When Addie found the telegram he at once took the train to Driebergen.
It was evening when he arrived.
"What's the matter with Emilie?" he asked his mother.
"She's crying all day long," said Constance. "It's just like last year."
He went straight upstairs to Emilie's room and found her sobbing,
sobbing in Adeline's arms.
"I'm at my wits' ends what to do with her," said Adeline.
"Leave me alone with her for a moment, Aunt," whispered Addie. "Here,"
feeling in his pocket, "here's a letter from Guy, posted in New York.
You'll see that he has found work, thanks to Mr. Brauws' introduction."
Adeline left the room; Emilie went on sobbing. She flung herself on the
floor, with her face against a chair and her hair dishevelled, her thin
hands grasping the chair.
"Addie!" she cried. "Addie! Is that you?"
"Yes, Emilie."
"Oh, it's suffocating me, it's suffocating me!... Let me tell you about
it!..."
He sat down and she came to him with the movement of an animal creeping
towards him. She stammered incoherent words, but he understood them: he
knew the words of old; he knew what she was saying: it had been the same
thing last year and the year before. At the beginning of each summer
there was some fit of madness which mastered her, a fit in which she
lived all over again through things that had happened in the years long
ago. Oh, it was a terrible secret which she always carried about with
her, which no one knew, which no one had ever known! In the dark room,
with the closed sun-blinds, the secret stifled her and had to be told,
because it stifled her in her heart and throat.
"I must tell it you, Addie.... It was during those last days, those
terrible days in Paris. Eduard, my husband, was in Paris and ... and he
had been threatening me.... You remember, you _must_ remember: I told
you as much as that, didn't I?... He had come to look for me in Paris.
He hated me ... and he hated, oh, how he hated Henri!... Henri, my poor
brother, my brother!... Addie, Addie, let me tell you everything!...
Whatever people may have thought, whatever people may have said, none of
it's true, it's all false! He was my brother, my own brother; and I
loved him as a brother, though perhaps too much; and he loved me as a
sister, though perhaps too much.... Oh, people are so wicked, so utterly
wicked! They thought, they said ... As for me, I would never speak. Oh,
Addie, your parents and you, your kindest and dearest of parents, never
asked me a question, but took me to live with them in their house, which
has become my sanctuary, where I can lead my cloistered life! Oh, Addie,
I shall be grateful for ever and ever to your dear parents ... and to
you! They never asked me anything, they have been like father and mother
to me; I have been able to live under their roof, though my life has
been nothing but remorse and pain.... Oh, Addie, let me tell you
everything!... Henri was a clown in a circus--you know about that--and
I, I made money by painting. We lived ... we lived together; we were
both of us happy; then Eduard came.... Oh, he was like an evil spirit!
Oh, when I dream of him now, I dream of a devil! Addie, Eduard came!...
And it was he ... it was he...."
"I know, Emilie, I know."
The words burst from her in a scream:
"It was he ... he ... he ... who murdered Henri!"
"Hush, Emilie."
"Oh, I can't keep silent, I can't keep silent for ever; it chokes me, it
chokes me, here!"
She uttered loud, hysterical cries, twisting herself against the chair;
her eyes stared distractedly out of her face; her hair hung loose about
her cheeks; her features were pale and distorted.
"It was after an evening when he had been playing in the circus ... and
Eduard ... Eduard...."
"I know, I know.... Hush, Emilie!"
"He waited for him ... in the passage in front of the house where we
lived ... and ... and he called him names ... they quarrelled.... Then
... then he _stabbed_ him ... with a knife!"
"Hush, Emilie, hush!"
But she screamed it out: her screeches rang through the room. She
wriggled like a madwoman against his knees; he stroked her dishevelled
hair, to quiet her.
"Oh, your parents, your dear parents, Addie: they never asked me
anything!... They came and fetched me: oh, Addie, that journey home,
with his coffin between us, oh, those formalities at the frontiers!...
Oh, Addie, your dear parents: they saved me: I was mad, I was mad, I was
mad at that time! Now it's all coming back to me; I can't keep it to
myself any longer!... You see, he waited for him, they began
quarrelling about me and ... suddenly they were like two wild animals!
Henri rushed at him ... and then Eduard stabbed him with his knife! The
villain, the villain! He has been missing since then; I have never seen
him again; only at night, at night I see him _with his knife_! Oh,
Addie, Addie, help me!"
He gripped her by the arms with all his might and sought to control her;
but she resisted. She was like a madwoman; in the sultry summer heat she
was overmastered by the day-long vision that loomed up regularly with
the first balmy warmth of spring. She was like a madwoman; she saw
everything before her eyes; she lived the past over again.
"Nobody has ever known, Addie, except you, except you!"
"Hush, Emilie, hush!"
He tried to look into her eyes, but they avoided his. She twisted and
turned as though she were in the grasp of a ravisher; she dragged
herself along the floor, while his hand held her arms. Suddenly his eyes
met hers and he held and pierced them deeply with his grey-blue glance.
She fell back helplessly against a chair; her features, now relaxed,
hung slackly, like an old woman's; her lips drooped. She lay huddled and
moaning, with a monotonous moan of pain. Then she began to shake her
head, up and down, up and down, grating the back of her head against the
chair.
"Get up, Emilie."
She obeyed, let him help her up, hung like a rag in his hands. She fell
back on her bed, with her eyes closed; and he rang the bell. It was
Constance who entered.
"We will undress her now, Mamma; she's much quieter. I'll ring for Aunt
Adeline to help you."
He rang again and asked Truitje to go for Mrs. van Lowe. But, as soon
as Emilie felt the touch of Constance' fingers, she began to moan anew
and opened her eyes:
"Oh, Auntie, Auntie, you're a dear, you're a dear! You never, never
asked me!"
"Perhaps it will be better to leave her now, Mamma," whispered Addie.
Constance left the room, promising to remain within call with Adeline.
Emilie lay on the bed, her eyes staring straight before her, as though
she still beheld all the horror of the past; and she went on moaning in
fear and pain:
"Addie, Addie, it was Eduard ... it was Eduard who murdered Henri....
Oh, nobody knows, nobody knows!... Uncle and Aunt never asked me....
People at the Hague say that it was I who made Eduard unhappy, that that
is why he has gone away, disappeared.... Perhaps I did, perhaps I did
make him unhappy.... I don't know, I don't know.... You see, I didn't
know what I was doing when I married Eduard. I thought ... I thought it
would be all right, I thought I cared for him ... Ssh, Addie, don't tell
anybody, but I cared for Henri, for my brother, only. I swear, it was
all quite beautiful what he and I felt for each other; there was never
anything between us, never anything to be ashamed of!... But my life,
Addie, my poor life, oh, my poor little life was quite wrecked, because
I did not know, because I felt so strangely, because I fought against
the common things of life, against my marriage, against my husband, and
because all that was stronger than what I tried to do, what I myself did
not really know, nor Henri, nor Henri either I...."
The heart-broken lamentation over her life moaned away in plaintive
words and it was as though, after uttering herself, she sank into a dull
vacancy, with her eyes wide open, staring through the room, as if she
still saw all the things of the past but as if they were now vanishing
after she had uttered herself. And it was the same every year: each time
spring came round, the same strange, mysterious force compelled her to
tell it, to tell it right out, to tell all the sad secret of her piteous
wreck and failure of a woman's life, she a very small soul, crushed
under too great a tragedy, under too great an affliction, something too
strange, which had crushed her and yet not crushed her to death. She
lived on, she had lived on for years, living her life devoid of all
interest and yet still young; bonds seemed still to bind her body and
soul to life; and there was nothing left for her except the pity of
those who surrounded her and a dull resignation, which only once, in
each year, as though roused by the warm torrents of spring or summer,
burst forth into a thunder of storm.... It gathered, it gathered, she
felt it threatening days beforehand, as though it were bursting within
her brain; during those sleepless nights she lay with her head clasped
in her hands; and it gathered, it gathered: a fit of nerves, a violent
attack of nerves; and she called for Addie, the only one who knew; and
she told him, she told it him again; and, after she had told it and had
fallen asleep under his eyes, she woke a little calmer. Then, after
days, after long, slow days, her quivering nerves became restful; she
surrendered herself; and that dull resignation wove itself round her
again, the summer beat hot and sultry upon her, the slow course of the
monotonous days dragged her on and on. Nobody talked of it all; and
then, one evening, in the garden, she found herself recovered, feeling
strange and resigned, limp her hands, limp her arms, with poor Aunt
Adeline beside her, quite cheered and receiving a short letter from Guy,
while the girls and Aunt Constance put Grannie to bed and then Klaasje,
that great big girl, who still always insisted on being taken to bed ...
and while Uncle Ernst wandered round the pond, talking to himself ...
and while Paul had not shown himself for three days, locking himself in
his room, in the villa over there, lower down....
That was how she recovered, as if waking from a hideous dream; that was
how she came to herself, in the evening, sitting in the garden with Aunt
Adeline, reading and rereading Guy's letter, beside her. And a little
further away sat Mr. Brauws and Uncle Henri: Uncle Henri who could not
get used to Guy's absence ... and who fretted over it sometimes, with
the tears standing wet in his eyes.