It was a fresh, bright May day, after a week of rain and chill mists.
Jeanne had sent her children—Dora, Wim, and Fritsje—for a walk with
their nurse, to the Schevening Boschjes. She herself, however, had
stayed at home, as she was always much occupied, and she felt lonely in
her apartments, sitting there by herself, doing her knitting and
darning in a pale sunbeam which she, regardless of her carpet and her
curtains, allowed to stream freely into the room. Frans was away in
Amsterdam, where he had gone to consult a physician. It was now
half-past one, thought Jeanne, as she glanced at the timepiece, the
tick of which was heard very distinctly in the quiet room. About
half-past five Frans would return, and the time which she had yet to
wait seemed so many ages to her, although she thought it splendid for
once to be able to do such a lot of work undisturbed.
The pale sunbeam fell right over her, but it did not trouble her; on
the contrary she basked in its faint warmth. The light shimmered about
her light-brown hair, and imparted to her sunken white cheeks an
alabaster transparency; it shimmered too over her thin, delicate
fingers, as with a steady, rhythmical motion she plied her needle. And
how she longed for the summer! oh, that May, with its damp misty
weather and its rare bright days, might soon be passed! how could she
have cherished any illusion of May being a month of spring beauty, as
the poets falsely said?
She smiled a little sadly as she bent over the chemisette she was
making, to press down a seam with her fingers; she smiled when she
reflected that every illusion, the smallest even, vanished into air,
while her life rolled on, and the future, which she feared with a
great, mysterious, unspeakable terror, continually faded away, to make
room for that gloomy, monotonous reality. And now—now she shuddered,
now once more that fearful presentiment rose up in her soul, like a
veiled spectre; something would happen to them, some inevitable
disaster would crush them. She took a deep breath, shuddering, her hand
pressed on her bosom; shuddering, not for herself, not for him—but for
the children.
She rose, it was impossible for her to continue her work, and yet she
must not be idle on the rare day when the children left her
undisturbed. Oh, why was she not stronger? And leaning against the
window-sill she let herself be entirely covered by the ray of sunshine,
like a pale hot-house flower longing for light and air, and she gazed,
absorbed in her thoughts of what was to be, into the little square
patch of garden behind the grocery shop below. A lilac was just budding
into leaf, but in the centre or side beds nothing as yet was growing,
and before Jeanne’s eyes there suddenly arose a vision of Persian
roses, such as those that bloomed on their property at Temanggoeng,
big, like pink beakers, full of sweet odour. It was as though she smelt
that odour; it was as though the blushing tint of those flowers
dispelled the dull gray thoughts, and left in their place merely a
longing for warmth and love.
Thus she felt when the bell rang, and Mathilde van Ryssel entered. They
had met each other once or twice at the van Raats’, and they were aware
of a certain sympathy between them.
“I have really come with the evil intention of tempting you out for a
walk,” said Mathilde smiling. “It is glorious weather, and it will do
you good.”
“But, Tilly, the children are out, and Frans as well. Really I can’t, I
have work to do.”
“What insurmountable objects, to be sure!” laughed Mathilde. “You need
not take care of the house.”
“No; but when the children come home, and find me out——”
“Really, Jeanne, that is spoiling them; surely they can manage to do
without you for a moment. I should get my hat and jacket, if I were
you, and come out with me like a sensible girl. What! sewing, are you?
That’s work for a rainy day.”
Jeanne felt a gentle delight at having the law laid her by that soft
voice, which even in its banter was pervaded with a tone of sadness.
And she yielded, feeling so happy, and ascended the stairs to dress,
almost humming the while.
She was soon ready, and after numberless admonitions to Mietje, left
the house with Mathilde. The cool wind seemed to lift a mist from her
mind, while her pale checks became cold and almost got a colour. She
listened to her friend, who told her that she had just taken Tina and
Jo to the van Raats’; Betsy and Eline had asked them to go for a walk
with them and Ben.
“And the others?”
“Oh! Lientje and Nico had absolutely to go out with mamma; mamma was
already in despair that she could not have the other two. I should not
have dared to take them with me,” she said laughing. “Dear, kind
mamma!”
They had passed through the Laan van Meerdervoort and reached the
Schevening road, which they followed. There were but few people about.
Mathilde let herself be carried away by her feelings, and revived by
the clear, fresh air, little talkative though she might be generally in
her reserve, and her silent grief.
“You don’t know how—how good mamma is,” she said. “She lives only for
her dear ones—for her children and her grandchildren. She never has the
slightest want of her own; whatever she thinks or does, ’tis all for
us. And I believe if you asked her which of us she liked best, she
could not tell you. Yes; she is mad with Etienne; Etienne is always
jolly, like a child, and because she too is cheerful and likes a good
laugh, his jokes do her good; but that she cares equally for Frédérique
or Otto, or for my children, I have no doubt. When mamma writes to
London, or Zwolle, or to the Horze, it is one long complaint that she
never sees those stray sheep. You can understand how unhappy she was
when Cathérine and Suzanne married and left her. I believe she would
like to build a sort of hotel, where she could stow the lot of
us—Théodore and Howard and Stralenburg, and all the rest. Dear, dear
mamma!”
They both were silent for a time. The Schevening road twisted itself
like a long gray ribbon before them, with a distant perspective of tree
stems under a network of budding twigs. The sunshine glistened on the
fresh young foliage waving bright under the clear blue sky, and on the
old stems there appeared a new layer of fresh green moss, soft as
velvet. The chirping of birds vibrated through the clear atmosphere in
tones of crystal.
“How glorious it is here!” said Mathilde; “one lives anew. But let us
get into this little lane. The people tire me; I dare say we tire them
too; we are out of harmony with nature’s surroundings. I always think
people so ugly amid green foliage, especially in the early spring. You
see, I am beginning to philosophize.”
Jeanne laughed, brimful of happiness. The world appeared to her
beautiful and good, full of love. And she thought of Frans!
They had seated themselves on a bench, and Jeanne ventured to ask—
“But how about yourself, Mathilde? You are always talking about your
mamma, but never about yourself.”
Mathilde looked up with something like a shiver.
“About myself? I do my best to forget about myself. ’Tis only to the
children that I am still of any use; for them I live and think. If they
were not here, I should be dead.”
In her words there resounded the memory of a dull grief, faded away
long ago into a placid resignation.
“If you have imagined yourself very happy, happy through and with one,
for whose sake you would have sacrificed body and soul, and you
observe—But ah! why speak about that?”
“Does the thought of that cause you such suffering then?”
“Oh no; I have suffered. There was a time when I thought I should have
gone mad, and I cursed the name of God; but that bitter sorrow has been
transformed into a lethargy that is past. I never think of it, I only
think of my four little darlings. And that thought fills my mind
sufficiently, so that I need not become a living mummy. You know, until
now I have been teaching them myself; but ’tis getting time for Tina
and Jo to go to school. Otto says so at least; but I should miss them
very much, and mamma, of course, sides with me there. Darlings!”
Perhaps she only fancied it, but Jeanne thought that in that dull
resignation she could detect a tone of suppressed bitterness, and she
could not help taking Mathilde’s hand in hers and whispering pityingly—
“Poor girl!”
“Yes; you—you are richer than I, you have your children and you have
your husband,” answered Mathilde with a sad smile, whilst her eyes
filled with tears; “and though you have your troubles and vexations,
you have more—more than I. Let that be your comfort when you have a fit
of melancholy. Just think of me, think that I could yet envy you, if—if
everything were not dead within me, everything except that one thing
alone.”
“Mathilde! Oh, how can you speak like that? it pains me!”
“It should not do so, for me it pains no longer. ’Tis only just a faint
memory of what has been, you know; nothing more. But still, ’tis better
to be silent about it; the raking up of these memories does me no good,
but hurts me, though I am almost a mummy.”
“Oh, Mathilde, how is it possible that you can always keep it pent up
within you? I—I could not do so; I should have to give it vent, that
which made me so——”
“No, no, Jeanne; oh, truly no, never more! Do not speak any more about
it, or—I—I shall feel myself brought back to life again. No, don’t;
never again—I beg of you.”
She leaned back against the seat, and tears dropped from her lashes,
whilst with her waxen pallor, and in her sombre black dress, she seemed
a picture of an infinite, unspeakable sorrow. She would not be brought
back to life, she wanted to be dead!
Jeanne did not want to get home too late, so that she might be there
before the children and Frans. So they turned back.
“And now I dare say I have made you sad, when I wanted to refresh you
with a pleasant walk?” asked Mathilde smiling. “Yes; that comes of all
that philosophy; forgive me, do!”
Jeanne could find nothing to say, and shook her head smilingly, to
signify that she was really not sad. And in her inmost soul she had to
acknowledge deeply—though Mathilde’s silent despair had at first
grieved her—now that she herself had once more assumed her ordinary
semblance of resignation, that pity for her friend became fused into a
feeling of peace and rest, as far as her own small troubles were
concerned. By the side of that one great ever-reviving sorrow the
latter seemed to her small and insignificant, the easily-borne troubles
of life, whilst had she been doomed to bear Mathilde’s sorrows, she
would have been crushed beneath them. She felt a remorse that she was
ungrateful for all the good that was bestowed on her, and which still
was hers—a remorse that sometimes she dared to feel herself wretched at
her fate, and yet she had been spared so much sorrow! Frans, he might
have his faults, he might be hasty and disagreeable when he was ill;
still he loved her, a and after a moment’s reflection, he was always
ready to own himself in the wrong; still he prized her. And in that
sweet thought, which made her feel proudly contented, she could no
longer feel sad in sympathy, though she considered herself an egotist
on account of it; but oh! it was so rarely that she felt such a
delicious sweetness pervade her little soul; was it wrong then for a
brief moment to feel an egotist’s pleasure?
Mathilde took her home again, and Jeanne left to herself longed, full
of renewed animation, for her children. Soon they came, refreshed with
their bout in the open, and she embraced them almost impetuously, and
let them tell her where they had been, what they had done. And when
Dora was a little peevish, she joked and played with the little
weakling until she laughed. Life did not seem quite so sombre now; why
not be a bit cheerful?