The sunny days had come, at the end of April, in Naples; and Lot, from
his room, across the green-lacquered palms of the Villa Nazionale,
saw the sea stretch blue, a calm, straight, azure expanse, hazing
away, farther towards the horizon, in a pearly mist, from which, in
dreamy unreality, Castellamare stood out with brighter, square white
patches....
He looked out of his high window, feeling a little tired after his
walk with Steyn, who had just gone, after sitting with him for a long
time. He had been glad to see Steyn, feeling lonely at the departure
of old Mr. Pauws, who had gone back to Brussels after spending two
months with Lot. Yes, the old gentleman had been unable to stand it:
the scorching April heat in Naples was too much for him, whereas it
sent Lot into the seventh heaven. Lot was quite well again. That had
been a pleasant time with Papa: they had gone for long excursions in
the Campaigna and latterly in the environs of Naples; and this constant
living in the open air, without fatiguing himself, had done Lot a
world of good: he felt himself growing stronger daily. Then old Pauws
left him: Lot himself had insisted upon Papa's going, dreading that
the sun-swept, southern spring, in Naples of all places, would affect
the old gentleman's health, hale and hearty though he might be. And so
old Pauws went back, regretting that he had to leave Lot by himself,
but pleased with the time which they had spent together and with the
harmony that existed between him and his son, who was so very different
from him.
This was all because of Lot's character; he gave Lot full credit for
it, for he himself was a brusque, somewhat rough, masterful man, but
Lot, with his yielding gentleness and his not so very cynical laugh,
smoothed away, with native ease, anything that might provoke a conflict
or want of harmony between an old father and a son who was still young.
Yes, Lot was glad that Steyn had broken his journey and put in a day
or two at Naples. Though Lot had acquaintances at Naples and he saw
them regularly, he had found in Steyn something to remind him of home
and his country and his family. It happened fortunately that Steyn
arrived after Lot's father had left, so that there was no possibility
of a painful meeting between these two husbands of his mother. And yet
they had nothing to reproach each other with: "Mr." Trevelley came in
between them!...
But Lot was very tired after his talk with Steyn. It all whirled
before his mind, it swam before his eyes, which gazed out at the white
fairy-city, at Castellamare in the pearly distance.... Steyn had said
so much to him, revealed to him so much that he did not know, so much
that Lot would probably never have known but for Steyn, things to which
he was a stranger, which were strange to him, but which nevertheless
made him seize and grasp and understand all sorts of things, suddenly,
suddenly: sensations experienced as a child, in the little house in
the Nassaulaan, Grandmamma's house.... Yes, Steyn, in the confidence
arising from their association, after first lunching together, had
told him of the letter which he had read, in the act of tearing it
up, with Adèle Takma in the old gentleman's study; and Lot, in utter
stupefaction, had heard everything: Lot now _knew_ ... and thought that
he alone knew, together with Steyn and Aunt Adèle.... How terrible,
those passions of former days, of hatred, of love, of murder! He now
saw, in that narrow drawing-room, each at a window, those two very old
people sitting and waiting ... waiting ... waiting.... Now, now it had
come, what they had so long waited for.... Now, now they were both
dead.... Oh, to grow so old, under so heavy a life's secret: he could
never do it, he thought it too terrible!... And, gazing wearily into
the pearly evening distance, which began to turn pink and purple in the
reflection of the setting sun, he felt--he, the grandchild of those
two murderers--felt dread descending upon him, gigantic, as a still
invisible but already palpable, wide-winged shadow: the dread of old
age. O God, O God, to grow so old, to wait so patiently, to see things
pass so slowly!... It took away his breath; and he shivered, closed the
window, looked out through the closed window.... Oh, he had not the
passion that had filled those old people; his neutral-tinted soul would
never let itself be tempted to any sort of passion; his disillusioned,
nerveless, dilettante nature contemplated the violent things of this
life with a slightly bitter little smile, thought them superfluous,
asked itself, why?... So heavy a life's secret he would never have
to bear, no; but there was so much else--so much melancholy, so much
silent suffering and loneliness--that, feeling the shadowy dread sink
down upon him, he asked:
"O God, O my God, _can_ I ever grow so old? So old as those two old
people were?... Is it possible that I shall slowly wither and fade,
gradually dying and dragging myself along, always with that same
gnawing at my heart, always with that same sorrow, a sorrow which I
cannot yet utter to anybody, to anybody ... not even to Steyn ...
because I will not judge, because I _can_ not judge ... because Elly is
right from her point of view ... because she lives in what she is now
doing and would pine if she always remained with me, by whose side she
feels herself to be useless ... aimless ... aimless?..."
O God, no, let him not grow old, let him die young, die young and not,
year after year, feel the dread pressing more and more heavily on his
small, vain soul, his soul so childishly terrified of what was to
come!... Let him not, year after year, feel that dread gnawing more and
more at his heart, like an animal eating his heart away, and let him
not, for years and years on end, feel that silent sorrow weeping within
him, never uttered or shown, not even to Elly, if she ever came back,
because he would want to assure her with a smile that he understood her
aspirations and respected them and approved and admired them!
Loneliness was all around him now: his father was gone, Steyn was gone;
Elly was so far from him, in a sphere to which, despite her letters,
he was so little able to follow her in thought, a sphere of terror and
horror so great that he kept on asking himself:
"Can she do _that?_... Has she the strength to keep it up?... Those
hospitals ... the din of the battlefield thundering in her ears ... the
sufferings of the wounded ... their cries ... their blood: could she
hear and see all that ... and devote herself ... and act?..."
When he saw it looming up out of her hurried letters, it was so
terrible a vision that he did not see Elly in it: she faded and passed
into somebody else, he did not know her, hardly knew her even in the
photograph which she had sent him and in which he vacantly looked for
his wife among a number of other Red Cross nurses.... No, in this
photograph she looked neither like him nor Mamma: she was herself
this time, another, some one quite different.... The energy of her
undreaming, harder eyes startled him: in this portrait he saw, in a
sort of bewildered ecstasy, a willing, a striving perhaps to transcend
the bounds which she already saw before her!... Oh, was it possible
that she might soon return, worn out, and fall asleep in his arms?
Had he the right to wish it, for himself ... and for her? Ought he
not rather to hope that she would persevere and live according to the
career which she herself had chosen? Perhaps so ... but to him it was
such an unspeakable grief that she was not there, that she was not by
his side, she whom he had come to love as he never thought that he
could love!...
And this made everything so lonely around him. What were a few
pleasant, intelligent, artistic friends at Naples, with whom he chatted
and dined now and again at a restaurant? And beyond that there was
nothing, nothing; and that ... that perhaps was how he would have to
grow old: ninety-three, ninety-seven years old! Oh, how that dread
shuddered, that shadowing dread, which would always grow colder and
colder still, as he grew older! O God, no, no, let him die young, while
still in the flower of his youth, though his life was morbid; let him
die young!...
Even Mamma was not with him now! She was in London: there lay her last
letter; and in her angry written words she complained that Hugh was
such a man for girls, always out with girls, leaving her alone!...
She saw John now and again, saw Mary now and again; but she suffered
agonies because Hugh neglected her, though he always knew how to come
to her when he wanted money! It was the first letter in which she
expressed herself so angrily, unable to restrain herself, because she
suffered so from the sting of jealousy in the flesh of her heart:
jealousy because Hugh amused himself with other women, with girls, more
than with his mother! And Lot pictured her, alone, spending a long,
dreary evening in her room at the hotel, while Hugh was out, with his
girls.... Poor Mamma!... Was it beginning so early? But, now that she
had Hugh, whom she worshipped, it would last as long as she had any
money left ... and only then, when it was all finished, would she come
back to him, to Lot ... and, if Elly had returned by that time, then
she would be jealous of Elly!...
Yes, that would be the future, without a doubt.... Beyond a doubt, he
had not seen Elly for the last time; beyond a doubt she would come
back, wearied, and sleep, sleep off her weariness in his arms.... And
he would see his mother again also: older, an older woman, worn out,
penniless; and she would cry out her grief, cry out her grief in his
arms.... And he, with a little laugh of disillusionment, would find a
chaffing word of consolation ... and the days would drag by, the things
would pass ... pass very, very slowly ... not full of red remorse and
hatred, passion and murder, as they had passed for those two very old
people ... but full of an inner canker, inner grief and inner, painful
suffering, which he would never express and which would be his secret,
his, his secret: an innocent secret, free from all crime and other
scarlet things, but as torturing as a hidden, gnawing disease....
It was evening now. Well, he would not go out to look for his friends.
He would stay indoors, sup off a couple of eggs.... It was late; and
the best way to forget was to light the lamp cosily ... and to work,
to work quietly, in his loneliness.... Come! He had made the room
look homely; there were green plants and white plaster casts and
warm-coloured pieces of drapery; there were fine brown photographs
on the walls; and he had a big table to write at and the lamp was
burning nicely now, after spluttering a little at first.... Come, to
work: his dilettante work, the work which he could do best.... To
recast and rewrite those articles on the Medicis--O sweet memories of
Florence!--that was his work for this evening.... Come, every one must
be the best judge of his destiny: Elly of hers, he of his; and that
this was so was really not worth distressing yourself for all your life
long. There were beautiful and interesting things left, especially in
Italy; and spring in the south was such an undiluted joy.... Come, let
him soak himself in it now, quietly and in solitude ... and work, work
hard and forget.... There was nothing like work: it took your thoughts
off yourself and all those dreadful things; and, though you withered
and faded in working, still you withered and faded with no time for
repining.... And yet it was terrible, terrible ... that one could
become as old as Grandmamma had become ... as Mr. Takma had become!...
Well, suppose he wrote a novel: a novel about two old people like that
... and about the murder in Java?
He smiled and shook his head:
"No," he thought, almost speaking aloud, "it would be too romantic for
_me_.... And then there are so many novels nowadays: I'll keep to my
two.... That is enough, more than enough. Better by far rewrite the
Medici series...."
And, as the chill of sunset was over and the starry night outside was
growing sultry, he flung open the windows again, drew a deep breath and
sat down to his big table, by his bright lamp.... His fair and delicate
face bent low over his papers; and, so close to the lamp, it could be
seen that he was growing very grey at the temples.