Harold Dercksz, the second son, was seventy-three, two years younger
than Anton. He was a widower and lived with his only daughter, Ina,
who had married Jonkheer[1] d'Herbourg and had three children: Lily, a
young, flaxen-haired little woman, married to Van Wely, an officer in
the artillery, and two boys, Pol and Gus, who were at the university
and the grammar-school respectively.
It was sometimes very unpleasant for Ina d'Herbourg that her father's
family, taken all round, did not display a correct respectability more
in keeping with the set in which she moved. She was quite at one with
Aunt Stefanie--with whom she curried favour for other reasons too--and
she agreed with Aunt that Grandmamma had been ill-advised, after having
married a De Laders, to get married again to one of the much less
distinguished Derckszes: this though Ina herself was a Dercksz and
though her very existence would have been problematical if Grandmamma
had not remarried. Ina, however, did not think so far as this: she
was merely sorry not to be a De Laders; and the best thing was to
mention Papa's family as little as possible. For this reason she denied
Uncle Anton, as far as her acquaintances were concerned, he being
a discreditable old reprobate, about whom the queerest stories were
rumoured. At the same time, he was a moneyed uncle; and so she caused
him to be kept in view, especially by the young Van Wely couple, for
Ina, in her very small soul, was both a good daughter to her father and
a good mother to her children and would like to see Uncle Anton leave
his money--how much would he have?--to her children. Then there was the
Indian family of Uncle Daniel, who was Papa's partner in business in
Java and who came over to Holland at regular intervals: well, Ina was
glad when business went well--for that meant money in the home--and
when Uncle Daniel and fat, Indian Aunt Floor were safe on board the
outward mail again, for really they were both quite unpresentable,
Uncle with his East-Indian ways and Aunt such a _nonna_[2] that Ina was
positively ashamed of her! Well, then, in Paris you had Aunt Thérèse
van der Staff, who, after leading a pretty loose life, had turned
Catholic: there you were, that again was so eccentric! The De Laders
had always been Walloons[3] and the D'Herbourgs also were always
Walloons: really, Walloonism was more distinguished than Catholicism,
at the Hague. The best thing was ... just never to mention Aunt
Thérèse. Last but not least, there was Aunt Ottilie Steyn de Weert,
living at the Hague, alas, three times married and twice divorced! And
she had a daughter who was a singer and had gone to the bad and a son
who had written two immoral novels: oh, that was a terrible thing for
Ina d'Herbourg, you know; it was such bad form and so incorrect; and
all their acquaintances knew about it, though she never mentioned Aunt
Ottilie or her three husbands, who were all three alive! And, when Ina
d'Herbourg thought of Aunt Steyn de Weert, she would cast up her weary,
well-bred eyes with a helpless air and heave a deep sigh; and, with
that glance and her despair, she looked an entire IJsselmonde. For she
herself, she thought, inherited more of the aristocratic blood of her
mother, a Freule[4] IJsselmonde, than of her father's Dercksz blood.
An only daughter, she had been able, through the Aunts IJsselmonde, to
mix in rather better circles than the all too East-Indian circle of
her father's family, in so far as that circle existed, for the family
was little known in society: an isolation seemed to reign around the
Derckszes, who knew very few people; and even her mother, when she was
still alive, had never been able to push Papa forward as something of
a specialist in East-Indian affairs and make him aim at the colonial
secretaryship, hard though she had tried to do so.
No, Father was not to be dragged out of his innate, silent timidity;
and, though he was quite gentle and amenable, though he joined in
paying all the visits that were deemed essential, though he gave
dinners and went out to dinner, he remained the man he was, a quiet,
peaceful man of business, ailing in health and silently broken in soul,
with pain and suffering in his eyes and around his mouth, but never
complaining and always reticent. Harold Dercksz was now a tall, thin
old man; and that intermittent suffering and eternal silence seemed to
grow worse with the years of sorrow and pain, seemed no longer capable
of concealment; yet he spoke of it to nobody but his doctor and not
much to him. For the rest, he was silent, never talked about himself,
not even to his brother Daan, who came at regular intervals to Holland
on the business-matters in which they were both interested.
Ina d'Herbourg was a good daughter: when her father was ill, she looked
after him as she looked after everything in the house, correctly and
not without affection. But she did sometimes ask herself whether her
mother had not been disappointed in her marriage, for Papa had not
much money, in spite of all the Indian business. Yes, Mamma had been
disappointed financially; and financial disappointment was always
facing Ina too. But, when Ina's husband, Leopold d'Herbourg--who,
after taking his degree in law, had first thought of entering the
diplomatic service, but who, in spite of his self-importance, had
not felt himself sufficiently gifted for that career and was now a
briefless barrister--when Ina's husband was also disappointed with the
Indian money, then Ina, after a few domestic scenes, began to think
that it would be her fate always to long for money and never to have
any. Now, it was true, they lived in a big house and Papa was very
generous and bore the whole expense of keeping Pol at Leiden; but
yet things didn't go easily with Ina, the money trickled through her
fingers and she would very much have liked to see more money about, a
great deal more money. That was why she was pleasant to Aunt Stefanie
de Laders and pleasant, furtively, to Uncle Anton.
Her fate continued to persecute her: instead of Lily's waiting a little
and making a good match, she had fallen so deeply in love, when hardly
twenty, with Frits van Wely, a penniless subaltern, that Ina could do
nothing, especially when Papa said:
"Do let the children be happy!..."
And he had given them an allowance, but it meant sheer poverty; and yet
Frits and Lily were married and in less than no time there was a boy.
Then the only thing that Ina could induce them to do was to call the
baby after Aunt Stefanie.
"Stefanus?" Lily exclaimed, in dismay.
Well, anything for a quiet life! They would call the boy Stef, which
sounded rather nice, for Aunt would never hear of Etienne. Ina would
have liked Stefanus Anton best; but to this Frits and Lily would not
consent.
It was a principle of Ina d'Herbourg's never to talk about money and
never about the family; but, because principles are very difficult to
maintain, there was always talk about money in the D'Herbourgs' house
and a great deal of talk about the family. Both were grateful subjects
of conversation between Ina and her husband; and, now that Lot Pauws
was engaged to Elly Takma, the talk flowed on of its own accord, one
evening after dinner, while Harold Dercksz sat looking silently in
front of him.
"How much do you think they'll have, Papa?" asked Ina.
The old gentleman made a vague gesture and went on staring.
"Lot, of course, has nothing," said D'Herbourg. "His parents are both
alive. I daresay he makes something by those articles of his, but it
can't amount to much."
"What does he get for an article?" asked Ina, eager to know at all
costs.
"_ I_ don't know, I haven't the remotest notion!" cried D'Herbourg.
"Do you think he'll get anything from old Pauws? He lives in Brussels,
doesn't he?"
"Yes, but old Pauws has nothing either!"
"Or from Aunt Ottilie? She has the money her father left her, you know.
Steyn has nothing, has he, Father? Besides, why should Steyn give Lot
anything?"
"No," said D'Herbourg. "But old Mr. Takma has plenty: Elly's sure to
get something from him."
"I can't understand how they are going to live," said Ina.
"They won't have less than Lily and Frits."
"But I can't understand how those two are going to live either!" Ina
retorted.
"Then you should have found your daughter a rich husband!"
"Please," said Ina, wearily closing the well-bred eyes, with the glance
of the IJsselmondes, "don't let us talk about money. I'm sick and tired
of it. And other people's money ... is _le moindre de mes soucis_.
I don't care in the least how another person lives.... Still ... I
believe that Grandmamma is better off than we think."
"I know roughly how much she ought to have," said D'Herbourg. "Deelhof
the solicitor was saying the other day ..."
"How much?" asked Ina, eagerly; and the weary eyes brightened up.
But, because he saw an expression of pain come over his father-in-law's
face and wrinkle it and because he did not know whether the pain was
physical or moral, arising from gastritis or from nerves, D'Herbourg
evaded the question. It was difficult, however, to stop at once, even
though Papa did look pained, and so he said:
"Aunt Stefanie must be comfortably off."
"Yes, but I should think," said Ina, "considering how Uncle Anton used
to hoard while he was a resident, that he's much better off than Aunt
Stefanie. As an unmarried man, he never entertained during his term of
office: that I know for a fact. The resident's house was tumbling to
pieces when he left it after eight years...."
"But Uncle Anton is an old reprobate," said D'Herbourg, forcibly, "and
_that_ cost him money."
"_No!_" said Harold Dercksz.
He said it as though in pain, waving his hand in a gesture of denial;
but he had no sooner uttered this single word in defence of his brother
than he regretted it, for Ina asked, eagerly:
"No, Papa? But surely Uncle Anton's life won't bear investigation ..."
And D'Herbourg asked:
"Then how was he able to be such a beast, without paying for his
pleasures?..."
Harold Dercksz cast about for a word in palliation; he said:
"The women were fond of Anton ..."
"Women? Flappers, you mean!"
"No, _no!_" Harold Dercksz protested, repudiating the suggestion with
his lean old hand.
"Ssh!" said Ina, looking round.
The boys entered.
"Why, Uncle Anton was had up thirty years ago!" D'Herbourg continued.
"No, no," Harold Dercksz protested.
Pol, the student, and Gus, the younger boy, entered; and there was no
more talk about money and the family that evening; and, because of the
boys, the after-dinner tea went off pleasantly. Truly, Ina was a good
mother and had brought her boys up well: because of old Grandfather,
they were gay without being noisy, which always gave Harold Dercksz
an agreeable, homely feeling; and they were both very polite, to the
great contentment of Ina, who was able to say that Pol and Gus did
not get _that_ from the Derckszes: when Grandfather rose to go to his
study upstairs, Gus flew to the door and held it open, with very great
deference. The old man nodded kindly to his grandson, tapped him on
the shoulder and went up the stairs, reflecting that Ina was a good
daughter, though she had her faults. He liked living in her house. He
would have felt very lonely by himself. He was fond of those two boys.
They represented something young, something that was still on its way
to maturity, merrily and gaily, those two young-boyish lives: they were
not, like all the rest, something that passed, things that passed,
slowly and threateningly, for years and years and years....
On reaching his study, Harold Dercksz turned up the gas and dropped
into his chair and stared. Life sometimes veiled things, veiled them
silently, those terrible, life-long things, and then they did not
threaten so greatly and, until death came and wiped them away, they
passed, passed always, however slowly they might pass. But they
passed away very slowly, the things. He was an old man now, a man of
seventy-three, and an infirm old man, dragging his old age to the grave
for which he was yearning. How many sufferings had he not endured! He
could not understand why he need grow so old, while the things passed
so slowly, went silently by, but with such a trailing action, as though
they, the things of the past, were ghosts trailing very long veils
over very long paths and as though the veils rustled over the whirling
leaves that fluttered upon the paths. All his long aftermath of life
he had seen the things go past and he had often failed to understand
how seeing them go past like that was not too much for a man's brain.
But the things had dragged their veils and the leaves had just rustled:
never had the threat been realized; no one had stepped from behind
a tree; the path had remained desolate under his eyes; and the path
wound on and on and the ghostly things went past.... Sometimes they
looked round, with ghostly eyes; sometimes they went on again, with
dragging slowness: they were never brought to a standstill. He had
seen them pass silently through his childhood, through his boyhood,
when he was the age of Pol and Gus; he had seen them pass through his
very commonplace life as a coffee-planter in Java and a manufacturer
afterwards and through his married life with a woman whose existence
he had come to share by mistake, even as she had come by mistake to
share his: he, doubtless, because he did nothing but see those things,
the things that passed.... He now coughed, a hard, dry cough, which
hurt his chest and stomach and sent jolts shooting through his shrunken
legs....
Oh, how much longer would it last, his seeing the things?... They
went past, they went past and loitered and loitered.... Oh, why did
they not go faster?... From the time when he was a little fellow of
thirteen, a merry, sportive little fellow playing barefoot in the river
before the assistant-resident's house, rejoicing in the fruit, the
birds, the animals, rejoicing in all the glad child-life of a boy in
Java who can play in big grounds, beside running waters, and climb up
tall, red-blossoming trees; from the moment--a sultry night, the dark
sky first threatening and then shedding heavy, clattering torrents of
rain--from the moment when he saw the things, the first things, the
first terrible Thing: from that moment a confusion had crept over his
tender brain like a monster which had not exactly crushed the child,
but which had ever since possessed it, held it in its claws.... All the
years of his life, he had seen the Thing rise up again, like a vision,
the terrible Thing begotten and born in that night when, being no doubt
a little feverish, he had been unable to sleep under the heavy, leaden
night, which still held up the rain in powerful sails that could not
burst and allowed no air through for him to breathe. The vision? No,
the Thing, the actual Thing ...
* * * * *
A lonely _pasangrahan_[5] in the mountains: he is there alone with
his two parents, he the darling of his father, who is taking his
sick-leave. The other brothers and the sisters have been left behind in
the town, in the assistant-resident's house.
He cannot sleep and he calls:
"_Baboe_, come here!..."
She does not answer. Where is she? As a rule, she lies outside his
door, on her little mat, and wakes at once.
"_Baboe, baboe_, come here!"
He becomes impatient; he is a big boy, but he is frightened, because
he has a touch of fever too, like Papa, and because the night is so
sultry, as though an earthquake were at hand.
"_Baboe!_..."
She is not there.
He struggles up and gets entangled in the _klamboe_,[6] which he is
unable to open in his feverish terror.... He now releases himself from
the muslin folds and is again about to call out for his _baboe_ ...
but he hears voices, whispering, in the back verandah.... The blood
curdles in the boy's body: he thinks of thieves, of _ketjoes_,[7] and
is horribly frightened.... No, they are not speaking Javanese: they
are not _ketjoes_. They are speaking Dutch, with Malay in between; and
he next recognizes Baboe's voice. And he tries to utter a scream of
fright, but his fright prevents him.... What are they doing, what is
happening? The boy is clammy, cold.... He has heard his mother's voice:
he now recognizes the voice of Mr. Emile, Mr. Takma, the secretary, who
is so often at the house in the town.... Oh, what are they doing out
there in the dark?... He was frightened at first, but now he is cold
rather and shivers and does not know why.... What can be happening?
What are Mamma and Mr. Takma and Ma-Boeten doing out there in the
night?... His curiosity overcomes his terrors. He keeps very quiet,
only his teeth chatter; he opens the door of his room, very gently, to
prevent its creaking. The middle verandah is dark, the back verandah is
dark....
"Hush, _baboe_, hush, O my God, hush!... Quietly, quietly.... If the
_sinjo_[8] should hear!..."
"He's asleep, _kandjeng_[9]...."
"If the _oppas_[10] should hear!..."
"He's asleep, _kandjeng_...."
"O my God, O my God, if he should wake!... Oh, _baboe, baboe,_ what are
we to do?..."
"Be quiet, Ottilie, be quiet!..."
"Nothing else for it, _kandjeng_: in the river, in the river!..."
"O my God, O my God, no, no, _not_ in the river!"
"Do keep quiet, Ottilie!"
"O my God, no, not in the river!"
"It's the only way, Ottilie! Be quiet, be quiet! Hold your tongue, I
say! Do you want to get us both taken up ... for murder?"
"I? Did I murder him?"
"_I_ couldn't help it! _I_ acted in self-defence! _You_ hated him, _I_
didn't, Ottilie. But you did it with me."
"Oh, my God, no, no!"
"Don't try to avoid your share of the blame!"
"No, no, no!"
"You hung on to him ..."
"Yes, no ..."
"When I snatched his kris from him!"
"Yes ... yes."
"Hush, _kandjeng_, hush!"
"O my God, O my God, it's lightning!... Oh, what a clap, what a clap!"
The mountains echo the rolling thunder, again and again and yet again.
The torrent pours down, as though the rain-sails were tearing....
The boy hears his mother's scream.
"Quiet, Ottilie, quiet!"
"I can bear it no longer, I shall faint!"
"Be quiet! Hold his leg. _Baboe_, you take the other leg!"
"There's blood, on the floor...."
"Wipe it up."
"Presently, _kandjeng_, oh, presently!... First to the river...."
"O my God, O my God!"
The boy's teeth chatter and his eyes start from his head and his heart
thumps, in his fever. He is mortally frightened, but he wants to see,
too. He does not understand and, above all, he wants to see. His
childish curiosity wants to see the terrible Thing which he does not
yet understand. Silently, on his bare feet, he steals through the dark
verandah. And, in the dim light of the night outside ... he sees! He
sees the Thing! A flash of lightning, terrible; a clap of thunder, as
if the mountains were falling ... and he has seen! He is now looking
only at vagueness, the vague progress of something which they are
carrying ... of somebody whom they are carrying, Mamma, Mr. Emile
and Ma-Boeten. In his innocence, he does not realize _whom_. In his
innocence, he thinks only of terrible things and people, of robbers and
treasures, of creepy incidents in his story-books.... _Whom_ are they
carrying through the garden? Can't Papa hear them? Won't he wake? Is he
so fast asleep?
Now he no longer hears their voices.... Now they have disappeared in
the garden.... Doesn't the _oppas_ hear?... No, everything remains
quiet; everything has disappeared in the darkness and the rain; he sees
nothing but the rain pouring in torrents, pelting, pelting, furiously.
The furious pelting prevents Father and Oppas from hearing.... The
sky has burst and all the rain in the sky is pelting down.... He is
shivering with cold and fever. And suddenly he feels his little bare
foot stepping on something warm and soft.... It is blood, clotted
blood....
He no longer dares to move forwards or backwards. He stands with his
teeth chattering and all the clatter of the rain around him.... But he
must wake his father, take refuge with him, hide himself in his arms
and sob and sob with fright!... He gropes his way back to the middle
verandah; he sees the door of Mamma's room standing open: a little
lamp is flickering faintly. Again his foot feels the soft warmth and
he shudders at the terrible mire, which is blood, clotted blood, and
lies everywhere, on the matting. But he wants to get to the little
lamp, to take it with him to Papa's room, so far away, near the front
verandah. He goes to the lamp and takes it and sees Mamma's bed all
tumbled, with the pillows on the floor.... And he now sees the red on
the floor, already almost black, and he is terrified and feels icy
cold and steps aside with the lamp, so as not to tread on a kris, a
handsome presentation weapon, which Papa received from the Regent[11]
yesterday! There it lies ... and the blade is red! Now everything is
misty-red before his childish eyes, oh, terribly red in the verandah,
with its dancing shadows, through which he, so small, goes with his
little lamp, in his terror and fever: perhaps he is dreaming!... To
Papa's room:
"Papa, oh, Papa, oh, Papa!"
He is stammering with fright, at his wits' end without Papa's
protection.
He opens Papa's door:
"Papa, oh, Papa, oh, Papa!"
He goes up to the bed with his little lamp in his hand. Papa has slept
in the bed, but is not there now.... Where is Papa?... And of a sudden
it stands revealed to his childish mind. He sees the terrible Thing,
sees it as a dreadful, awful, blood-red haunting vision. What they
carried away through the garden, through the pouring rain, to the river
... was Papa, was Papa! What Mamma and Mr. Emile and Ma-Boeten are
carrying away outside ... is Papa!... He is all alone in the house ...
Papa is dead and they are carrying him to the river.... He has seen the
Thing.... He goes on seeing the Thing.... He will always see it....
He does not know why--he has suddenly grown years older--but he shuts
Papa's door, goes back, puts Mamma's lamp where he found it and goes
back to his own room. He trembles in the dark and his teeth chatter and
his eyes start and stare out of his head. But he washes his feet, in the
dark, and at once flings the towel into the linen-basket. He creeps
into bed, pulls the _klamboe_ to, pulls the coverlet over his ears.
And he lies shaking with fever. The iron bedstead underneath him
trembles in unison. He is alone in the _pasangrahan_ and he has seen
the terrible Thing: first the actual progress of it and then the
revealing vision, in the glare of the lightning-flashes, under the
roar of the mountain-cleaving thunder. He lies and shakes.... How long
does it last? How long does it last?... Half an hour, three-quarters
of an hour.... He hears Baboe coming back and Mamma moaning, sobbing,
groaning and Ma-Boeten muttering:
"Hush, _kadjeng_, hush!..."
"They're sure to have seen us!..."
"No, there was no one there.... Think of Sinjo Harold, _kandjeng_!..."
Everything becomes still....
Deathly still....
The boy lies shaking with fever; and all night long his starting eyes
stare and he sees the Thing....
He has seen it ever since; and he has grown to be an old man....
Next day, Papa's body is discovered among the great boulders in the
river. There are suggestions of a _perkara_[12] with a woman, in the
_kampong_,[13] of jealousy. But Dr. Roelofsz finds that the wound
was caused by nothing more than a sharp rock, to which Dercksz tried
to cling, when drowning.... No need to credit natives' gossip....
No question of a murder.... The controller draws up the report:
Assistant-resident Dercksz--staying temporarily in the _pasangrahan_,
unable to sleep because of his fever and the sultry weather--went out
during the night, for the sake of air.... The _oppasser_ heard him
... and was rather surprised, for it was raining in torrents.... But
it was not the first time that the _kandjeng_ had gone out into the
jungle at night, because of his sleeplessness.... He missed his way;
and the river was swollen.... It was impossible for him to swim, among
the great rocks.... He was drowned in the stormy night.... His body
was found by natives some distance below the _pasangrahan_, while Mrs.
Dercksz, on waking in the morning, was very uneasy at not finding her
husband in his room....
* * * * *
Harold Dercksz sat and stared.
In his silent, gloomy business-man's study, he saw the Thing pass, but
with such a trailing movement and so slowly.... And he did not notice
the door open and his daughter Ina enter. "Father ..."
He did not answer.
"Father! Father ..."
He started.
"I have come to say good-night.... What were you thinking of so hard,
Father?"
Harold Dercksz drew his hand over his forehead:
"Nothing, dear ... things ... old things...."
He saw them: there they went, trailing long spectral veils over
rustling leaves ... and ... and was anything threatening behind the
trees in that endless path?...
"Old things?... Oh, Father, they are past by now!... _I_ never think of
old things: the life of to-day is difficult enough for people without
money...."
She kissed him good-night....
No, the old things ... are not yet the things of the past.... They are
passing, they are passing ... but so slowly!
[1] A Dutch title of nobility, ranking below that of baron.
[2] A half-caste.
[3] The Walloon Protestants are a branch of the French Calvinists
imported into the Netherlands at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
They differ from the general body of Dutch Calvinists only in the use
of the French language and the Geneva Catechism. They are gradually
dying out as a separate body.
[4] The title borne by the unmarried daughters of Dutch noblemen.
[5] Dak bungalow.
[6] Mosquito-curtain.
[7] Native robber-bands.
[8] The young gentleman.
[9] Mem-sahib.
[10] From the Dutch _oppasser_: overseer, watchman.
[11] A title of an independent native prince, equivalent to rajah.
[12] Business, fuss, bother.
[13] Compound.