Had it all been an illusion then? Was it all for nothing?
The days passed slowly, one after the other. She saw Van Vreeswijck
and felt for him, their friend, in his silent grief; she bade good-bye
to Bertha and her children. She knew that Van der Welcke had seen
Marianne once more before her departure; and her heart was full of
pity for them both.
Had it all been an illusion then, this world of feeling, this little
world of her own self? Oh, he was going to England, to lecture on
Peace; for him there were always those mighty problems which consoled
him for the smallness of that little world of self! But she, had she
lost everything, now that the illusion no longer shone before her,
now that the magic cities had fallen to pieces, now that everything
had become very dreary in the disenchantment and self-reproach of
realizing that she had not loved her son enough, that she had not
loved him as well as his father loved him, not as well as she had
loved the stranger, the friend who had taught her to live?...
Had she lost everything then? Now, ah now, she was really old,
grey-haired; now her eye was no longer bright, her step no longer
brisk; now it was really all over and it was over forever.... But had
she lost everything then? This was what she often asked herself in
the days that followed, those days of sadness, sadness for herself,
for him, for her son, for her husband, for the girl whom she loved
too ... for all those people, for all her life.... And what of the
great questions, the mighty problems of life? Ah, they no longer stood
out before her, now that he who had called her attention to them had
gone straight towards those mighty problems as to the towers of the
greater life! To her they seemed infinitely remote, shadowy cities
on a far horizon behind her own shattered cities of fair translucent
hopes.... Had she then lost her interest in all those things? And,
having lost that interest, did she no longer care for her own
development, for books, nature, art? Was the life that she had been
living all illusion, a dream-life of love, lived under his influence,
lived under his compelling eyes?
Yes, that was how it had been, that was how she would have to
acknowledge it to herself!... That was how it was!... That was how
it was!... Only with his eyes upon her had she felt herself born
again ... born again from her childhood onwards ... until she had
once more conjured up the fairy-vision of the little girl with the
red flowers on her temples who ran over the boulders in the river
under the spreading tropical leaves, beckoning the wondering little
brothers.... And she, a middle-aged woman, had grown into a girl who
dreamed the shimmering dreams that were wafted along rainbow paths
towards the distant clouds high in the heavens.... In her maturity,
she had developed herself hurriedly, as though afraid of being too
late, into a thinking, feeling, loving woman.... She had been sincere
in that new, hurried life; but it had been nothing more than illusion
and illusion alone, the illusion of a woman who felt herself growing
old without ever, ever having lived....
But, though it had all been illusion, was illusion nothing then?... Or
was illusion indeed something, something of no great account? And,
even though she had lived only illusion, illusion under the compelling
eyes of the man whom she loved, feeling love for the first and only
time, under the brooding, anguished eyes of that thinker and seeker,
had she not lived then, had she not lived then?
Yes, she had: she had lived, in the way in which a woman like
herself--a woman who had never felt simply and sincerely except
as a child in those far-off childish days, a woman whose life had
been nothing but artificiality and failure--could live again, only
later still, older still, old almost and finished; she had lived in
illusions, in a fleeting illusion, which just for one moment she had
tried to grasp, that day, now a few months ago....
She shook her head, her grey head; she was no longer blinded; she saw:
she saw that it could never have been....
Yet she felt that they had--both of them--lived the illusion--both
of them--for a little while....
And was nothing left of it?
Now that the long dreary days of sadness were drawing on, she saw:
she saw that there was indeed something left, that a ray of light
remained in her small soul, which had only been able to live like
that, very late; for she saw that, in spite of all her repining,
there was still gratitude....
Yes, she was grateful, for she had lived, even though everything had
been illusion, the late blossoming of ephemeral dream-flowers....
And now--when she felt that strange question rise in her soul:
is this life, this futile, endless round, or is there ... is there
anything else? When she felt that bewildering, passionate doubt--then
she was conscious, deep down in her heart, with a throb of gratitude,
that there was something else....
Illusion, yes, only illusion, without which there is no life....
THE END
NOTES
[1] The period of the novel is about 1901.
[2] Equivalent to vous or tu.
[3] Malay fairies.
[4] Malay: "Come on, now then."
[5] The title borne by the unmarried daughters of Dutch noblemen.
[6] Lord! Heavens!
[7] Nurse, ayah.
[8] The young master.
[9] Mem-sahib.
[10] Half-caste.
[11] The "Queen's Commissary" of a Dutch province has no counterpart
in England except, perhaps, the lord lieutenant of a county. His
functions, however, correspond more nearly with those of a French
prefect.
[12] Poor thing!