In the morning Eline’s letter was handed to Otto. He would not give
himself the time to retire to his room, but walked straight into the
drawing-room, and throwing himself on the first seat he came to, he
opened the letter. And he commenced reading those words of grief and
remorse. There was no need for Eline to assure him that she had
suffered, suffered intensely in the writing of it. Thus much he read in
every word, and with every word a fresh dart of sorrow was plunged into
his breast. He read too, although she did not write it in so many
words, that every effort on his part to find his own happiness in her
love—even if he succeeded in once more calling her affections into
being for him—would be in vain; the lesson that he read from her
letter, in language which to him was clear and unmistakable, was that
they were separated for ever, because she had not possessed the
strength to preserve her love. A great, an immeasurable despair filled
him; he thought that had she had the strength, had she remained true to
him, he could have made her happy, because in the restfulness of his
own soul, in the soothing calm of his own love, she would have closed
her eyes and slumbered, to awaken again at last full of peaceful
happiness. Once he had felt certain that such would have been their
future; now, however, that idea appeared to have been but an idle
fantasy, nothing more.
Once again he looked through the letter, and it seemed to him as though
only then did he read it aright; yes, she was lost to him, lost
forever! A void, a hopeless vacuum surrounded him in his solitude in
the midst of the luxurious drawing-room, full of inanimate lustre, full
of big, chill mirrors and costly furniture, and with his moistened eyes
he looked around him and shuddered. Then he fell back on his chair, and
covered his face with his hands, and a single, painful sob escaped his
pent-up bosom. He felt a sensation as if everything within him was
being shattered and broken, as if that single bitter sigh, like the
breath of a hurricane, had dispelled and destroyed every budding
blossom of hopefulness with him—it seemed to him as if with him there
was nought left but that great, that immeasurable despair, and at that
moment he would fain have died. Softly he sobbed and sobbed, and a
feeling of bitterness arose in his breast. Had he deserved this, he who
had once discovered such a treasure in himself, he who had desired
nothing better than to make another share that treasure, that treasure
of peace and rest? His treasure was despised, and now he felt himself
poorer even than the poorest, and empty, utterly empty, in despair and
lassitude.
The door was slowly opened. It was Mathilde. She approached him as a
sad image of pity, she sat down beside him, and tried to remove his
hands from his face. He started violently, and looked at her with two
great, wildly staring eyes.
“What have you come to do here?” he asked in a disconsolate voice. For
there was nothing to do for him, nothing; he was dead to everything.
“What used you to come to me for, five years ago, when you used to sit
down beside me and draw me close to your side? And what did you come to
me for one evening, also five years ago now, when my husband—had—left
me—my husband, whom I have never seen since. Tell me, what did you come
to me for then? Did I then ask you what you ask me now?” she said
reproachfully. “You have had a letter from Eline, I know it, I have
seen the envelope. You need not tell me what it was about. I can feel
it instinctively. But, Otto, let me share your grief, do not turn a
deaf ear to my pleading.”
She saw his chest heaving under the mighty sob which he repressed with
a violent effort, and she threw her arm round his neck, and forced him
to lean his head upon her shoulder; and in his own sorrow he started,
terrified at the recollection of hers, of her grief, of which she never
spoke, and he felt that indeed she must sincerely desire to comfort
him, when for his sake she thus plunged herself anew into that great
sorrow of the past.
“Why do you speak about that?” he asked, for he knew that she suffered
least when she suffered in silence.
“So that you may feel that I understand you. And so that you may see
that I live still, and must continue to live; and especially to show
you that all the grief on earth is not yours exclusively. Perhaps that
idea may comfort you a little.”
“Oh!” he burst out sobbing, and he clung close to her, and tremblingly
handed her the letter. “There, read! read!” he cried.
She read the letter, and stroked his hair as if he had been a child.
Yes, that was as it should be, now he no longer forced himself to
control his feelings, now he felt not ashamed, in his obstinate
manliness, of his copious tears. And while she read, she thought of
Eline.
“Did she know what she was throwing away?” she mused. “What would she
do if she saw him thus? Is she not worthy of you, my Otto, my own
brother? or is it only that she is unhappy, unhappy as we are?”
Madame van Erlevoort came in with Frédérique. They had heard the news
from Henk.
Mathilde lifted up his head.
“There is mamma!” she said simply, as though she would no longer retain
him, now that another demanded his attention. But when he saw his
gentle mother, melting away as it were in his grief, deepest pity
filled his soul. He must comfort her.
“Mother, mother, do not cry like that! ’Tis not so terrible!” he cried
out in despair.
Frédérique remained standing, leaning against one of the folding doors.
Of her they took no notice whatever. Mathilde, mamma, could soothe and
comfort him, but she, she was of no use to him at all; she was silly,
childish, and would not know what to say to him. She remembered how,
one day, long before his engagement, she had spoken to him about Eline;
but now she had nothing to say, absolutely nothing. For, of course, she
did not understand what sorrow was, she herself had never suffered, she
had no feeling, she was a stone.
“A stone! they think I am a stone!” she repeated softly to herself, and
she remained leaning against the door-post and sobbed inaudibly,
disconsolate at the thought that she could not comfort Otto. She felt a
hand on her shoulder, and she turned almost haughty at being thus
misjudged. But when she saw his sorrowful face; those moist eyes, in
which, for the first time, she beheld tears; when she saw those lips
trembling under his moustache, and the deep furrows over his brow, she
flung herself, brimming over with pity, on his bosom, and clasping him
tightly in her arms, covered his face with burning, passionate kisses.