1
Quaerts lived on the Plein, above a tailor, where he occupied two
small rooms furnished in the most ordinary style. He could have had
much better lodgings if he chose, but he was indifferent to comfort:
he never gave it a thought in his own place; when he came across
it elsewhere, it did not attract him. But it distressed Jules that
Quaerts should live in this fashion; and the boy had long wanted to
improve the sitting-room. He was now busy hanging some trophies on
an armour-rack, standing on a pair of steps, humming a tune which he
remembered from some opera. But Quaerts paid no heed to what Jules
was doing: he lay without moving on the sofa, at full length, in his
pyjamas, unshorn, with his eyes fixed upon the Renascence decorations
of the Law Courts, tracing a background of architecture behind the
leafless trees of the Plein.
"Look, Taco, will this do?" asked Jules, after hanging an Algerian
sabre between two Malay creeses and draping the folds of a Javanese
sarong between.
"Yes, beautifully," replied Quaerts.
But he did not look at the rack of arms and continued gazing at the Law
Courts. He lay back motionless. There was no thought in him, nothing
but listless dissatisfaction with himself and consequent sadness. For
three weeks he had led a life of debauch, to deaden consciousness,
or perhaps he did not know precisely what: something that was in
him, something that was beautiful but tedious, in ordinary life. He
had begun by shooting over a friend's land in North Brabant. It
lasted a week; there were eight of them; sport in the open air,
followed by sporting dinners, with not only a great deal of wine,
certainly the best, but still more geneva, also of the finest, like
a liqueur. Ragging-excursions on horseback in the neighbourhood;
follies at a farm--the peasant-woman carried round in a barrel and
locked up in the cow-house--mischievous exploits, worthy only of
unruly boys and savages and ending in a summons before a magistrate,
with a fine and damages. Wound up to a pitch of excitement with too
much sport, too much oxygen and too much drink, five of the pack,
including Quaerts, had gone on to Brussels, where one of them had
a mistress. There they stayed nearly a fortnight, leading a life of
continual excess, with endless champagne and larking: a wild joy of
living, which, natural enough at first, had in the end to be screwed up
and screwed up higher still, to make it last a couple of days longer;
the last nights spent weariedly over ecarte, with none but the fixed
idea of winning, the exhaustion of all their violence already pulsing
through their bodies, like a nervous relaxation, and their eyes gazing
without expression at the cards.
During that time Quaerts had only once thought of Cecile; and he
had not followed up the thought. She had no doubt arisen three or
four times in his brain, as a vague image, white and transparent, an
apparition which had vanished again immediately, leaving no trace of
its passage. All this time too he had not written to her; and it had
only once struck him that a silence of three weeks, after their last
conversation, must seem strange to her. There it had remained. He was
back now; he had lain three days long at home on his bed, on his sofa,
tired, feverish, dissatisfied, disgusted with everything, everything;
then, one morning, remembering that it was Wednesday, he had thought
of Jules and his riding-lesson.
He sent for Jules, but, too lazy to shave or dress, he remained lying
where he was. And he still lay there, realizing nothing. There before
him were the Law Courts, with the Privy Council adjoining. At the
side he could see the Witte [2] and William the Silent standing on
his pedestal in the middle of the Plein: that was all exceedingly
interesting. And Jules was hanging up trophies: also interesting. And
the most interesting of all was the stupid life he had been
leading. What a tense effort to lull his boredom! Had he really amused
himself during that time? No; he had made a pretence of being amused:
the episode of the peasant-woman and the ecarte had excited him; the
sport was bad, the wine good, but he had drunk too much of it. And
then the filthy champagne of that wench, at Brussels!...
Well, what then? He had absolute need of it, of a life like that,
of sport and wild enjoyment; it served to balance the other thing in
him, which became impossible in everyday life.
But why could he not preserve some sort of mean in both? He was
perfectly well-equipped for ordinary life; and with that he possessed
something in addition, something that was very beautiful in his soul:
why could he not remain balanced between those two inner spheres? Why
was he always tossed from one to the other, as a thing that belonged
to neither? How fine he could have made his life with just the least
tact, the least self-restraint! How he might have lived in a healthy
delight of purified animal existence, tempered by a higher joyousness
of soul! But tact, self-restraint: he had none of all this; he lived
according to his impulses, always in extremes; he was incapable of
half-measures. And in this lay his pride as well as his regret: his
pride that he felt this or that thing "wholly," that he was unable
to compromise with his emotions; and his regret that he could not
compromise and bring into harmony the elements which for ever waged
war within him.
When he had met Cecile and had seen her again and yet once again,
he had felt himself carried wholly to the one extreme, the summit
of exaltation, of pure crystal sympathy, in which the circle of
his atmosphere--as he had said--glided in sympathy over hers, in
a caress of pure chastity and spirituality, as two stars, spinning
closer together, might mingle their atmospheres for a moment, like
breaths. What smiling happiness had not been within his reach, as it
were a grace from Heaven!
Then, then he had felt himself toppling down, as if he had rocked
over the balancing-point; and he had longed for earthly pleasures,
for great simplicity of emotion, for primitive enjoyment of life,
for flesh and blood. He now remembered how, two days after his last
conversation with Cecile, he had seen Emilie Hijdrecht, here, in these
very rooms, where at length, stung by his neglect, she had ventured
to come to him one evening, heedless of all caution. With a line of
cruelty round his mouth he recalled how she had wept at his knees, how
in her jealousy she had complained against Cecile, how he had ordered
her to be silent and forbidden her to pronounce Cecile's name. Then,
their mad embrace, an embrace of cruelty: cruelty on her part against
the man whom time after time she lost when she thought him secured
for good, whom she could not understand and to whom she clung with
all the violence of her brutal passion, a purely animal passion of
primitive times; cruelty on his part against the woman he despised,
while in his passion he almost stifled her in his embrace.
2
Yes, what then? How was he to find the mean between the two poles of
his nature? He shrugged his shoulders. He knew that he could never
find it. He lacked some quality, or a certain power, necessary to find
it. He could do nothing but allow himself to swing to and fro. Very
well then: he would let himself swing; there was no help for it. For
now, in the lassitude following his outburst of savagery, he began
to experience again a violent longing, like one who, after a long
evening passed in a ball-room heavy with the foul air of gaslight and
the stifling closeness and mustiness of human breath, craves a high
heaven and width of atmosphere: a violent longing for Cecile. And
he smiled, glad that he knew her, that he was able to go to her,
that it was now his privilege to enter into the chaste sanctuary of
her environment, as into a temple; he smiled, glad that he felt his
longing and proud of it, exalting himself above other men. Already he
tasted the pleasure of confessing to her honestly how he had lived
during the last three weeks; and already he heard her voice, though
he could not distinguish the words....
Jules climbed down the steps. He was disappointed that Quaerts had not
followed his arranging of the weapons upon the rack and his draping
of the stuffs around them. But he had quietly continued his work and,
now that it was finished, he climbed down and came and sat on the
floor quietly, with his head against the foot of the couch on which
his friend lay thinking. Jules said never a word; he looked straight
before him, a little sulkily, knowing that Quaerts was looking at him.
"Jules," said Quaerts.
But Jules did not answer, still staring.
"Tell me, Jules, what makes you like me so much?"
"How should I know?" answered Jules, with thin lips.
"Don't you know?"
"No. How can you know why you are fond of any one?"
"You oughtn't to be so fond of me, Jules. It's not good."
"Very well, I will be less so in the future."
Jules rose suddenly and took his hat. He put out his hand; but Quaerts
held him back with a laugh:
"You see, scarcely any one is fond of me, except ... you and your
father. Now I know why your father likes me, but not why you do."
"You want to know everything."
"Is that so very wrong?"
"Certainly. You'll never be satisfied. Mamma always says that no one
knows anything."
"And you?"
"I?... Nothing...."
"How do you mean, nothing?"
"I know nothing at all.... Let me go."
"Are you cross, Jules?"
"No, but I have an engagement."
"Can't you wait till I'm dressed? Then we can go together. I am going
to Aunt Cecile's."
Jules objected:
"All right, provided you hurry."
Quaerts got up. He now saw the arrangement of the weapons, which he
had entirely forgotten:
"You've done it very nicely, Jules," he said, in an admiring
tone. "Thank you very much."
Jules did not answer; and Quaerts went through into his
dressing-room. The lad sat down on the sofa, bolt upright, looking out
at the Law Courts, across the bare trees. His eyes filled with great
round tears, which ran down his cheeks. Sitting stiff and motionless,
he wept.