Oh, how the twilight was gathering, oh, how it was gathering around him!
It was dark now, quite dark; and the fire on the hearth was dying out in
the dark, shadowy room. But what was the use of making it blaze up: did
the room not always remain shiveringly cold, however much the fire might
glow? What was the use of lighting lamps: was the twilight not deeper
and gloomier day by day, whether it were morning or evening? Did not the
pale gold of the dawn shimmer more and more vaguely through the dense
mist of twilight?... A dull, apathetic, feeble man.... Had he kept his
secret all his life, concealed the real condition of his body and his
soul, to become like that? And yet was he not Ernst's brother? Had he
not always been Ernst's brother ... though it had always seemed
otherwise? Were they not of the same blood and had not they, the
brothers, the same soul, the same darkened soul? Was the darkness not
gathering around all of them now, the sombre twilight of their small
lives?... Would the darkness one day close in upon his own pale-golden
dawn: his children, who also shared the same soul?... It might be the
darkness of old age as it closed in upon Mamma--he could see her as she
sat--or it might be the darkness of sorrow and weariness and loneliness,
as yonder, round Bertha. Were the shadows not deepening round Paul and
Dorine, for all their youth?... Had it not been as a night round Ernst,
even though he was now stepping out of the dark ... back into the
twilight that surrounded them all?... Was it their fault or the fault of
their life: the small life of small souls?... Did the twilight come from
their blood, which grew poorer, or from their life, which grew
smaller?... Would they never behold through the twilight--the vistas,
far-reaching as the dawn, where life, when all was said, must be
spacious ... and would they never strive for that? Would his children
never strive for that? Would they never send forth the rays of their
golden sunlight towards the greater life and would they not grow into
great souls?... Would the twilight, afterwards, deepen ... and deepen
... and deepen ... around them too ... until perhaps the very great
things of life came thundering and lightening unexpectedly before them,
crushing them and blinding them ... because they had not learnt to see
the light?...
He tried to remember thoughts of former days ... but they shot ahead,
like winged ironies. He knew only that night was falling, one vast night
around all the family, under the grey skies of their winter. He knew
only that the light was growing dimmer and dimmer around them, until it
became unillumined dusk: the dusk of age; the dusk of sorrow; the dusk
of cynical selfishness; the dusk of life without living; all the heavy,
sombre twilight that gathered around small souls ... until with Ernst
the dusk had grown into night and the dark dream from which he was now
emerging.... They called that recovering.... They thought that he would
recover.... Oh, how dark and gloomy were the shadows of the twilight and
how heavy was the fate that hung over their small souls, hung over them
like a leaden sky, an immensity of leaden skies!...
He, yes, he would get better. It might take months yet; and then he
would resume his service as a dull, decrepit old man, diseased through
and through, from his childhood, under the semblance of muscular
strength, until one serious illness was enough to break him and make him
dull and old for all the rest of his life.... Yes, he would get better.
But it would no longer be necessary to raise his voice to a roar, to
make his movements rough and blunt, to make a show of strength and force
and roughness; for they would now all see through the sad pretence. He
would jog along through his small, shadowed life, until the shadows
gathered around him ... as they were now gathering, around his mother;
and ... and ... and his children would never again recognize in him
their father of the old days, who used to romp with them and fill the
whole house with all the rush of his healthy vitality.... It was over,
over for the rest of his life....
It was over. In the room which had grown chill and dark, the black
thought haunted him, that it was over. It almost made him calm, to know
that it was over, that for his children, his nine--did he not remember
their golden number correctly?--he could never be other than the shadow
of their father of the old days.... Oh, would he never again be able to
love them, to be a father to them? Could he never do that again? Must
he, when cured, remain for all the rest of his life the man conquered by
the beast, the man eaten up by the beast, the man broken in the contest
with the dragon-beast? Was it so? Was it so?...
Why did they leave him in the cold and the dark? Shivers ran down his
back--his marrowless back, his bloodless body--like a stream of ice-cold
water? Why didn't they make up his fire and why didn't they light his
lamp?... Did they know that nothing could give him warmth and light?
"Adeline!"
His voice sounded faint and weak. In the next room, which was now dark,
nothing stirred. He rose out of his deep chair with difficulty, like an
old man, groped round for the door of the other room. A feeble light
still entered from outside.... There she sat, there she lay, his wife:
she had fallen asleep with weariness and anxiety for him, her arms on
the table, her face on her arms.... Was it his imagination, or had she
really changed? He had not noticed her for weeks, since his illness, had
not looked at her, though she had nursed him all the time.... Certainly
he was very fond of her; but she was doing her duty as his wife. She had
borne him his children and she was nursing him now that he was ill. Had
he been wrong in thinking like that? Yes, perhaps it had not been right
of him.... Gad, how she had changed! How different from the young, fresh
face that she used to have, the little mother-girl, the little
child-mother! Was it the ghostly effect of the faint light or _was_ it
so? Was she so pale and thin and tired ... with anxiety about him, with
nursing and looking after him?... He felt his heart swelling. He had
never loved her as he did now! He bent down and kissed her ... with a
fonder kiss than he had ever given her. She just quivered in her sleep:
she was sound asleep.... Lord, how tired she was! How pale she was, how
thin! She lay broken with worry and weariness, her head in her arms....
"Adeline...."
She did not answer, she slept.... He would not wake her; he would ring
for the fire and the lamp himself.... But what was the good? Lamp and
fire would make things no brighter around him, now that the great
twilight was descending.... Oh, the great inexorable, pitiless twilight!
Would it fall around him as it had fallen around Ernst ... around whom
it was now slowly clearing? Did the twilight clear again? Or would the
shadows around him gradually deepen into darkness, the darkness that was
now gathering around his mother? Or would it just remain dim around him,
with the same wan light that glimmered around Paul and Dorine? What,
what would their twilight be?...
The house was very cold and he felt chilly. Was there no fire anywhere?
Where were the children? Were Marietje and Adèletje and the two boys not
back from school yet?... He now heard Gerdy and Constant playing in the
room downstairs--the nursery and dining-room--heard them talking
together with their dear little voices.... Oh, his two sunny-haired
darlings!... But Gerdy was afraid of him.... He was becoming afraid of
himself.... He was no longer the man he used to be.... People now saw
him as he was.... He could no longer put on that air of brute
strength.... His voice had lost its blustering force....
He did not know why, but he roamed through the house.... It struck him
as lonely, dreary and quiet, though the children were playing below....
He stood on the stairs and listened. What was that rushing noise in the
distance? No, there was no rushing.... Yes, there was: something came
rushing, from outside, to where he stood; something came rushing: a
melancholy wind, like a wind out of eternity.... An immense eternity;
and immense the wind that rushed out of it; and chilly and small and
dreary the house; everything so small; he himself so small!... He did
not know what was coming over him, but he felt frightened ...
frightened, as he had sometimes felt when a child.... He was so afraid
of that rushing sound that he called out:
"Adeline!... Line!..."
He waited for her to hear and answer. But she did not hear, she
slept.... Then he roamed on, shuddering ... upstairs ... to his own
little room.... And it was all so dreary and chill and lonely and the
sound of rushing from the immense eternity outside the house was so
melancholy that he sank helplessly into a chair and began to sob.... He
was done for now.... He sobbed.... His great, emaciated body jolted up
and down with his sobs; his lungs panted with his sobs; and, in his
great, lean hands, his head sobbed, in despair....
He was done for now.... He knew now that he would not get well.... He
knew now that he ought really to have died ... and that he had gone on
living only because his life had gone on hanging to a thread that had
not broken. Would that last thread soon break? Or would his darkened
life go on for a long time--he always ill--hanging to that last thread?
Would he yet be able to be a father to his children ... or would he ...
on the contrary ... become ... a burden to his dear ones? Was it growing
dark, was it growing dark? Was not that eternity rushing along?...
He heaved a deep sigh, amid his sobs. His eyes sought along the wall,
where a rack of swords and Malay krises hung between prints of
race-horses and pretty women. He had a whole collection of those
weapons. Some of them had belonged to his father. At Papa's death they
had been divided between him and Ernst.... Among the krises and swords
were two revolvers....
He stared past the swords and krises ... and his eyes fastened on the
revolvers.... In among the swords and krises, in among the race-horses
and the pretty women whirled all the heads of his children--he did not
know if they were portraits or spectres--as they had been, children's
heads of six months, one year old, two years old: growing older and
bigger, radiating more and more sunlight, his golden dawn of nine
bright-haired children?... Would he be able to be a father to them, or
would he on the contrary become a burden?...
It was as if his imagination were digging in a deep pit. In a deep pit
his imagination, with hurrying hands, dug up sand. What was it seeking,
his rooting imagination? What was it seeking in the deep pit, why was it
flinging the sand around him ... just as Addie once told him that Ernst
had dug and flung up sand ... in the dunes ... in the dunes at
Nunspeet?... What!... What!... Was he going mad too!... Was he going mad
... like Ernst? Was he going mad ... like Ernst?... A cold sweat broke
out over his chilly, shivering body. Was he going mad?...
"Gerrit!... Gerrit!"
A voice sounded very far away through the house, which had suddenly
become very deep, very wide, very big.
"Gerrit!... Gerrit!"
He could hear the hurrying footsteps on the creaking stairs, but he was
powerless to answer.
"Gerrit!... Gerrit!... Where are you?"
The door opened. It was Adeline, looking for him ... in the dark:
"Gerrit!... Are you here?..."
Even yet he did not answer.
"Where are you, Gerrit?"
"Here."
"Are you here?"
"Yes."
"Why are you sitting in the dark ... in the cold?... What are you doing
here, Gerrit?..."
"I ... I was looking for something."
"For what?..."
"I've forgotten."
"Why didn't you ask me?"
She had lit the gas.
"You were asleep."
"Don't be angry, Gerrit. I was tired."
"I'm not angry, dear. I didn't like to disturb you."
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"You were asleep."
"You ought to have waked me."
He put out his arms to her:
"Come here, dear."
She came; he drew her to his knees.
"What is it, Gerrit?"
"Darling ... Line ... I believe I'm very ... very ill."
"You've been ill, Gerrit. You're ... you're getting better now...."
"Do you think so?..."
"Oh yes!"
"Line, I believe.... I'm very ... very ... ill."
"Why, do you feel worse?... It's so cold in here. Come downstairs. We'll
make up the fire."
"No, stay here.... Tell me, Line: if I died, would you...."
"No, no, Gerrit, I can't bear it!"
"Hush, dear: if I died, would you believe ... after I am dead...."
"Oh, Gerrit, Gerrit!"
"That I have always been very fond of you...."
"Gerrit, don't!"
"That I have always been kind to you ... that I have not neglected
you?..."
"Oh, you're not going to die, Gerrit!... You will get better ... and you
have always, always been kind!..."
"Line ... and all our children...."
"Don't, Gerrit!"
"Won't they think ... if I die ... that I had no business to die ...
because I ought to have lived and been a father to them?..."
"But, Gerrit, you're not going to die!"
"I should like to go on living, Line ... for you, dear, and for the
children. But I fear I'm very ill...."
"Will you see the doctor, Gerrit?..."
"No, no.... Stay like this, quietly, for a minute, on your husband's
knees.... Line, Gerdy has become frightened of me. Tell me, Line, are
you also frightened of your skeleton of a husband?"
"Gerrit, Gerrit, no! Gerdy isn't frightened ... and I ... I'm not
frightened...."
"Put your arms round me."
She put her arms right round him. She hugged him, warmed him against
herself, while she sat upon his knees:
"I'm not frightened, Gerrit. Why should I be frightened of you? Because
you've been ill, because you've grown thin? Aren't you still my husband,
whom I love, whom I have always loved? Sha'n't I nurse you till you are
yourself again, till you're quite well ... and strong?... Oh, Gerrit,
even if it should take weeks ... months ... a year! Gerrit, what is a
year? In a year's time, you will be yourself again and well ... and
strong ... and then we shall be happy once more ... and then our
children will grow up...."
"Yes, dear ... if only it doesn't get dark...."
"Gerrit...."
"If only it doesn't get so dark!... Do you know that it got very dark
around Ernst? It's getting lighter around him now ... but there's some
twilight around him still ... even now. ... Do you know that it is
getting dark around Mamma ... and that it will get darker and darker?...
Do you know that the twilight is closing around Bertha ... and that
there's twilight around the others?... Line, darling, I'm frightened.
I'm frightened ... when it gets dark. As a child, I remember, I used to
be frightened ... when it grew dark.... You've lit the gas now, you see,
Line.... Is there only one light burning? The flame of a gas-jet ... and
yet ... and yet it's getting dark...."
"Gerrit, my Gerrit, is the fever returning? Would you like to go to
bed?"
"Yes, Line, I want to go to bed.... Put your baby to bed, Line ... it's
tired, it's not well. Put it to bed, Line, and tuck the nice, warm
clothes round its cold back ... and promise to stay and sit with it ...
till it's asleep ... till it's asleep.... Put it to bed, Line.... And,
Line, if your baby ... if your baby dies ... if it dies ... will you
promise never ... to think ... that it did not love you ... as much as
it ought to?..."
She had gently forced him to rise from his chair and she opened the
partition-door. He stood in the middle of the little room while she
busied herself in the bedroom and lit the gas and then came back for him
and helped him undress.
"It's getting dark ... it's getting dark," he muttered, shivering, while
his teeth chattered with the cold.
And he felt that it was not the cold of fever, but a cold in his veins
and his spine, because the beast had sucked all his blood and marrow
with its voluptuous licks, had eaten him up from the days of his
childhood, had devoured him until now, in the twilight, his soul shrank
and withered in his body, which had no more sap to feed it....
"It's getting dark," he muttered.