And the melancholy of bygone things seemed to swell on the loud moaning
of the wind during the following days, when the rain poured down; the
house these days seemed full of the melancholy of bygone things. They
were days of shadow and half-light reflected around the old, doting
woman in the conservatory; Adeline, the silent, mournful mother; Emilie,
a young woman, but broken ... like all the greyness exuding from human
souls that are always living in the past and in the melancholy of that
past; and now that Brauws also saw it as a thing of shadows and twilight
round Alex--because the boy could never forget the horror of his
father's death--he also understood within himself that bygone things are
never to be cast off and that they perhaps hang closer in clouds of
melancholy, around people under grey skies--the small people under the
great skies--than in bright countries of mountains and sunshine and blue
sky. And that there were sorrowful things of the soul that slumbered:
did he not see it in Addie's knitted brows, in ailing Marietje's dreamy
stare, in Mathilde's glances brooding with envy and secret bitterness
and malice? Did he not see it in the sudden melancholy moods of Gerdy,
usually so cheerful? And did he not understand that in between their
young lives there was weaving a woof of feelings that were most human
but exceedingly intense, perhaps so intense because the feelings of
small souls under big skies can be deeply sorrowful between the brown
walls of a house, between the dark curtains of a room, which the grey
daylight enters as a tarnish of pain, mingling its tarnish with the
reflexion which lingers from former years in dull mirrors, as though all
feeling and all life were quiveringly mirrored in the atmosphere amid
which life has lived and palpitated?
Brauws was now living at Zeist and he had collected his heap of books
around him and lived there quietly, conquered, as he said. But he was
with them a great deal and was hardly surprised when, one morning,
intending to come for lunch, he heard unknown children's voices in the
hall, saw in the hall a young woman whom he did not know at first, heard
her say in a very soft voice of melancholy, with a sound in it like a
little cracked bell of silvery laughter:
"Don't you recognize me, Mr. Brauws?"
She put out her hand to him:
"Do you mean to say you really don't know me? Aunt Constance, Mr. Brauws
doesn't know me; and yet we used to have so many disputes, in the old
days!"
"Freule ... Freule van Naghel ... Freule Marianne!" Brauws stammered.
"Mrs. van Vreeswijk," said Marianne, correcting him, gently. "And here
are my children."
And she showed him a little girl of eight and two boys of seven and six;
and he was hardly surprised, but he felt the melancholy of the past
rising in the big house when Van der Welcke came down the stairs and
said:
"Ah, Marianne! Is that you and the children?"
"Yes, Uncle, we have been to Utrecht to look up Uncle and Aunt van
Vreeswijk: they are so fond of the children.... Charles may come on
this afternoon ... but he wasn't quite sure."
And, turning to Brauws, she continued, very, easily:
"We are living near Arnhem. Won't you come and see us in the summer?
Vreeswijk would be very glad, I know."
She spoke quite easily and it was all very prosaic and ordinary when
they all sat down round the big table in the dining-room and Marianne
quietly chatted on:
"And Marietje--Lord, what a lot of Marietjes we have in the
family--_our_ Marietje is soon coming to introduce her young soldier to
you."
"Is it settled then?" asked Constance. "I thought Uncle van Naghel
didn't approve."
"He's given in," said Marianne, shrugging her shoulders. "But the dear
boy hasn't a cent; and we none of us know how they're going to live on
his subaltern's pay. And Marietje who always used to swear that she
would only marry a rich man! ... And we have good news from India: Karel
is really doing well...."
How prosaic life was! How prosaically it rolled along its steady drab
course, thought Brauws, silently to himself, as he looked on while Guy
carved the beef in straight, even slices.... And, prosaically though it
rolled, what a very different life it always became from what any man
imagined that his life would be, from the future which he had pictured,
from the illusion, high or small, which he had gilded for himself, with
his pettily human fancy ever gilding the future according to its pettily
human yearning after illusions.... Oh, if the illusion had come about
which, in the later life reborn out of themselves, he and Constance had
conceived, without a word to each other, in a single, brightly
glittering moment, oh, if Henri's illusion had come about and that of
this young woman, now the little mother of three children, would it all
have been better than it now was? Who could tell? Who could tell?...
And, though the dreamy reflecting upon all this brought back all the
melancholy of the past, yet this melancholy contained an assurance that
life, as it went on, knew everything better than the people who pictured
the future to themselves.... There they all were, sitting so simply
round the big table at the simple meal for which Constance apologized,
saying that Marianne had taken her unawares; and Brauws was but mildly
astonished to find that Marianne was married to Van Vreeswijk: he had
not heard of it and it was a surprise to him to see her suddenly
surrounded by children; he was but mildly astonished to see her and Hans
talking together so simply, as uncle and niece, as though there had
never been a shred of tenderness between them; he was but mildly
astonished when he himself talked to Constance so simply, while he felt
depressed about Addie, whose eyes looked so dark and sombre. When Addie
was still a child, he had conceived an enthusiasm for him, perceiving in
him a certain future which he himself would never achieve. And he had
also suffered, because he felt Addie's jealousy for his father's sake,
when he, Brauws, used to sit for hours with his mother in the half-dark
room, whispering intimate words so quickly understood, so
sympathetically felt....
Now the years had passed; sorrow had faded away and sorrow was being
born again perhaps, for life cannot exist without sorrow, laid up as an
inheritance for one and all; and yet sorrow was so very little and
became so small in the measureless life entire. There was nothing for it
but to smile, later, much later, at all the disappointment, even that
of seeking and not finding and not achieving....
It was very noisy because of the children: the three little Vreeswijks
after lunch playing with Jetje and Constant; and, as the girls were
staying with the children, Constance, with her arm round Marianne's
waist, went upstairs to her own room:
"Let's sit here quietly for a bit," she said.
Marianne smiled:
"You've always got your hands full, Auntie."
"I don't know why, dear.... We live so quietly here, at Driebergen ...
and yet ... yet my hands are always full. I do sometimes crave to be
quite alone.... But the craving never lasts long ... and it seems
impossible.... However, it's all right as it is...."
"What awful weather, Auntie!... I remember how often it used to rain
like this when I came to see you in the Kerkhoflaan.... How long ago it
is, years and years ago!... Here, among all your old knicknacks it looks
to me suddenly and strangely as though everything had remained the same
... and yet changed. Auntie ... Auntie...."
Obeying a sudden impulse, she dropped on her knees beside Constance and
seized her hand:
"Do you remember, do you remember?... I used to come and see you in this
sort of rain and stay on ... and I could not bear that you should be
unhappy with Uncle..... And, you know, I talked about it ... I said
tactless things ... I asked you to try and be happy with Uncle ... Do
you remember, do you remember?... And now, Auntie, it appears to me as
if a great deal has been changed, though much has remained the same, and
as if things had become much better ... between you and Uncle ...
between you and Uncle Henri...."
"Dear, we have grown older; and everything has become more mellow; and
Uncle ... Uncle _is_ very good."
"Yes, he is good."
"He is just simply good."
"You see that now."
"Yes, I see it now, I admit it."
"Oh, I am so glad!... Yes, we have grown old."
"Not you."
"Yes, I too," she said, laughing softly. "I am young, but I am older
than my years.... And, Auntie, tell me, do you remember before we went
to Baarn, you came and called one day--we were just busy moving--and you
sent for me and asked me ... you told me ... that Charles was fond of me
... and I refused him ... do you remember, do you remember?"
"I should think I did remember, darling!... And now you've got him after
all; and it's all for the best, isn't it?"
"Yes, Auntie, we get on very well indeed.. and I have my children.... Do
you remember, do you remember how you came to Baarn one day? I was very
low-spirited; and you took me in your arms and pressed me to you and
told me ... a fairy-tale, about the small souls ... which passed through
vanity ... to ecstasy. Do you remember?... And, when the ecstasy died
out ... then the little soul found a grain ... a mere grain ... which
was big enough, however, because the soul itself was so small. Do you
remember, Auntie, do you remember?"
"Yes, dear, I remember.... It was just a few tiny words to console and
cheer you a little ... And now the little soul has found the grain,
hasn't it?"
"I think so, Auntie ... but under ... under all these small, everyday
things ... a great deal of melancholy remains.... Perhaps it's wrong;
perhaps it oughtn't to be so...."
"But, if there are things in one's past, if we have lived before, dear,
then there is always a certain melancholy and we all have our share of
it ... just because we feel deeply, very deeply perhaps, under our dark
skies ... and because our feeling always remains ... and our melancholy
too...."
"Perhaps so, Auntie.... And so it goes on and we drift on.... You see,
there are good things in life.... Tell me, doesn't it occur to you that
you have found...."
"What?"
"What you came to look for, years ago, in Holland ... after you had been
abroad so long, Auntie, and felt so home-sick for your own country and
for warmth ... the warmth of family-affection.... Tell me, Auntie,
doesn't it occur to you that you have found it _now_: the country, our
grey, dark country ... and everything that you used to long for?... Are
we not all round you: even we, though we live some way off?... Are we
not all, nearly all of us around you?"
"Yes, dear."
"And are you happy now?"
"Yes, dear."
"I hear something in your voice that contradicts your words. Tell me,
what is it?"
"I'm frightened ... I'm frightened."
"And you have found so much, you have found everything! What ... what
are you frightened of?"
"I'm frightened ... I feel so anxious...."
"What about?"
"About things ... that may happen."
"Where?"
"In our house."
"What can happen?"
"Things, sad things."
"Auntie, this is nonsense!"
"I can't help it, dear.... I'm frightened ... I'm frightened...."
"Tell me, Auntie, you don't like the house, do you?"
"It's not that."
"But the house oppresses you."
"No, it's not that, child.... Uncle and Addie like the house.... And I'm
getting used to it...."
"Tell me, Auntie: they say...."
"What?"
"That the house is...."
She looked at Constance meaningly.
"Darling, darling, it's not that.... It's an old house.... We never talk
of that...."
"But it may be just that that depresses you."
"It did at first ... but I'm getting used to it.... Addie is so very
calm and communicates all his calmness to us.... What appears
inexplicable ... is perhaps quite simple.... But that's not it.... I'm
frightened ... frightened of...."
"Of what?"
"Of what I fear ... will happen."
"And what do you fear?"
"Things that I can't put into words ... some great sorrow."
"Why, Auntie? Why should it happen?... And then, if sorrow comes, won't
you be strong?"
Constance suddenly gave a sob:
"I shall be weak!"
"Auntie, Auntie, why are you so overwrought?"
"I shall be weak!"
"No, Auntie, you won't. And you mustn't be so frightened. There is
nothing but love all around you ... and they will all of them, all of
them help you."
"I am frightened ... and I shall be very weak...."
"No, Auntie.... Oh, Auntie, do stop crying! ... What are you afraid of?
And what could happen now?... For whom are you afraid?"
"For Addie ... for my boy ... for Mathilde."
"But why, Auntie, why?... Oh, don't be so frightened!... Everything's
all right between them ... and Addie ... Addie is so calm, so practical,
so simple in his way of acting and thinking...."
"Perhaps.... Oh, if he is only strong!"
"Isn't he always?"
"Perhaps he is.... Oh, my dear child, I am so frightened!..."
"Hush, Auntie, hush!... Don't cry any more.... Lie still, now; lie still
in my arms.... Even if we have sorrow to go through, even if we have sad
things to experience, even then you should remember that everything ...
that everything comes right again ... in the end.... If we all have our
share, why shouldn't they have theirs?... And perhaps--who knows?--your
anxiety is exaggerated, Auntie ... because you have been a little
overwrought ... lately."
"It may be that."
"Is it all ...a little too much for you sometimes?"
"I am so seldom alone."
"I dare say you feel tired sometimes."
"It may be that."
"You mustn't think about it any more Tell me, Auntie: Gerdy isn't very
well...."
"What makes you say that?"
"I thought she looked pale ... and rather sad."
Constance passed her hand over her forehead:
"Oh, Marianne," she said, "I wish that I could talk it all away, think
it all away!... But I can't.... I'm frightened, I keep on being
frightened...."
And she sobbed gently on Marianne's shoulder, while the younger woman
knelt beside her.
The rain fell in vertical streaks. The carriage took Marianne and her
children to the station through a deluge.