1
Next evening, when Cecile entered the Van Attemas' drawing-room,
slowly with languorous steps, in the sinuous black of her crape,
Dolf at once came to her and took her hand:
"I hope you won't be annoyed. Quaerts called; and Dina had told the
servants that we were at home. I'm sorry...."
"It doesn't matter!" she whispered.
Nevertheless, she was a little irritated, in her sensitiveness, at
unexpectedly meeting this stranger, whom she did not remember ever to
have seen at Dolf's and who now rose from where he had been sitting
with Dolf's great-aunt, old Mrs. Hoze, Amelie and the two daughters,
Anna and Suzette. Cecile kissed the old lady and greeted the rest
of the circle in turn, welcomed with a smile by all of them. Dolf
introduced:
"My friend Taco Quaerts.... Mrs. van Even, my sister-in-law."
They sat a little scattered round the great fire on the open hearth,
the piano close to them in the corner, its draped back turned to them,
and Jules, the youngest boy, sitting behind it, playing a romance by
Rubinstein and so absorbed that he had not heard his aunt come in.
"Jules!..." Dolf called out.
"Leave him alone," said Cecile.
The boy did not reply and went on playing. Cecile, across the piano,
saw his tangled hair and his eyes abstracted in the music. A feebleness
of melancholy slowly rose within her, like a burden, like a burden that
climbed up her breast and stifled her breathing. From time to time,
forte notes falling suddenly from Jules' fingers gave her little
shocks in her throat; and a strange feeling of uncertainty seemed
winding her about as with vague meshes: a feeling not new to her,
one in which she seemed no longer to possess herself, to be lost and
wandering in search of herself, in which she did not know what she
was thinking, nor what at this very moment she might say. Something
melted in her brain, like a momentary weakness. Her head sank a
little; and, without hearing distinctly, it seemed to her that once
before she had heard this romance played so, exactly so, as Jules was
now playing it, very, very long ago, in some former existence ages
agone, in just the same circumstances, in this very circle of people,
before this very fire.... The tongues of flame shot up with the same
flickerings as from the logs of ages back; and Suzette blinked with
the same expression which she had worn then on that former occasion....
Why was it that Cecile should be sitting here again now, in the midst
of them all? Why was it necessary, to sit like this round a fire,
listening to music? How strange it was and what strange things there
were in this world!... Still, it was pleasant to be in this cosy
company, so agreeably quiet, without many words, the music behind
the piano dying away plaintively, until it suddenly stopped.
Mrs. Hoze's voice had a ring of sympathy as she murmured in Cecile's
ear:
"So we are getting you back, dear? You are coming out of your shell
again?"
Cecile pressed her hand, with a little laugh:
"But I never hid myself from you! I have always been in to you!"
"Yes, but we had to come to you. You always stayed at home, didn't
you?"
"You're not angry with me, are you?"
"No, darling, of course not; you have had such a great sorrow."
"Oh, I have still: I seem to have lost everything!"
How was it that she suddenly realized this? She never had that sense of
loss in her own home, among the clouds of her day-dreams, but outside,
among other people, she immediately felt that she had lost everything,
everything....
"But you have your children."
"Yes."
She answered faintly, wearily, with a sense of loneliness, of terrible
loneliness, like one floating aimlessly in space, borne upon thinnest
air, in which her yearning arms groped in vain.
Mrs. Hoze stood up. Dolf came to take her into the other room,
for whist.
"You too, Cecile?" he asked.
"No, you know I never touch a card!"
He did not press her; there were Quaerts and the girls to make up.
"What are you doing there, Jules?" he asked, glancing across the piano.
The boy had remained sitting there, forgotten. He now rose and
appeared, tall, grown out of his strength, with strange eyes.
"What were you doing?"
"I ... I was looking for something ... a piece of music."
"Don't sit moping like that, my boy!" growled Dolf, kindly, with his
deep voice. "What's become of those cards again, Amelie?"
"I don't know," said his wife, looking about vaguely. "Where are the
cards, Anna?"
"Aren't they in the box with the counters?"
"No," Dolf grumbled. "Nothing is ever where it ought to be."
Anna got up, looked, found the cards in the drawer of a buhl
cabinet. Amelie also had risen, stood arranging the music on the
piano. She was for ever ordering things in her rooms and immediately
forgetting where she had put them, tidying with her fingers and
perfectly absent in her mind.
"Anna, come and draw a card too. You can play in the next rubber,"
cried Dolf, from the other room.
The two sisters remained alone, with Jules.
The boy had sat down on a stool at Cecile's feet:
"Mamma, do leave my music alone."
Amelie sat down beside Cecile:
"Is Christie better?"
"He is a little livelier to-day."
"I'm glad. Have you never met Quaerts before?"
"No."
"Really? He comes here so often."
Cecile looked through the open folding-doors at the card-table. Two
candles stood upon it. Mrs. Hoze's pink face was lit up clearly, with
its smooth and stately features; her hair gleamed silver-grey. Quaerts
sat opposite her: Cecile noticed the round, vanishing silhouette of his
head, the hair cut very close, thick and black above the glittering
white streak of his collar. His arms made little movements as he
threw down a card or gathered up a trick. His person had something
about it of great power, something energetic and robust, something
of every-day life, which Cecile disliked.
"Are the girls fond of cards?"
"Suzette is, Anna not so very: she's not so brisk."
Cecile saw that Anna sat behind her father, looking on with eyes
which did not understand.
"Do you take them out much nowadays?" Cecile asked next.
"Yes, I have to. Suzette likes going out, but not Anna. Suzette will
be a pretty girl, don't you think?"
"Suzette's an awful flirt!" said Jules. "At our last dinner-party...."
He stopped suddenly:
"No, I won't tell you. It's not right to tell tales, is it, Auntie?"
Cecile smiled:
"No, of course it's not."
"I want always to do what's right."
"That is very good."
"No, no!" he said deprecatingly. "Everything seems to me so bad,
do you know. Why is everything so bad, Auntie?"
"But there is much that is good too, Jules."
He shook his head:
"No, no!" he repeated. "Everything is bad. Everything is very
bad. Everything is selfishness. Just mention something that's not
selfish!"
"Parents' love for their children."
But Jules shook his head again:
"Parents' love is ordinary selfishness. Children are a part of their
parents, who only love themselves when they love their children."
"Jules!" cried Amelie. "Your remarks are always much too decided. You
know I don't like it: you are much too young to talk like that. One
would think you knew everything!"
The boy was silent.
"And I always say that we never know anything. We never know anything,
don't you agree, Cecile? I, at least, never know anything, never...."
She looked round the room absently. Her fingers smoothed the fringe
of her chair, tidying. Cecile put her arm softly round Jules' neck.
2
It was Quaerts' turn to sit out from the card-table; and, though Dolf
pressed him to go on playing, he rose:
"I want to go and talk to Mrs. van Even," Cecile heard him say.
She saw him come towards the big drawing-room, where she was still
sitting with Amelie--Jules still at her feet--engaged in desultory
talk, for Amelie could never maintain a conversation, always wandering
and losing the threads. She did not know why, but Cecile suddenly
assumed a most serious expression, as though she were discussing very
important matters with her sister; and yet all that she said was:
"Jules ought really to take lessons in harmony, when he composes
so nicely...."
Quaerts had approached; he sat down beside them, with a scarcely
perceptible shyness in his manner, a gentle hesitation in the brusque
force of his movements.
But Jules fired up:
"No, Auntie, I want to be taught as little as possible! I don't want
to be learning names and principles and classifications. I couldn't
do it. I only compose like this, like this...." And he suited his
phrase with a vague movement of his fingers.
"Jules can hardly read, it's a shame!" said Amelie.
"And he plays so nicely," said Cecile.
"Yes, Auntie, I remember things, I pick them out on the piano. Oh,
it's not really clever: it just comes out of myself, you know!"
"But that's so splendid!"
"No, no! You have to know the names and principles and
classifications. You want that in everything. I shall never learn
technique; I'm no good."
He closed his eyes for a moment; a look of sadness flitted across
his restless face.
"You know a piano is so ... so big, a great piece of furniture, isn't
it? But a violin, oh, how delightful! You hold it to you like this,
against your neck, almost against your heart; it is almost part of you;
and you stroke it, like this, you could almost kiss it! You feel the
soul of the violin quivering inside its body. And then you only have
just a string or two, two or three strings which sing everything. Oh,
a violin, a violin!"
"Jules...." Amelie began.
"And, oh, Auntie, a harp! A harp, like this, between your legs, a harp
which you embrace with both your arms: a harp is exactly like an angel,
with long golden hair.... Ah, I've never yet played on a harp!"
"Jules, leave off!" cried Amelie, sharply. "You drive me silly with
that nonsense! I wonder you're not ashamed, before Mr. Quaerts."
Jules looked up in surprise:
"Before Taco? Do you think I've anything to be ashamed of, Taco?"
"Of course not, my boy."
The sound of his voice was like a caress. Cecile looked at him,
astonished; she would have expected him to make fun of Jules. She
did not understand him, but she disliked him exceedingly, so healthy
and strong, with his energetic face and his fine, expressive mouth,
so different from Amelie and Jules and herself.
"Of course not, my boy."
Jules glanced at his mother with a slight look of disdain, as if to
say that he knew better:
"You see! Taco's a good fellow."
He turned his footstool round towards Quaerts and laid his head
against his knee.
"Jules!"
"Pray let him be, mevrouw."
"Every one spoils that boy...."
"Except yourself," said Jules.
"I! I!" cried Amelie, indignantly. "I spoil you out and out! I wish I
knew how not to give way to you! I wish I could send you to Kampen or
Deli! [1] That would make a man of you! But I can't do it by myself;
and your father spoils you too.... I can't think what's going to
become of you!"
"What is going to become of you, Jules?" asked Quaerts.
"I don't know. I mustn't go to college, I am too weak a doll to do
much work."
"Would you like to go to Deli some day?"
"Yes, with you.... Not alone; oh, to be alone, always alone! You will
see: I shall always be alone; and it is so terrible to be alone!"
"But, Jules, you are not alone now!" said Cecile, reproachfully.
"Oh, yes, yes, in myself I am alone, always alone...."
He pressed himself against Quaerts' knee.
"Jules, don't talk so stupidly," cried Amelie, nervously.
"Yes, yes!" cried Jules, with a sudden half sob. "I will hold my
tongue! But don't talk about me any more; oh, I beg you, don't talk
about me!"
He locked his hands and implored them, with dread in his face. They
all stared at him, but he buried his face in Quaerts' knees, as though
deadly frightened of something....
3
Anna had played execrably, to Suzette's despair: she could not even
remember the winning trumps!
Dolf called out to his wife:
"Amelie, do come in for a rubber; that is, if Quaerts doesn't want
to. You can't give your daughter many points, but still you're not
quite so bad!"
"I would rather stay and talk to Mrs. van Even," said Quaerts.
"Go and play without minding me, if you prefer, Mr. Quaerts," said
Cecile, in the cold voice which she adopted towards people whom
she disliked.
Amelie dragged herself away with an unhappy face. She did not play
a brilliant game either; and Suzette always lost her temper when she
made mistakes.
"I have so long been hoping to make your acquaintance, mevrouw,
that I should not like to miss this opportunity," Quaerts replied.
She looked at him: it troubled her that she could not understand
him. She knew him to be something of a Lothario. There were stories in
which the name of a married woman was coupled with his. Did he wish
to try his blandishments on her? She had no particular hankering for
this sort of pastime; she had never cared for flirtations.
"Why?" she asked, calmly, immediately regretting the word; for her
question sounded like coquetry and she intended anything but that.
"Why?" he echoed.
He looked at her in slight surprise as he sat near her, with Jules
on the ground between them, against his knee, his eyes closed.
"Because ... because," he stammered, "because you are my friend's
sister, I suppose, and I had never met you here...."
She made no answer: in her seclusion she had forgotten how to talk
and she did not take the least trouble about it.
"I used often to see you at the theatre," said Quaerts, "when Mr. van
Even was still alive."
"At the opera," she said.
"Yes."
"Really? I didn't know you then."
"No."
"I have not been out in the evening for a long time, because of
my mourning."
"And I always choose the evening to come to Dolf's."
"So that explains why we have never met."
They were silent for a moment. It seemed to him that she spoke
very coldly.
"I should love to go to the opera!" murmured Jules, without opening
his eyes. "Or no, after all, I think I would rather not."
"Dolf told me that you read a great deal," Quaerts continued. "Do
you keep in touch with modern literature?"
"A little. I don't read so very much."
"No?"
"Oh, no! I have two children; that leaves me very little time for
reading. Besides, it has no particular fascination for me: life is
much more romantic than any novel."
"So you are a philosopher?"
"I? Oh, no, I assure you, Mr. Quaerts! I am the most commonplace
woman in the world."
She spoke with her wicked little laugh and her cold voice: the voice
and the laugh which she employed when she feared lest she should be
wounded in her secret sensitiveness and when therefore she hid deep
within herself, offering to the outside world something very different
from what she really was. Jules had opened his eyes and sat looking
at her; and his steady glance troubled her.
"You live in a charming house, on the Scheveningen Road."
"Yes."
She realized suddenly that her coldness amounted to rudeness; and
she did not wish this, even though she did dislike him. She threw
herself back negligently; she asked at random, quite without concern,
merely for the sake of conversation:
"Have you many relations in The Hague?"
"No; my father and mother live at Velp and the rest of my family at
Arnhem chiefly. I never fix myself anywhere; I can't stay long in
one place. I have spent a good many years in Brussels."
"You have no occupation, I believe?"
"No. As a boy, my one desire was to enter the navy, but I was rejected
on account of my eyes."
Involuntarily she looked into his eyes: small, deep-set eyes, the
colour of which she could not determine. She thought they looked sly
and cunning.
"I have always regretted it," he continued. "I am a man of action. I am
always longing for action. I console myself as best I can with sport."
"Sport?" she repeated, coldly.
"Yes."
"Oh!"
"Quaerts is a Nimrod and a Centaur and a Hercules rolled into one,
aren't you, Quaerts?" said Jules.
"Ah, so you're 'naming' me!" said Quaerts, with a laugh. "Where do
you really 'class' me?"
"Among the very few people that I really like!" the boy answered,
ardently and without hesitation. "Taco, when are you going to teach
me to ride?"
"Whenever you like, my son."
"Yes, but you must fix the day for us to go to the riding-school. I
won't fix a day; I hate fixing days."
"Well, shall we say to-morrow? To-morrow will be Wednesday."
"Very well."
Cecile noticed that Jules was still staring at her. She looked at
him back. How was it possible that the boy could like this man! How
was it possible that it irritated her and not him, all that health,
that strength, that power of muscle and rage of sport! She could
make nothing of it; she understood neither Quaerts nor Jules; and
she herself drifted away again into that mood of half-consciousness,
in which she did not know what she thought nor what at that very
moment she might say, in which she seemed to be lost and wandering
in search of herself.
She rose, tall, slender and frail in her crape, like a queen who
mourns, with little touches of gold in her flaxen hair, where a small
jet aigrette glittered like a black mirror.
"I'm going to see who's winning," she said and moved to the card-table
in the other room.
She stood behind Mrs. Hoze, appeared to be interested in the game; but
across the light of the candles she peered at Quaerts and Jules. She
saw them talking together, softly, confidentially, Jules with his
arm on Quaerts' knee. She saw Jules looking up, as if in adoration,
into the face of this man; and then the boy suddenly threw his arms
around his friend in a wild embrace, while the other pushed him away
with a patient gesture.