Days had come of endless flaking snow; and the hard frost kept the snow
tight-packed in the garden, alongside the house, the silent, massive
building whose thick white lines stood out against the low-hanging
snow-laden skies: one great greyness from out of which the grey of the
snow fell with a sleepy whirl until it was caught in the grip of the
frost and turned white, describing the outlines of villa-houses and the
branching silhouettes of black and dreary trees with round soft strokes
of white. The road in front of the house soon soiled its whiteness with
cart-tracks and footprints; and with the snow there fell from the sky,
like so much grey wool, the pale melancholy of a winter in the country,
all white decay and white loneliness: days so short that it seemed as
though the slow hours slept and, when awake, but dragged their whiter
veils from grey dawn to grey twilight, so that dawn might once again be
turned to night. And the short days were like white nights, sunless, as
though the light were shining through velvet, as though life were
breathing through velvet, velvet cold as the breath of death, the breath
of death itself, striking down and embracing all things in its chill
velvet....
In the big house reigned the silent warmth of domesticity in big heated
rooms and passages, with the rich browns of the heavy old carpets and
curtains which had lived long and were beginning to grow worn in weary
attitudes and folds of chamber contemplation, as though the dead stuffs
looked down and dreamed and breathed in sympathy with all that lived
among them, while in the snowy light reflected from outside the mahogany
furniture also gleamed with its own life or cast back things of long
ago, past sufferings of small people and past sentiments. The silent
moods of old and lonely people seemed to rise up from the old, solemn
furniture, which smiled good-humouredly because so much new life had
come into the midst of it from the outside: the chair-springs moaned,
the cupboard-doors creaked, the looking-glasses grew dull and bright in
turns, the china became chipped, the silver became scratched, full of
the serviceable humility of those very old, wearing things of daily
life, which had long been used and were dying off slowly, while all
around and about them blossomed the new movement of the new life from
without. And yet, despite that new movement and that new life, a soul of
the past seemed to hover through the long passages, up the brown stairs,
to skim along the dark doors, even though these, when opened, gave
admission to the rooms of the new life. Even in the rooms themselves,
something still hovered of that soul of the past; and the furniture
reflected that soul, as though it were vaguely clinging to material
things, a soul catching at earthly things when itself had not yet died
out entirely....
In among these reflections of the soul-things of the past there lingered
a remnant of biblical piety, because of the titles of certain books in
the book-cases, because of certain old-fashioned engravings in the dark
rooms; and at certain hours of silent twilight there passed through the
house a sort of hover of prayer, which Constance sometimes felt so
intently that, on Sunday mornings, she always insisted that the girls at
least should go to church, as though they were almost bound to do so out
of reverence for the old people who used to live and pray here ... and
especially for the old man. And the thought that she herself did not go
troubled her so greatly that, very occasionally, she accompanied the
girls, though she continued insensible to any impression derived from
liturgical religion. And the things of the past that flickered and
hovered and formed the intangible atmosphere of the dark passages and
the rich-brown rooms, in which the only gay note was struck by the
blue-and-white of the Delft pots and jars: those things of the past all
unconsciously harmonized with the mood only of Van der Welcke, because
something of his childhood was wafted and reflected in them, and of
Addie, because of his vague sense of inheriting not only the material
but also the immaterial things with which the big house remained filled.
Though he felt a stranger to the old man, he felt related to the old
woman, with a strange retrospect of what he knew of her and remembered
of her later, silent, mystic years, when liturgical piety was not enough
to satisfy her.
But for the rest the house remained as it were one great hospitality,
though alien in blood to so many who had found a shelter in it and a
sanctuary: the old, doting woman at the window, peering out at the
snow-grey garden-vistas; the mourning and still young mother, with her
grown-up children; and Emilie, full of silent mystery. And, the other
day, in a drifting blizzard, Constance had brought home Marietje van
Saetzema--Mary, as they decided to call her--and they had given her
Guy's room, now that Guy worked in a corner of Addie's study, where he
heaped up his books on a little table. The house gradually became very
full. The daughter-in-law also remained alien to the big house; but the
children, Constance and Jetje, were always like golden sunbeams,
sometimes whirling in a sound of yet stammering voices of early
springtime, as they went along the stairs and passages with their
nurse--one already toddling on foot, the other still carried--to go for
a drive in the governess-cart or to play in the conservatory, where the
old great-grandmother, at the window, looked on with vague smiles at
their playfulness, which was that of very small children.
And, the day after Constance' arrival with Marietje in the grey-white
blizzard, how surprised they all were when Addie telegraphed that he was
coming, next day, with Uncle Ernst! Two or three words only in the
telegram, with no explanation: how astounded they were that Addie had
managed to get that done! Constance and Guy went at once to the little
villa where they took in patients: yes, the doctor had already wired for
the two rooms, they were told, and everything was being got ready, that
was to say, the bedroom; for the gentleman would furnish the
sitting-room himself. And on the next day Addie and Uncle Ernst actually
arrived. Ernst's furniture was being sent on from the Hague; his china
had been packed up under his own and Addie's supervision; and, though
Ernst at first looked at the bare sitting-room with great suspicion,
tapping at the walls, listening at the partition and declaring that the
people--the man of the house, himself a male nurse, and the trained
nurse, his wife--were spying behind the door, just like the landlady and
her cad of a brother at the Hague, nevertheless he was pleased,
surprised to find the room so large, though he missed the sombre canal
in the Nieuwe Uitleg, which he loved for the gloom of its colouring and
atmosphere. As he passed through the garden with Addie, leaning on
Addie's arm, he thought it strange that he saw walking through the white
snow, accompanied by the nurse, an old lady, the only patient at the
moment, though there were several in the summer, and he looked at her
with suspicion; but he was pleased again and surprised when Addie
explained to him how very near he would be living to all of them; and,
when Addie brought him to the house, Ernst stood by the garden-gate
gazing at it and looked up at the snow-corniced gable, at the soft snow
on the straight lines of the windows and above the door. The great house
seemed to look down upon him benignly with all the eyes of its
window-panes; and he went on, leaning on Addie's arm, through the garden
and inside. He had never been there before. He took an immediate
interest in the antique cabinet in the hall, the engravings, the Delft
jars and nodded his head approvingly, admitting that this was beautiful.
Constance welcomed him cordially; and, though he had not seen Mamma for
years, he greeted her in all simplicity, as if he had parted from her
only yesterday. She held his hand, looked him in the face, recognized
him for a son of hers but did not know his name, imagined that he had
come from Java, asked after things and mentioned names.... They did not
understand each other; and Constance felt very sad, especially because
of little Klaasje, playing at Mamma's feet with lovely coloured
picture-books which "Uncle" Addie had given her:
"Look ... a blue man ... yellow woman ... red! And outside ...
everything white ... everything white.... everything white!..."
And suddenly so heavy a melancholy arose in Constance that she could
have burst out sobbing because of her mother, her brother, because of
that child of her poor brother Gerrit! But she made a violent effort of
self-control, put her arm round Ernst's shoulder and led him away from
Mamma; and Adeline and Emilie came to speak to him. Oh, the things of
the past--not the past things of which the atoms still hovered about
this house, those of the old people, but the things of their own past,
of the bygone dead years of all of them, years of a youth not so long
ago--how they crowded in amongst them all, how they filled the
atmosphere of the faintly sombre room, while the snow reflected its
gleams indoors to water away brightly in the old mirrors!... How did
they all come to be here like this, how did they all come to be here
like this, as in a refuge, as in a sanctuary, a silent haven of simple
love?... How nerveless she became, how nerveless, when she saw her
husband and her son come in, those two who ...! She _could_ not pursue
her thoughts of nervelessness and sadness any further. Alex also now
entered; and in him, so young, so young, she also saw all the past,
flashing at her suddenly out of his eyes, with the vision of his
father's death.... But now the girls came in too, and, when Guy and
Gerdy came, both laughing, she also laughed, because of their gaiety,
their flaxen-haired joy in living, young and strong and healthy and
simple, both of them.... How happy, how happy those two were! Oh, the
more the past heaped itself up, the more the present was overcast with
shadow; but those two, Gerdy and Guy, were young and strong and healthy
and simple!... Happy, happy! And, with a laugh almost of happiness,
however intensely she might feel all the things of the past, she asked
Addie:
"Isn't it too much for Uncle Ernst, now?"
"Yes, I shall take him home," said Addie.
"Can't he stay and dine one day?"
"Perhaps later on; he must get used to it first. The great thing is not
to force him."
And he suggested to Ernst that they should go back.
But Ernst said:
"When will my packing-cases come?"
"To-morrow, Uncle."
"You see, if I'm to get everything in order...."
"I'll help you."
"Will you help me unpack?"
"I'll help you too, Uncle," said Guy.
"Yes," said Ernst, "that's right.... You see," he whispered to Addie ...
"What, Uncle?"
"It's not good ... for the vases to remain in the cases so long.... You
don't believe it, of course, but...."
He did not complete his sentence, would not say that the vases were
suffocating in their cases, with all that paper and straw; he would not
say it, because Addie was so kind, a kind-hearted fellow, really, but
devoid of understanding, stupid, just as stupid as all the rest of
them....
"We shall unpack as quickly as we can, Uncle, and make the room
comfortable for you."
"Yes. I have only the bedroom at present."
"The bedroom's all right, isn't it?"
"Yes. Am I to have my dinner there to-night?"
"If you don't mind ... as your sitting-room isn't ready...."
"Yes. I don't care for dining in my bedroom. Can't I stay and dine
here?"
"Certainly, Uncle. We should like that above all things. Aren't the
troop of us too noisy for you?"
"They are a bit noisy, but ... no, they're very good. Tell me, Addie,
they're all children of Uncle Gerrit, aren't they?"
"Of Uncle Gerrit, yes."
"Yes, yes, I remember. I should like to stay and dine, if I may. It's
because the sitting-room isn't ready, you see."
"Very well, Uncle. Then come upstairs now, to my study. Then you can
rest a bit and read, or sleep if you like, on the sofa."
"No, I never sleep by day."
"It'll be quiet for you there."
"Yes, it's quiet where you are."
"Come with me."
He took Ernst upstairs.
"This is a nice, quiet room," said Ernst.
"Then I'll leave you by yourself. You'll find books and papers.... Can
you manage to occupy yourself alone?"
"Yes, my dear boy; I want to be alone. You're kind, you're very kind.
You understand me. I shall be glad to stay and dine."
"Would you like your dinner up here?"
"No, downstairs, with all of you. They're Uncle Gerrit's children,
aren't they? You see, it's all family. I'd rather dine downstairs."
"All right, I'll come and fetch you."