he would
certainly succeed in this, for none of them, not even Pauline, had ever
held him for long. Though she had got him to come and see her, though he
had gone back once or twice, he had shown her that she had no sort of
power over him and that he remained his own master. His voice roared
hers down, so that he did not even hear the coaxing, brooding tones; his
robust cynicism was more than a match for his sentimental tendencies;
and so her only hold was on his recrudescent sensuality, glowing with
the memories that had been smouldering in his blood. But that would run
its course in time; and meanwhile, as he would never really recapture
those old sensations after twelve years, the charm, the enchantment of
it would wear off ... and pretty quickly too.... Yes, she had grown old.
She had not gone through her twelve years in Paris with impunity. All
that former freshness, as of a fruit into which he used to bite, had
vanished; he could not endure the musty smell of the paint which she
smeared on her face: he once roughly rubbed a towel over her cheeks till
she had grown angry and locked herself in; and he had to go away and
apologize next time. And he was struck above all by her timidity in
revealing her body, her artfulness in retaining, even when in his arms,
those laces and fripperies which were supposed to create a filmy haze
all around her: a haze through which he was well able to see that she
was no longer the girl of twelve years ago.... And, when he compared his
recollections of that time with what she gave him now, he could not
understand that he had allowed himself to be caught like that by her
eyes, which had remained the same, though she now smeared black stuff
round them; he did not understand how he had gone into the Woods with
her; he did not understand how he had yielded to her entreaties that he
should come to see her.... No, he would disentangle himself from this
woman, from this faded courtesan, who was complicating his life, his
life as a respectable husband and father, especially father. He would
disentangle himself. It would not be difficult, now that the present
gave him back so little of what had glowed in his memory.... But, just
because of that, because it would be so easy, because the present was
such dead ashes, a heavy melancholy fell around him like a curtain of
twilight.... Great Lord, how rotten it was: that slow decay, that
getting old, that dragging on of the days and years! How rotten that you
had to pay for everything that life gave you, first with your youth and
then with your prime, as if your life were a bank on which you drew
bills of exchange, as if your existence were a capital on which you
lived, without ever saving a farthing, so that, when you died, you would
have squandered every little bit of it. Lord, how rotten! Not dying,
which was nothing, after all; but just that slow decay, that confounded
spending of your later years, for which you got nothing in return; for
you had had everything already: your youth, your strength, your good
spirits; and, as the years dragged and dragged along, you just jogged on
towards the cheerless end; and there was nothing to do but look on while
every day you spent one more day of your capital of later days and got
nothing in return, while nothing remained but your memory of the youth
which you had also squandered.... Lord, Lord, how dark it all grew
around you, when you thought of such rotten things!... Oh, of course,
there was one streak of light: he knew it, he saw it, saw the golden
dawn, the dawn in his own house, the dawn of his children: light still
shone from them; their circle was still moving within his circle, just
for a time, for so long as their shining sphere touched his own sphere
... until later it would circle away, ever farther and farther,
describing wider and wider revolutions, even as every sphere rolls away,
rolls away from the centre!... That was how it would be ... when he had
grown old, very old. It was not so yet: for the present, the
bright-haired little tribe was still in its golden dawn.... Yes, for its
sake too he would like to disentangle himself, to disentangle himself.
The thing that had never been able to hold him, would it hold him in his
old age?... Well, there was no question of old age yet, even though he
was getting on for fifty. But still it wasn't as it used to be: nothing
was as it used to be, no, not even Pauline....
No, not even Pauline. When he went to her now, he took a malicious
pleasure in telling her so, with rough words, in making her feel it ...
both in order to make himself appear rougher than he was and because of
the resentment which always kept pricking him sharply.
"I say, you're not a bit like those old photographs of yours now!"
It gave her a shock when he said this. Nothing gave her such a blinding
shock, as if the shock had plunged her into darkness and made everything
go black and menacing as death.
She felt that it was cruel of him to throw it in her face like this; and
she couldn't understand it in him. But, because her eyes were always
laughing, even now they laughed their golden laugh....
"Ah, you don't believe it!... You just think you're exactly as you were,
the same young and pretty girl.... Well, my beauty, you never made a
greater mistake in your life!... But I see you don't believe me, you
grin when I tell you, you think your charms are going to live for
ever.... Everything wears, child.... However, you won't believe it: I
can see your eyes mocking me now...."
Indeed, her eyes were laughing and the smouldering spark of mockery
seemed to leap into flame. And, because he spoke like that, she laughed,
a loud laugh with a shrill note which annoyed him, in which he heard
mockery ... because, after all, though she no longer resembled her old
photographs, she had caught him badly.
"Just come here," he said, roughly.
"Why?"
"Just come here."
She went up to him, trembling.
He took hold of her, a little more roughly than he intended, took her
between his knees, looked her in the face:
"What do you make up for?" he asked.
"I don't make up."
"Oh, you don't, don't you? Do you think I can't see it?"
"No, I don't make up."
"Then what's that?"
He pointed to her cheek.
"That's only powder, which stays on because I use a face-cream first."
"Oh, really! And isn't that making up?"
"No."
"And what's that?"
He pointed to her eyes. She shrugged her shoulders:
"That's done with a pencil, just a touch. It's nothing. That's not a
make-up. Make-up ... is something quite different."
"Oh, really! Well, I don't like all that messing. What do you do it
for?"
She looked at him in dismay; and again the blinding shock bored an
endless, dead-black perspective before her ... of death. But he saw only
the laugh of her golden eyes.
"What do you do it for?" he repeated. "You usedn't to."
"No."
"Then why do it now?"
She made an effort, so as not to cry. She laughed, shrilly; and it
sounded like a jeer, as though she were saying, jeeringly:
"I make up my face, but I've got you all the same."
"Give me a towel," he said, roughly.
"No," she said, struggling and releasing herself from his grip.
"Give me a towel."
"No, Gerrit, I won't, do you hear?"
Her eyes just flashed an angry look of dark reproach. But they laughed
and mocked immediately afterwards.
He snatched a towel from the wash-hand-stand:
"Come here," he said.
Her first impulse was a storm of seething rage, a rage as on the last
occasion, when she locked herself in and he had to go away.... But there
was something so cruel and vindictive in his voice, in his glance, in
the abrupt movements of his great body that she grew frightened and
came:
"Gerrit," she implored, softly, timidly.
"Come here. I don't like all that muck...."
He had wetted the towel. He now washed her face; and he became a little
gentler in his movements, glance and voice ... because she was
frightened and meek. He washed her face all over:
"There," he said. "Now at least you're natural."
Something like hatred gripped at her heart, but she could not yield to
it: her nerves had become too slack for hatred. Besides, she had always,
always been very fond of him, just because he was such a strange mixture
of roughness and gentleness. She remained standing anxiously in front of
him, with her hands in his.
Like that, like that, at any rate, she no longer looked like the picture
on a chocolate-box. He was safe now against his sentimentality. But,
Lord, how old she looked! Her skin was wrinkled, covered with freckles
and blotches. Was it possible that a drop of wet stuff out of a bottle
and a touch of powder could cover all that? And the golden eyes of
mockery, how ghastly they looked, without the shadows about the brows
and lashes!... And yet she kept on mocking him.... But then, suddenly,
he felt pity, was sick at having been rough, at pretending to be rougher
than he was. He was always like that, always made that pretence, putting
on a blustering voice, squaring his broad shoulders, banging his fist on
the table ... for no reason, save to be rough ... and not sentimental.
And, seeking for something to say to her, he said, in a voice which she
at once recognized, a voice of pity, the gentleness now tempering the
roughness, that mixture which she had always loved in him:
"Really, Pauline, you look much prettier like this...."
But she saw the dark vista opening out before her, black as night.
"You're much prettier now. You look a fresh and pretty woman."
Her eyes were laughing.
"You haven't the least need to smear all that stuff on your face."
Her lips were laughing now.
"Come and give me a kiss.... Come...."
He caught her in his arms. He felt her flesh, soft and flabby, as though
he were grasping wadding or lace, not as though he were grasping the
woman whom he remembered in his glowing memories, a woman of warm
marble.
She roused herself, in her desire. She strained her muscles, embraced
him with force, with all the science of passion which she had acquired
during the years. They embraced each other wholly; and their embrace was
full of despair for both of them, as though they were both plunging with
their intense happiness into a black abyss, instead of soaring to the
stars....
She now lay against him like a corpse. Never had he felt so full of
heavy melancholy in his heavy, heavy soul. Never had his whole, whole
life passed before him like that, suddenly, in a flash: his boyhood,
Buitenzorg, the river, Constance; his young years as a subaltern, his
reckless period, the period of inexhaustible, gay, brutal, young life;
and, after that very youthful period, still many long years of youth,
with Pauline herself still young, warm marble; and then the sobering
down, his marriage and oh, the golden dawn of his children!... He was
not old, he was not old, but everything had arrived.... Nothing, nothing
more would come but the dragging past of the monotonous years; and, with
each year, the bright circles would shift farther and farther apart and
the gloom would deepen around him.... Never had he felt so full of heavy
melancholy in his heavy, heavy soul.
She, against him, lay like a corpse. He felt her like a bundle of down,
of lace, soft and flabby as a pillow, still in his arms. He would have
liked to fling her away from him, weary, sick of that tepid flabbiness.
But he kept her in his arms, made her lie against him, suffered the
tepid heap of lace and down on his chest. Her eyelids hung closed, as
though she would never raise them again. Her mouth hung down, as though
she would never laugh again. And yet he continued to hold her like that.
It was not because of his sentimentality, for she was anything but a
chocolate-box picture now, and it was not out of a sudden recrudescence
of rough sensuality that he now held that flabby bundle in his arms: no,
it was from a real, genuine, but heavy and melancholy feeling, a feeling
of pity. He had been able to wash the make-up from her face with a
towel, but he couldn't fling her from him now, before she herself should
raise herself from his arms. And she remained lying, like a corpse. God,
what a time it lasted!... Still, he couldn't do it: he continued to
suffer her there, on his heart. He looked down at her askance, without
moving; and his eyes grew moist.... Those confounded eyes of his, which
grew moist! He couldn't help it: they just grew moist. He screwed them
up, wiped them with his free hand, before Pauline could see them moist.
And he remained like that, so long, so long!... At last he gave a deep
sigh and she drew breath; he could not go on: not because of her weight,
but because of her softness, that soft flabbiness, that stuffiness, that
crumpled lace against him. His chest rose high; and she awoke from her
lethargy. She lifted her heavy eyelids, she pinched her lips into a
smile. It was a smile of utter despair....
She released herself from his arms, stood up; and he made ready to go.
"Gerrit," she said, faintly.
"What is it, child?"
"Gerrit," she repeated, "you don't know how glad I am that I ... that I
met you again ... here ... that we have seen each other again.... I used
to think of you so often ... in Paris ... because I was always ... a
little fond of you ... because you are so gentle and rough in one....
That's how you are ... and that was why I was fond of you.... Oh, it was
so nice to see you again ... after so many, many years ... those dirty,
dirty years!... It has made me so happy, so happy!... Thank you, Gerrit
... for everything. But I wanted to say...."
"What, child?"
"You had better not come back again.... You know, you had better not
come back.... We have seen each other again now: not often, perhaps ten
or twelve times, I can't remember.... It was such heavenly, such
heavenly happiness ... that I forgot to count the number of times....
But you had better not come back any more...."
"And why not, child? Are you angry ... because I washed your face with
that towel?"
"No, Gerrit, it's not that, I'm not angry about that.... I'm not angry
at all...."
Indeed, her eyes were laughing. Then she repeated:
"But still ... you had better not come back."
"I see. So you've had enough of me?"
She gave a shrill laugh:
"Yes," she said.
"Oh! And have you found a young, rich chap, as I advised you?"
Her laugh sounded still shriller and her golden eyes were full of
mockery.
"Yes," she said.
Under his heavy melancholy, he was angry and jealous:
"So you don't want me any more?"
"Want you?... I shall certainly want you, but...."
"But what?"
"It's better for every reason, better not. You mustn't come back,
Gerrit."
"Very well."
"And don't be angry, Gerrit."
"I'm not angry. So this evening was the last time?"
"Yes," she said.
They both looked at each other and both read in each other's eyes the
memory of their last embrace: the stimulus of despair.
"Very well," he repeated, more gently.
"Good-bye, Gerrit."
"Good-bye, child."
She kissed him and he her. He was ready to go. Suddenly he remembered
that he had never given her anything except on that first evening in the
Woods, a ten-guilder piece and two rixdollars:
"Pauline," he said, "I should like to give you something. I should like
to send you something. What may I give you?"
"I don't mind having something ... but then you mustn't refuse it
me...."
"Unless it's impossible...."
"If it's not possible ... then I won't have anything."
"What is it you'd like?"
"You're sure to have a photograph ... a group ... of your children...."
"Do you want that?" he asked, in surprise.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know; I'd like it."
"A photograph of my children?"
"Yes. If you haven't one ... or if you can't give it me ... then I don't
want anything, Gerrit. And thank you, Gerrit."
"I'll see," he said, dully.
He kissed her once more:
"So good-bye, Pauline."
"Good-bye, Gerrit."
She kissed him hurriedly, almost drove him out of the room. It was ten
o'clock in the evening. Gerrit, in the street outside, heaved a great
sigh of relief. Yes, this was all right: he was rid of her now. It had
not lasted very long; and the best part of it was that none of his
brother-officers, of his friends or of his family had for a moment
suspected that connection, for a moment noticed that the past, his
memories, his youth had loomed up before him, haunting him and mocking
him in Pauline, in her body, in her golden eyes. It had remained a
secret; and what might have been a great annoyance in his life as
husband and father had been no more than a momentary and unsuspected
effort to force back what was long over and done with. It was now over
and done with for ever. Oh, it was the first time and the last: never
again would he allow himself to be entrapped by the haunting
recollections of former years!... But how sad it was to reflect that all
that past was really over and done with ... and that everything had
been!
During the days and weeks that followed, he went about with heavy, heavy
melancholy in his heavy soul. Nobody noticed anything in him: at the
barracks he blustered as usual; at home he romped with the children; he
went with Adeline to take tea at Constance' and laughed at the tirades
of Paul, who was daily becoming more and more of an elderly gentleman.
Nobody noticed anything in him; and he himself thought it very strange
that the eyes of the world never penetrated to the shuddering soul deep
down within him, as though sickening in his great body, with its sham
strength. Sick: was his soul sick? No, perhaps not: it was only
shrinking into itself under the heavy, heavy melancholy. Sham strength:
was his body weak? No, not his muscles ... but the worm was crawling
about in his spine, the centipede was eating up his marrow.... And
nobody in the wide world saw anything--of the centipede, of the worm, of
all the horror of his life--even as nobody had seen anything of what had
come about during the last few weeks between himself and his past: the
last flare up of youth, Pauline.... Nobody saw anything. Life itself
seemed blind. It jogged on in the old, plodding way. There were the
barracks, always the same: the horses, the men, his brother-officers.
There were his mother, his brothers and sisters. There were his wife and
his children.... He saw himself reflected in the blind eyes of plodding
life as a rough, kindly fellow, a good officer, a big, fair-haired man,
just a little grey, a good sort to his wife, a good father to his
children.... Lord, how good he was, reflected in the blind eyes of
plodding life!... But there was nothing good about him and he was quite
different from what he seemed. He had always been different from what he
seemed. Oh, idiot people! Oh, blind, idiot life!