1
"Oh, for that which cannot be told, because words are so few, always
the same combinations of a few letters and sounds; oh, for that which
cannot be thought of in the narrow limits of comprehension; that
which at best can only be groped for with the antennae of the soul;
essence of the essences of the ultimate elements of our being!..."
She wrote no more, she knew no more: why write that she had no words
and yet seek them?
She was waiting for him and she now looked out of the open window
to see if he was coming. She remained there for a long time; then
she felt that he would come immediately and so he did: she saw him
approaching along the Scheveningen Road; he pushed open the iron gate
of the villa and smiled to her as he raised his hat.
"Wait!" she cried. "Stay where you are!"
She ran down the steps, into the garden, where he stood. She came
towards him, beaming with happiness and so lovely, so delicately frail;
her blonde head so seemly in the fresh green of May; her figure like
a young girl's in the palest grey gown, with black velvet ribbon and
here and there a touch of silver lace.
"I am so glad that you have come! You have not been to see me for so
long!" she said, giving him her hand.
He did not answer at once; he merely smiled.
"Let us sit in the garden, behind: the weather is so lovely."
"Let us," he said.
They walked into the garden, by the mesh of the garden-paths, the
jasmine-vines starring white as they passed. In an adjoining villa
a piano was playing; the sounds came to them of Rubinstein's Romance.
"Listen!" said Cecile, starting. "What is that?"
"What?" he asked.
"What they are playing."
"Something of Rubinstein's, I believe," he said.
"Rubinstein?..." she repeated, vaguely. "Yes...."
And she relapsed into the wealth of memories of ... what? Once before,
in this way, she had walked along these same paths, past jasmine-vines
like these, long, ever so long ago; she had walked with him, with
him.... Why? Could the past repeat itself, after centuries?...
"It is three weeks since you have been to see me," she said, simply,
recovering herself.
"Forgive me," he replied.
"What was the reason?"
He hesitated throughout his being, seeking an excuse:
"I don't know," he answered, softly. "You will forgive me, will you
not? One day it was this, another day that. And then ... I don't
know. Many reasons together. It is not good that I should see you
often. Not good for you, nor for me."
"Let us begin with the second. Why is it not good for you?"
"No, let us begin with the first, with what concerns you. People ..."
"People?"
"People are talking about us. I am looked upon as an irretrievable
rake. I will not have your name linked profanely with mine."
"And is it?"
"Yes...."
She smiled:
"I don't mind."
"But you must mind; if not for your own sake ..."
He stopped. She knew he was thinking of her boys; she shrugged her
shoulders.
"And now, why is it not good for you?"
"A man must not be happy too often."
"What a sophism! Why not?"
"I don't know; but I feel I am right. It spoils him; it is too much
for him."
"Are you happy here, then?"
He smiled and gently nodded yes.
They were silent for very long. They were now sitting at the end
of the garden, on a seat which stood in a semicircle of flowering
rhododendrons: the great purple-satin blossoms shut them in with a
tall hedge of closely-clustered bouquets, rising from the paths and
overtopping their heads; standard roses flung their incense before
them. They sat still, happy in each other, happy in the sympathy of
their atmospheres mingling together; yet in their happiness there
was the invincible melancholy which is an integral part of all life,
even in happiness.
"I don't know how I am to tell you," he said. "But suppose that I were
to see you every day, every moment that I thought of you.... That would
not do. For then I should become so refined, so subtle, that for pure
happiness I should not be able to live; my other being would receive
nothing and would suffer like a beast that is left to starve. I am
bad, I am selfish, to be able to speak like this, but I must tell
you the truth, that you may not think too well of me. And so I only
seek your company as something very beautiful which I allow myself
to enjoy just once in a way."
She was silent.
"Sometimes ... sometimes, too, I imagine that in doing this I am not
behaving well to you, that in some way or other I offend or hurt
you. Then I sit brooding about it, until I begin to think that it
would be best to take leave of you for ever."
She was still silent; motionless she sat, with her hands lying slackly
in her lap, her head slightly bowed, a smile about her mouth.
"Speak to me," he begged.
"You do not offend me, nor hurt me," she said. "Come to me whenever
you feel the need. Do always as you think best; and I shall think
that best too: you must not doubt that."
"I should so much like to know in what way you like me?"
"In what way? Surely, as a Madonna does a sinner who repents and
gives her his soul," she said, archly. "Am I not a Madonna?"
"Are you content to be so?"
"Can you be so ignorant about women as not to know how every one of
us has a longing to solace and relieve, in fact, to play at being
a Madonna?"
"Do not speak like that," he said, with pain in his voice.
"I am speaking seriously...."
He looked at her; a doubt rose within him, but she smiled to him;
a calm glory was about her; she sat amidst the bouquets of the
rhododendrons as in the blossoming tenderness of one great mystic
flower. The wound of his doubt was soothed with balsam. He surrendered
himself wholly to his happiness; an atmosphere wafted about him of the
sweet calm of life, an atmosphere in which life becomes dispassionate
and restful and smiling, like the air which is rare about the gods. It
began to grow dark; a violet dusk fell from the sky like crape falling
upon crape; quietly the stars lighted up. The shadows in the garden,
between the shrubs among which they sat, flowed into one another; the
piano in the next villa had stopped. And happiness drew a veil between
his soul and the outside world: the garden with its design of plots
and paths; the villa with curtains at its windows and its iron gate;
the road behind, with the rattle of carriages and trams. All this
withdrew itself far back; all ordinary life retreated far from him;
vanishing behind the veil, it died away. It was no dream nor conceit:
reality to him was the happiness that had come while the world died
away; the happiness that was rare, invisible, intangible, coming from
the love which alone is sympathy, calm and without passion, the love
which exists purely of itself, without further thought either of
taking anything or even of giving anything, the love of the gods,
which is the soul of love itself. High he felt himself: the equal
of the illusion which he had of her, which she wished to be for his
sake, of which he also was now absolutely certain. For he could not
know that what had given him happiness--his illusion--so perfect,
so crystal-clear, might cause her some sort of grief; he could not
at this moment penetrate without sin into the truth of the law which
insists on equilibrium, which takes away from one what it offers to
another, which gives happiness and grief together; he could not know
that, if happiness was with him, with her there was anguish, anguish
in that she had to make a pretence and deceive him for his own sake,
anguish in that she wanted what was earthly, that she craved for what
was earthly, that she yearned for earthly pleasures!... And still less
could he know that, notwithstanding all this, there was nevertheless
voluptuousness in her anguish: that to suffer through him, to suffer
for him made of her anguish all voluptuousness.
2
It was dark and late; and they were still sitting there.
"Shall we go for a walk?" she asked.
He hesitated, with a smile; but she repeated her suggestion:
"Why not, if you care to?"
And he could no longer refuse.
They rose and went along by the back of the house; and Cecile
said to the maid, whom she saw sitting with her needle-work by the
kitchen-door:
"Greta, fetch me my little black hat, my black-lace shawl and a pair
of gloves."
The servant rose and went into the house. Cecile noticed how a trifle
of shyness was emphasized in Quaerts' hesitation, now that they stood
loitering, waiting among the flower-beds. She smiled, plucked a rose
and placed it in her waist-band.
"Have the boys gone to bed?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied, still smiling, "long ago."
The servant returned; Cecile put on the little black hat, threw the
lace about her neck, but refused the gloves which Greta offered her:
"No, not these; get me a pair of grey ones...."
The servant went into the house again; and as Cecile looked at Quaerts
her gaiety increased. She gave a little laugh:
"What is the matter?" she asked, mischievously, knowing perfectly
well what it was.
"Nothing, nothing!" he said, vaguely, and waited patiently until
Greta returned.
Then they went through the garden-gate into the Woods. They walked
slowly, without speaking; Cecile played with her long gloves, not
putting them on.
"Really ..." he began, hesitating.
"Come, what is it?"
"You know; I told you the other day: it's not right...."
"What isn't?"
"What we are doing now. You risk too much."
"Too much, with you?"
"If any one were to see us...."
"And what then?"
He shook his head:
"You are wilful; you know quite well."
She clinched her eyes; her mouth grew serious; she pretended to be
a little angry:
"Listen, you mustn't be anxious if I'm not. I am doing no harm. Our
walks are not secret: Greta at least knows about them. And, besides,
I am free to do as I please."
"It's my fault: the first time we went for a walk in the evening,
it was at my request...."
"Then do penance and be good; come now, without scruple, at my
request," she said, with mock emphasis.
He yielded, feeling far too happy to wish to make any sacrifice to
a convention which at that moment did not exist.
They walked on silently. Cecile's sensations always came to her in
shocks of surprise. So it had been when Jules had grown suddenly angry
with her; so also, midway on the stair, after that conversation at
dinner of circles of sympathy. And now, precisely in the same way, with
the shock of sudden revelation, came this new sensation, that after
all she was not suffering so seriously as she had at first thought;
that her agony, being a voluptuousness, could not be a martyrdom;
that she was happy, that happiness had come about her in the fine
air of his atmosphere, because they were together, together.... Oh,
why wish for anything more, above all for things less pure? Did he
not love her and was not his love already a fact and was not his love
earthly enough for her, now that it was a fact? Did he not love her
with a tenderness which feared for anything that might trouble her
in the world, through her ignoring that world and wandering about
with him alone in the dark? Did he not love her with tenderness, but
also with the lustre of his soul's divinity, calling her Madonna and
by this title--unconsciously, perhaps, in his simplicity--making her
the equal of all that was divine in him? Did he not love her? Heavens
above, did he not love her? Well, what did she want more? No, no,
she wanted nothing more: she was happy, she shared happiness with
him; he gave it to her just as she gave it to him; it was a sphere
that moved with them wherever they went, seeking their way along the
darkling paths of the Woods, she leaning on his arm, he leading her,
for she could see nothing in the dark, which yet was not dark, but
pure light of their happiness. And so it was as if it were not evening,
but day, noonday, noonday in the night, hour of light in the dusk!
3
And the darkness was light; the night dawned with light which beamed
on every side. Calmly it beamed, the light, like one solitary planet,
beaming with the soft radiance of purity, bright in a heaven of
still, white, silver light, a heaven where they walked along milky
ways of light and music; it beamed and sounded beneath their feet;
it welled in seas of ether high above their heads and beamed and
sounded there, high and clear. And they were alone in their heaven,
in their infinite heaven, which was as space, endless beneath them
and above and around them, with endless spaces of light and music,
of light that was music. Their heaven lay eternal on every side
with blissful vistas of white radiance, fading away in lustre and
vanishing landscapes, like oases of flowers and plants beside waters
of light, still and clear and hushed with peace. For its peace was the
ether in which all desire is dissolved and becomes transparent and
crystal; and their life was a limpid existence in unruffled peace;
they walked on, in heavenly sympathy of fellowship, close together,
hemmed in one narrow circle, a circle of radiance which embraced them
both. Barely was there a recollection in them of the world which had
died out in the glitter of their heaven; there was naught in them but
the ecstasy of their love, which had become their soul, as if they
no longer had any soul, as if they were only love; and, when they
looked about them and into the light, they saw that their heaven,
in which their happiness was the light, was nothing but their love,
and they saw that the landscapes--the flowers and plants by waters
of light--were nothing but their love and that the endless space,
the eternities of light and space, of spaces full of light and music,
stretching on every hand, beneath them and above and around them,
that all this was nothing but their love, which had grown into heaven
and happiness.
And now they came into the very midst, to the very sun-centre, the very
goal which Cecile had once foreseen, concealed in the distance, in the
irradiance of innate divinity. Up to the very goal they stepped; and
on every side it shot its endless rays into each and every eternity,
as if their love were becoming the centre of the universe...
4
But they sat on a bench, in the dark, not knowing that it was dark,
for their eyes were full of the light. They sat against each other,
silently at first, till, remembering that he had a voice and could
still speak words, he said:
"I have never lived through such a moment as this. I forget where
we are and who we are and that we are human. We were, were we not? I
seem to remember that we once were?"
"Yes, but we are that no longer," she said, smiling; and her eyes,
grown big, looked into the darkness that was light.
"Once we were human, suffering and desiring, in a world where certainly
much was beautiful, but where much also was ugly."
"Why speak of that now?" she asked; and her voice sounded to herself
as coming from very far and low beneath her.
"I seemed to remember it."
"I wanted to forget it."
"Then I will do so too. But may I not thank you in human speech for
lifting me above humanity?"
"Have I done so?"
"Yes. May I thank you for it ... on my knees?"
He knelt down and reverently took her hands. He could just distinguish
the outline of her figure, seated motionless and still upon the
bench; above them was a pearl-grey twilight of stars, between the
black boughs. She felt her hands in his and then his mouth, his kiss,
upon her hand. Very gently, she released herself; and then, with a
great soul of modesty, full of desireless happiness, very gently she
bent her arms about his neck, took his head against her and kissed
him on the forehead:
"And I, I thank you too!" she whispered, rapturously.
He was still; and she held him fast in her embrace.
"I thank you," she said, "for teaching me this and how to be happy as
we are and no otherwise. You see, when I still lived and was human,
when I was a woman, I thought that I had lived before I met you, for I
had had a husband and I had children of whom I was very fond. But from
you I first learnt to live, to live without egoism and without desire;
I learnt that from you this evening or ... this day, which is it? You
have given me life and happiness and everything. And I thank you,
I thank you! You see, you are so great and so strong and so clear
and you have borne me towards your own happiness, which should also
be mine, but it was so far above me that, without you, I should never
have attained it! For there was a barrier for me which did not exist
for you. You see, when I was still human"--and she laughed, clasping
him more tightly--"I had a sister; and she too felt that there was
a barrier between her happiness and herself; and she felt that she
could not surmount this barrier and was so unhappy because of it that
she feared lest she should go mad. But I, I do not know: I dreamed,
I thought, I hoped, I waited, oh, I waited; and then you came; and you
made me understand at once that you could be no man, no husband for me,
but that you could be more for me: my angel, O my deliverer, who would
take me in his arms and bear me over the barrier into his own heaven,
where he himself was god, and make me his Madonna! Oh, I thank you,
I thank you! I do not know how to thank you; I can only say that I
love you, that I adore you, that I lay myself at your feet. Remain
as you are and let me adore you, while you kneel where you are. I may
adore you, may I not, while you yourself are kneeling? You see, I too
must confess, as you used to do," she continued, for now she could
not but confess. "I have not always been straightforward with you;
I have sometimes pretended to be the Madonna, knowing all the time
that I was but an ordinary woman, a woman who frankly loved you. But
I deceived you for your own happiness, did I not? You wished me so,
you were happy when I was so and no otherwise. And now, now too you
must forgive me, because now I need no longer pretend, because that is
past and has died away, because I myself have died away from myself,
because now I am no longer a woman, no longer human for myself, but
only what you wish me to be: a Madonna and your creature, an atom of
your own essence and divinity. So will you forgive me the past? May
I thank you for my happiness, for my heaven, my light, O my master,
for my joy, my great, my immeasurable joy?"
He rose and sat beside her, taking her gently in his arms:
"Are you happy?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, laying her head on his shoulder in a giddiness of
light. "And you?"
"Yes," he answered; and he asked again, "And do you desire ... nothing
more?"
"No, nothing!" she stammered. "I want nothing but this, nothing but
what is mine, oh, nothing, nothing more!"
"Swear it to me ... by something sacred!"
"I swear it to you ... by yourself!" she declared.
He pressed her head to his shoulder again. He smiled; and she did
not see that there was sadness in his laugh, for she was blinded
with light.
5
They were long silent, sitting there. She remembered having said
many things, she no longer knew what. About her she saw that it was
dark, with only that pearl-grey twilight of stars above their heads,
between the black boughs. She felt that she was lying with her head
on his shoulder; she heard his breath. A sort of chill crept down
her shoulders, notwithstanding the warmth of his embrace; she drew
the lace closer about her throat and felt that the bench on which
they sat was moist with dew.
"I thank you, I love you so, you make me so happy," she repeated.
He was silent; he pressed her to him very gently, with sheer
tenderness. Her last words still sounded in her ears after she had
spoken them. Then she was bound to acknowledge to herself that they
had not been spontaneous, like all that she had told him before, as
he knelt before her with his head at her breast. She had spoken them
to break the silence: formerly that silence had never troubled her;
why should it now?
"Come!" he said gently; and even yet she did not hear the sadness of
his voice, in this single word.
They rose and walked on. It came to him that it was late, that they
must return by the same path; beyond that, his thoughts were sorrowful
with many things which he could not have expressed; a poor twilight
had come about him, after the blinding light of their heaven of but
now. And he had to be cautious: it was very dark here; and he could
only just see the path, lying very pale and undecided at their feet;
they brushed against the trunks of the trees as they passed.
"I can see nothing," said Cecile, laughing. "Can you see the way?"
"Rely upon me: I can see quite well in the dark," he replied. "I have
eyes like a lynx...."
Step by step they went on and she felt a sweet joy in being guided
by him; she clung close to his arm, saying laughingly that she was
afraid and that she would be terrified if he were suddenly to leave
hold of her.
"And suppose I were suddenly to run away and leave you alone?" said
Quaerts, jestingly.
She laughed; she besought him with a laugh not to do so. Then she
was silent, angry with herself for laughing; a burden of sadness
bore her down because of her jesting and laughter. She felt as if
she were unworthy of that into which, in radiant light, she had just
been received.
And he too was filled with sadness: the sadness of having to lead
her through the dark, by invisible paths, past rows of invisible
tree-trunks which might graze and wound her; of having to lead her
through a dark wood, through a black sea, through an ink-dark sphere,
when they were returning from a heaven where all had been light and
all happiness, without sadness or darkness.
And so they were silent in that sadness, until they reached the
highroad, the old Scheveningen Road.
They approached the villa. A tram went by; two or three people passed
on foot; it was a fine evening. He brought her home and waited until
the door opened to his ring. The door remained unopened; meantime he
pressed her hand tightly and hurt her a little, involuntarily. Greta
must have fallen asleep, she thought:
"Ring again, would you?"
He rang again, louder this time; after a moment, the door opened. She
gave him her hand once more, with a smile.
"Good-night, mevrouw," he said, taking her fingers respectfully and
raising his hat.
Now, now she could hear the sound of his voice, with its note of
sadness....