On the evening of the third day after Wilhelm’s interview with Henrica,
his way led him through Nobelstrasse past the Hoogstraten mansion.
Ere reaching it, he saw two gentlemen, preceded by a servant carrying a
lantern, cross the causeway towards it.
Wilhelm’s attention was attracted. The servant now seized the knocker,
and the light of his lantern fell on the men’s faces. Neither was
unfamiliar to him.
The small, delicate old man, with the peaked hat and short black velvet
cloak, was Abbe Picard, a gay Parisian, who had come to Leyden ten years
before and gave French lessons in the wealthy families of the city.
He had been Wilhelm’s teacher too, but the musician’s father, the
Receiver-General, would have nothing to do with the witty abbe; for he
was said to have left his beloved France on account of some questionable
transactions, and Herr Cornelius scented in him a Spanish spy. The other
gentleman, a grey-haired, unusually stout man, of middle height, who
required a great deal of cloth for his fur-bordered cloak, was Signor
Lamperi, the representative of the great Italian mercantile house of
Bonvisi in Antwerp, who was in the habit of annually coming to Leyden on
business for a few weeks with the storks and swallows, and was a welcome
guest in every tap-room as the inexhaustible narrator of funny stories.
Before these two men entered the house, they were joined by a third,
preceded by two servants carrying lanterns. A wide cloak enveloped
his tall figure; he too stood on the threshold of old age and was no
stranger to Wilhelm, for the Catholic Monseigneur Gloria, who often came
to Leyden from Haarlem, was a patron of the noble art of music, and when
the young man set out on his journey to Italy had provided him, spite of
his heretical faith, with valuable letters of introduction.
Wilhelm, as the door closed behind the three gentlemen, continued his
way. Belotti had told him the day before that the young lady seemed
very ill, but since her aunt was receiving guests, Henrica was doubtless
better.
The first story in the Hoogstraten mansion was brightly lighted, but in
the second a faint, steady glow streamed into Nobelstrasse from a single
window, while she for whom the lamp burned sat beside a table, her eyes
sparkling with a feverish glitter, as she pressed her forehead against
the marble top. Henrica was entirely alone in the wide, lofty room her
aunt had assigned her. Behind curtains of thick faded brocade was her
bedstead, a heavy structure of enormous width. The other articles of
furniture were large and shabby, but had once been splendid. Every
chair, every table looked as if it had been taken from some deserted
banqueting-hall. Nothing really necessary was lacking in the apartment,
but it was anything but home-like and cosey, and no one would ever have
supposed a young girl occupied it, had it not been for a large gilt harp
that leaned against the long, hard couch beside the fireplace.
Henrica’s head was burning but, though she had wrapped a shawl around
her lower limbs, her feet were freezing on the uncarpeted stone floor.
A short time after the three gentlemen had entered her aunt’s house, a
woman’s figure ascended the stairs leading from the first to the second
story. Henrica’s over-excited senses perceived the light tread of
the satin shoes and the rustle of the silk train, long before the
approaching form had reached the room, and with quickened breathing, she
sat erect.
A thin hand, without any preliminary knock, now opened the door and old
Fraulein Van Hoogstraten walked up to her niece.
The elderly dame had once been beautiful, now and at this hour she
presented a strange, unpleasing appearance.
The thin, bent figure was attired in a long trailing robe of heavy pink
silk. The little head almost disappeared in the ruff, a large structure
of immense height and width. Long chains of pearls and glittering gems
hung on the sallow skin displayed by the open neck of her dress, and
on the false, reddish-yellow curls rested a roll of light-blue velvet
decked with ostrich plumes. A strong odor of various fragrant essences
preceded her. She herself probably found them somewhat overpowering, for
her large glittering fan was in constant motion and fluttered violently,
when in answer to her curt: “Quick, quick,” Henrica returned a resolute
“no, ‘ma tante.’”
The old lady, however, was not at all disconcerted by the refusal,
but merely repeated her “Quick, quick,” more positively, adding as an
important reason:
“Monseigneur has come and wants to hear you.”
“He does me great honor,” replied the young girl, “great honor, but how
often must I repeat: I will not come.”
“Is it allowable to ask why not, my fair one?” said the old lady.
“Because I am not fit for your society,” cried Henrica vehemently,
“because my head aches and my eyes burn, because I can’t sing to-day,
and because--because--because--I entreat you, leave me in peace.”
Old Fraulein Van Hoogstraten let her fan sink by her side, and said
coolly:
“Were you singing two hours ago--yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“Then your headache can’t be so very bad, and Denise will dress you.”
“If she comes, I’ll send her away. When I just took the harp, I did so
to sing the pain away. It was relieved for a few minutes, but now my
temples are throbbing with twofold violence.”
“Excuses.”
“Believe what you choose. Besides--even if I felt better at this moment
than a squirrel in the woods. I wouldn’t go down to see the gentlemen. I
shall stay here. I have given my word, and I am a Hoogstraten as well as
you.”
Henrica had risen, and her eyes flashed with a gloomy fire at her
oppressor. The old lady waved her fan faster, and her projecting chin
trembled. Then she said curtly:
“Your word of honor! So you won’t! You won’t!”
“Certainly not,” cried the young girl with undutiful positiveness.
“Everybody must have his way,” replied the old lady, turning towards the
door. “What is too wilful is too wilful. Your father won’t thank you for
this.” With these words Fraulein Van Hoogstraten raised her long train
and approached the door. There she paused, and again glanced enquiringly
at Henrica. The latter doubtless noticed her aunt’s hesitation, but
without heeding the implied threat intentionally turned her back.
As soon as the door closed, the young girl sank back into her chair,
pressed her forehead against the marble slab and let it remain there
a long time. Then she rose as suddenly and hastily as if obeying some
urgent summons, raised the lid of her trunk, tossed the stockings,
bodices and shoes, that came into her way, out on the floor, and did
not rise until she had found a few sheets of writing-paper which she
had laid, before leaving her father’s castle, among the rest of her
property.
As she rose from her kneeling posture, she was seized with giddiness,
but still kept her feet, carried to the table first the white sheets and
a portfolio, then the large inkstand that had already stood several days
in her room, and seated herself beside it.
Leaning far back in her chair, she began to write. The book that served
as a desk lay on her knee, the paper on the book. Creaking and pausing,
the goosequill made large, stiff letters on the white surface. Henrica
was not skilled in writing, but to-day it must have been unspeakably
difficult for her; her high forehead became covered with perspiration,
her mouth was distorted by pain, and whenever she had finished a few
lines, she closed her eyes or drank greedily from the water-pitcher that
stood beside her.
The large room was perfectly still, but the peace that surrounded her
was often disturbed by strange noises and tones, that rose from the
dining-hall directly under her chamber. The clinking of glasses, shrill
tittering, loud, deep laughter, single bars of a dissolute love-song,
cheers, and then the sharp rattle of a shattered wine glass reached her
in mingled sounds. She did not wish to hear it, but could not escape
and clenched her white teeth indignantly. Yet meantime the pen did not
wholly stop.
She wrote in broken, or long, disconnected sentences, almost
incoherently involved. Sometimes there were gaps, sometimes the same
word was twice or thrice repeated. The whole resembled a letter written
by a lunatic, yet every line, every stroke of the pen, expressed the
same desire uttered with passionate longing: “Take me away from here!
Take me away from this woman and this house!”
The epistle was addressed to her father. She implored him to rescue
her from this place, come or send for her. “Her uncle, Matanesse Van
Wibisma,” she said, “seemed to be a sluggish messenger; he had probably
enjoyed the evenings at her aunt’s, which filled her, Henrica, with
loathing. She would go out into the world after her sister, if her
father compelled her to stay here.” Then she began a description of her
aunt and her life. The picture of the days and nights she had now spent
for weeks with the old lady, presented in vivid characters a mixture of
great and petty troubles, external and mental humiliations.
Only too often the same drinking and carousing had gone on below as
to-day-Henrica had always been compelled to join her aunt’s guests,
elderly dissolute men of French or Italian origin and easy morals. While
describing these conventicles, the blood crimsoned her flushed cheeks
still more deeply, and the long strokes of the pen grew heavier and
heavier. What the abbe related and her aunt laughed at, what the Italian
screamed and Monseigneur smilingly condemned with a slight shake of
the head, was so shamelessly bold that she would have been defiled by
repeating the words. Was she a respectable girl or not? She would rather
hunger and thirst, than be present at such a banquet again. If the
dining-room was empty, other unprecedented demands were made upon
Henrica, for then her aunt, who could not endure to be alone a moment,
was sick and miserable, and she was obliged to nurse her. That she
gladly and readily served the suffering, she wrote, she had sufficiently
proved by her attendance on the village children when they had the
smallpox, but if her aunt could not sleep she was compelled to watch
beside her, hold her hand, and listen until morning as she moaned,
whined and prayed, sometimes cursing herself and sometimes the
treacherous world. She, Henrica, had come to the house strong and well,
but so much disgust and anger, such constant struggling to control
herself had robbed her of her health.
The young girl had written until midnight. The letters became more and
more irregular and indistinct, the lines more crooked, and with the last
words: “My head, my poor head! You will see that I am losing my senses.
I beseech you, I beseech you, my dear, stern father, take me home. I
have again heard something about Anna--” her eyes grew dim, her pen
dropped from her hand, and she fell back in the chair unconscious.
There she lay, until the last laugh and sound of rattling glass had died
away below, and her aunt’s guests had left the house.
Denise, the cameriera, noticed the light in the room, entered, and after
vainly endeavoring to rouse Henrica, called her mistress.
The latter followed the maid, muttering as she ascended the stairs:
“Fallen asleep, found the time hang heavy--that’s all! She might have
been lively and laughed with us! Stupid race! ‘Men of butter,’ King
Philip says. That wild Lamperi was really impertinent to-night, and the
abbe said things--things--”
The old lady’s large eyes were sparkling vinously, and her fan waved
rapidly to and fro to cool the flush on her cheeks.
She now stood opposite to Henrica, called her, shook her and sprinkled
her with perfumed water from the large shell, set in gold, which hung as
an essence bottle from her belt. When her niece only muttered incoherent
words, she ordered the maid to bring her medicine-chest.
Denise had gone and Fraulein Van Hoogstraten now perceived Henrica’s
letter, raised it close to her eyes, read page after page with
increasing indignation, and at last tossed it on the floor and tried to
shake her niece awake; but in vain.
Meantime Belotti had been informed of Henrica’s serious illness and, as
he liked the young girl, sent for a physician on his own responsibility,
and instead of the family priest summoned Father Damianus. Then he went
to the sick girl’s chamber.
Even before he crossed the threshold, the old lady in the utmost
excitement, exclaimed:
“Belotti, what do you say now, Belotti? Sickness in the house, perhaps
contagious sickness, perhaps the plague.”
“It seems to be only a fever,” replied the Italian soothingly. “Come,
Denise, we will carry the young lady to the bed.
“The doctor will soon be here.”
“The doctor?” cried the old lady, striking her fan on the marble top of
the table. “Who permitted you, Belotti--”
“We are Christians,” interrupted the servant, not without dignity.
“Very well, very well,” she cried. “Do what you please, call whom you
choose, but Henrica can’t stay here. Contagion in the house, the plague,
a black tablet.”
“Excellenza is disturbing herself unnecessarily. Let us first hear what
the doctor says.”
“I won’t hear him; I can’t bear the plague and the small-pox. Go down
at once, Belotti, and have the sedan-chair prepared. The old chevalier’s
room in the rear building is empty.”
“But, Excellenza, it’s gloomy, and so damp that the north wall is
covered with mould.”
“Then let it be aired and cleaned. What does this delay mean? You have
only to obey. Do you understand?”
“The chevalier’s room isn’t fit for my mistress’s sick niece,” replied
Belotti civilly, but resolutely.
“Isn’t it? And you know exactly?” asked his mistress scornfully. “Go
down, Denise, and order the sedan-chair to be brought up. Have you
anything more to say, Belotti?”
“Yes, Padrona,” replied the Italian, in a trembling voice. “I beg your
excellenza to dismiss me.”
“Dismiss you from my service?”
“With your excellenza’s permission, yes--from your service.”
The old woman started, clasped her hands tightly upon her fan, and said:
“You are irritable, Belotti.”
“No, Padrona, but I am old and dread the misfortune of being ill in this
house.”
Fraulein Van Hoogstraten shrugged her shoulders and turning to her maid,
cried:
“The sedan-chair, Denise. You are dismissed, Belotti.”