It was half-past two when the van Raats returned from the supper to the
Nassauplein. At their house all was in darkness. While Henk drew the
bolt across the door Betsy thought she would take a look at her
sleeping boy, snugly ensconced in his little white cot up-stairs. She
took up her candle and went up-stairs, whilst he, laden with papers,
walked into the breakfast-room, where the gas was still burning.
Arrived in her dressing-room, she removed her cloak from her shoulders.
In the small grate the flame curled upward like the fiery tongue of a
dragon. There was something indefinably soothing in the atmosphere of
the room, something like a warm vapour, mingled with the sweet faint
odour of violets. After giving a glance at her child, she sat down with
a sigh of fatigue, in an arm-chair. Then the door opened, and Eline, in
a dressing-gown of white flannel, her hair falling in thick waves down
her back, entered.
“What, Elly, not in bed yet?”
“No, I—have been reading. Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Oh yes, it was very nice. I only wish that Henk had not been such an
awful bore. He never said a word, and with his stupid face he sat there
fumbling at his watch-chain until he could go and take his hand at
whist.”
Then with a somewhat angry movement Betsy kicked her dainty little
shoes from her feet.
Eline sighed languidly.
“Did you tell Madame Verstraeten that I was not well?”
“Yes; but you know when I come home at night I like to go to bed. We
can talk to-morrow, eh?”
Eline knew that her sister when she returned home at night was always
more or less irritable. Still she was tempted to give her a sharp
answer, but she felt too unnerved for it. With her lips she lightly
touched Betsy’s cheek, and quite unconsciously laid her head on her
sister’s shoulder, in a sudden and irresistible longing for tenderness.
“Are you really ill, eh, or——?”
“No. Only a little—lazy. Good-night.”
“Pleasant dreams!”
Eline retired with languid steps. Betsy proceeded to undress.
Arrived in the hall, Eline experienced the uncomfortable feeling of
having been an unwelcome visitor to her sister. All the evening, giving
herself up entirely to a fit of indolence, she had been in solitude,
and now she longed for company. For a moment she stood undecided in the
dark corridor, and then carefully feeling her way she descended the
stairs and entered the breakfast-room.
Henk, divested of his coat, stood by the mantelpiece in his
shirt-sleeves, preparing his grog, by way of night-cap, and the hot
fumes of the liquor filled the room.
“Hallo, girl, is that you?” he said, in a jovial tone, whilst in his
sleepy blue-gray eyes and about his heavily fair-bearded mouth there
played a good-humoured smile. “Did you not feel terribly bored, left to
yourself all the evening?”
“Yes; just a little. Perhaps you did even more?” she asked with a
pleasant smile.
“I? Not at all. The tableaux were very pretty.”
Then with his back leaning against the mantelpiece he began sipping his
grog.
“Has the youngster been good?”
“Yes; he has been asleep. Are you not going to bed?”
“I just want to look at the papers. But why are you still up?”
“Oh—just because——” With a languid, graceful movement she stretched her
arms, and then twisted her heavy locks into a glossy brown coil. She
felt the need to speak to him without constraint, but the words would
not come, and not the faintest thought could she conjure up to take
shape within her dreamy mind. Gladly would she have burst into tears,
not because of any poignant sorrow, but for the mere longing of hearing
his deep solacing tones in comforting her. But she could find no words
to give expression to her feelings, and again she stretched forth her
arms in languid grace.
“Is anything wrong, eh, old girl? Come, tell me what it is.”
With a vacant stare she shook her head. No, there was nothing to tell.
“Come, you can tell me all about it, you know that.”
“Oh—I feel a little miserable.”
“What about?”
Then with a pretty little pout, “Oh—I don’t know. I have been a little
nervous all day.”
He laughed—his usual soft, sonorous laugh.
“You and your nerves! Come, sis, cheer up. You are such good company
when you are not so melancholy; you must not give yourself over to
these fits.” He felt conscious that his eloquence would not hold out to
argue the matter further, so with a laugh he concluded, “Will you have
a drop of grog, sis?”
“Thank you—yes, just a sip out of your glass.”
She turned to him, and laughing in his fair beard, he raised the
steaming glass to her lips. Through the half-closed eyelids he saw a
tear glistening, but she kept it back. All at once, with sudden
determination, he set down his glass and grasped her hands.
“Come, girl, tell me; there is something—something has occurred with
Betsy, or—come now, you generally trust me.” And he gave her a
reproachful glance with his sleepy, kindly, stupid eyes, like those of
a faithful sheep-dog.
Then in a voice broken with sobs, she burst forth in a stream of
lamentations, though without apparent cause. It was her heart’s inmost
cry for a little tenderness and sympathy. What was her life to her? to
whom could she be of the slightest use? Wringing her hands, she walked
up and down the room sobbing and lamenting. What would she care did she
die within the hour? it was all the same to her—only that aimless,
useless existence, without anything to which she could devote her whole
soul; that alone was no longer bearable.
Henk contradicted her, feeling certainly somewhat abashed at the scene,
which for the rest was but a repetition of so many previous ones. To
give a new turn to her thoughts he began to talk about Betsy, and Ben
their boy, about himself—he was even about to allude to a future home
of her own, but he could not bring it so far. She on her part shook her
head like a sulking child, which, not getting what it wants, refuses to
take anything else, and with a passionate movement she all at once
threw her head on his shoulder, and with an arm round his bull-dog
neck, she burst into a fresh torrent of sobs. Thus she went on
lamenting in wild and incoherent words, her nerves overstrained by the
evening’s solitude and the hours of brooding in her over-heated room.
Over and over again she reverted to her aimless life, which she dragged
along like a wretched burden, and in her voice there was something like
a reproach to him, her brother-in-law. He, confused and deeply touched
by the warmth of her embrace, which he certainly could scarcely return
with such tenderness, could find nothing to stem that wild torrent of
incoherent sentences but a few common-places.
Slowly, softly, like rose-leaves falling gently on the limpid bosom of
a summer stream, she let her melancholy broodings glide away on the
full low tones of his deep voice.
At length she stopped and heaved a sigh, but her head still rested on
his shoulder. Now that she was somewhat calmer, he thought it right to
show a little anger at her behaviour. What a folly it was, to be sure!
What stupidity! What a fuss to get into about nothing!
“No, Henk, really——” she began, and lifted her tear-stained face to
his.
“My dear girl, what rubbish you talk about your aimless life, and all
that sort of thing. What puts those things into your head? We are all
fond of you——” and remembering his unspoken thought of before, he
proceeded, “A young girl like you—talking about an aimless——Sis, you
are mad!”
Then, as though tickled at the thought, and besides, thinking that the
philosophic condition had lasted long enough, he suddenly gave her arm
a sharp twist, and pinched her about the pouting lips. Laughingly she
resisted; his movement had somewhat restored to her her broken
equilibrium.
When a few moments later both went up-stairs together, she could
scarcely restrain herself from bursting out in laughter, as he suddenly
lifted her up in his arms to carry her, while she, fearing he would
stumble, in a voice half beseeching, half commanding, said—
“Come, Henk, let me go; do you hear? Don’t be so foolish! Henk, let
go!”