I sang. I smiled at the contrast between the meaningless and trivial
life of the people, who presumably lived there, and the wondrous magic
glory it all assumed through the power of my imagination. I meditated
on the land Orplid - the youthful phantasy of Möricke - to which with a
few measured words he was able to lend a deep, mysterious, glowing
splendor, which has filled thousands, like myself, with a yearningly
passionate thrill of beauty, yes, with a real longing. Is not the
dreamed Orplid that for so many shines afar, more real than all the
lands that waking we behold?
When I landed there was hardly anyone on the quay; the fisherman sat
caulking his boat, a few boys were fishing in the dark green waters of
the harbor - everything exactly as I can still see it to-day - my
future dwelling-house already looked at me with familiar friendliness
from out its cool, dark window-eyes; the doves cooed in the softly
rustling elms; it smelled of pitch and tar and of the inevitable Dutch
peat-smoke, which rose from the stove pipes of the fishing smacks lying
in the harbor, where the fishermen's wives were cooking the dinner.
I went straight ahead toward my goal as though I were already a loved
and longingly expected lover, smiling and myself wondering at my
assurance. I went past the little rope shops, where the door-bell
sounded loudly through the empty street when a solitary visitor in
Sunday attire stepped out of the shop, past the barber shop with the
brightly polished brass basins, past the few stately mansions with
ancient stone gables representing "Fortune" or "Love," where the
daughters of the house, from dark side chambers peeped out, from behind
the inevitable Clivia Hower-pot, at the rarely passing stranger, on to
the hotel "de Toelast."
I have, indeed, as I have already with shame confessed to you, been out
a couple of times on gallant adventure, but never with such
point-blank, unabashed directness as on this summer's day in my beloved
little Dutch city. I also felt none, absolutely none, of the shyness,
the conscientious scruples, the nervousness that usually attend the
gallant adventures of a married man. I felt like a schoolboy going to
claim a prize after a successful examination. My heart only beat a
trifle faster with glad expectation - perhaps too with a little fear at
the thought of the type that would present itself before my eyes as the
father.
I asked directly for the hotel keeper. At my first visit he had not
made his appearance. From the out-house, after a long wait, a big lazy
Dutch man came shuffling on in a very slovenly and ill-fitting gray
suit, a black silk cap, a soiled shirt in place of the missing collar
and tie, an open vest full of cigar ashes, a cigar in a paper holder in
his mouth, and worn, flowered, green slippers on his feet. When after
some little conflict with myself I finally looked into his face, I saw
a flushed, full-moon countenance, clean-shaven except for a drooping
moustache under a small crooked nose - and in this face one sleepy eye;
the other had perhaps once been there, but now was lost.
"Are you Mynheer Van Vianen?" I asked in Dutch, which at the time I
still spoke with a pronounced Italian accent.
"No!" said the offensive father, without taking the cigar from his
mouth.
"But you are the hotel-keeper at any rate?" I asked in a disagreeable
state of uncertainty.
"Yes," came the answer just as curtly, as though he wanted to say, "Are
you through soon now? Then we'll go to sleep again."
"But are you not then the father of Juffrouw Van Vianen, who lives in
this house?"
"No!" said the man. "She has no father. She's a foundling."
I could have embraced the unsightly boor. His indelicate communication
seemed to me the happiest compliment and the gladdest tidings that I
could have expected from him. He could not know that his brutal
rudeness, which he in Dutch fashion seemed to take for lusty candor,
something like "I won't be bothered talking around the subject" - that
this rudeness was for me a blessing. The advantage of not being
descended from him he would indeed hardly be able to appreciate. I
breathed more freely; it was one of the loveliest moments of this
lovely day. The word "foundling" was for me like an opening blind in a
dark chamber of boorishness and provincialism, suddenly revealing a
vista of distant, mistily romantic perspectives. To be sure I had
comforted myself with the thought that the race can, at any time and
anywhere, bring forth geniuses through atavism; thus also in the family
of a Dutch provincial hotel-keeper, a womanly genius of noble grace,
charm and distinction; but this was after all much sweeter solace. With
a foundling one could presuppose noble ancestors of any nationality. I
too now found it unnecessary to talk longer around the subject.
"Then would you kindly tell Juffrouw Van Vianen that there is someone
who urgently desires to speak to her?"
The cigar now fell from the gaping mouth and the solitary eye also
opened perceptibly wider like that of a hippopotamus emerging from the
water. I was scrutinized a while.
"Urgently?" he growled, as though such a thing were most improbable and
also improper.
"Yes, urgently."
"Hm!" said the Dutchman. He stuck the paper mouth-piece with the cigar
back into his mouth and shuffled back on his slippers to the out-house,
the while a remarkable stirring seemed to be going on in the brains
underneath the black cap.
A moment later Elsje came. This time she blushed deeply when she saw
me, although there was now really less reason for it than last time.
But I knew it was joy, for I also saw her eyes sparkling.
"Oh, is it you!" she said with restrained surprise. "Did you wish to
speak with me?"
"If it is convenient to you, Juffrouw Van Vianen?"
"Just step into the upper room. Didn't your French friend come with
you?"
"I crossed the sea alone. The other gentleman is a Hungarian, and not a
particular friend of mine either."
"Oh, good!" said Elsje, leaving me in sweet doubts as to what she found
good.
We went into the upper room. I can remember a red table cover, cane
chairs, a crocheted cover over a tea-set, horrible steel engravings on
the walls. Everything lovely and adorable - what would I not give to
see it once more! But "de Toelast" has long since been rebuilt.
I felt somewhat embarrassed, yet not oppressed. I refreshed myself by
gazing quietly into her soft, bright eyes. I could see only the eyes
clearly. Whether the face was pretty or homely I could not judge. It
was too intimate, too beloved, too much a part of me.
"Did I guess rightly that you stood watching on the pier out in the
rain only on our account last Sunday?"
She nodded gravely. "Yes! I was afraid that you would be drowned. It
has indeed happened quite frequently that little yachts were sunk with
that wind blowing. And there was no way of saving them."
"Yes, we came off well. But how did you know that we were coming?"
"Well, I saw the people looking out from the quay and I realized that
there was a boat in peril."
"But would you have done it for any other boat too?"
Then she remained silent and looked at me long. I thought I saw a mist
gathering in her eyes. Her answer sounded timid, as though she dared
not say it or feared to be laughed at.
"I was uneasy all morning. The night before too. I have never felt so
strangely anxious. Only when I saw your face did I become tranquil."
"Then did you know my face? Had you dreamt of me?"
She shook her head. "Not that I know of. But yet I cannot say that your
face is strange to me. I have surely seen it before this." Then as
though to herself she whispered: "Where I do not know."
"You knew the Hungarian, didn't you? He seemed to know you."
Elsie laughed, the short clear laugh that has later so often made me
happy.
"Oh, he! - yes, he has been here before. He surely hadn't much good to
say of me."
"Quite the contrary!" said I. "He paid you a great compliment. He said
that you were unapproachable."
Elsje laughed still louder.
"How conceited these foreigners are. Especially these dark foreigners
who speak French. If you just treat them with ordinary civility they
think they can allow themselves anything. I cannot be careful enough
with these persons."
That was meant for me, I thought. I made a little bow and said:
"I thank you for your warning. I shall try my best not to foster any
illusions and to give you no cause for exercising caution."
She became so embarrassed that I regretted my words.
"Oh, you!" she said with charming emphasis and naive candor: "I really
didn't mean you! - with you I don't have to be careful - I saw that
directly."
"Who knows, Juffrouw Elsie! for I am one of those dark foreigners too,
and my Dutch is not yet quite irreproachable."
"You are no stranger to me," she said again, softly and earnestly.
I believe that we said nothing for a long time then, and gazed at each
other without finding it in the least embarrassing or oppressing.
We both felt as though the responsibility of our situation did not rest
with us, but with One who probably knew best in everything and in whose
keeping we were safe.
At last she got up, saying: "You surely want your room put to rights
again. It has not been used since you were here last and I saved your
bed linen."
"Did you know then that I would come back?"
"I thought you would."
"Did you hope so?"
"Yes!" she said artlessly.
This was so totally different from what other women I had known would
have replied, that it made me feel confused. I had no conception or
experience of woman's love that can dispense with playful dissembling,
and so thought that I was mistaken after all. I began to consider that
I was already quite an old man and she apparently about twenty years
younger. Perhaps I resembled some one she had formerly known; perhaps
she took me for her unknown father or sought in me a substitute for her
unengaging supporter. I prepared myself for all this, firmly determined
not to disappoint her.
"Will you do me the favor of being my guide about the city this
afternoon? It looks like such a pretty and attractive little town to
me."
"I?" she asked with evident pleasure. "I'll be very glad to. But first
you must eat something."
"Will your ... stepfather have no objections?
Elsje smiled surprised and a bit scornfully.
"Who? - Jan Baars? - Why no! that makes no difference to him. He has no
authority over me either."
How thankful these proud words made me. Hastily leaving the room she
said:
"I'll see that you get something to eat quickly. Then while you're
eating I'll get dressed and at three o'clock I'll go out with you."
And I remained behind, blithe as an angel and full of expectancy as a
child on his birthday.
When we went out she had dressed, and it was astonishing to see with
what simple means she achieved an appearance of tasteful distinction. A
round straw hat, a white standing collar, a well-tailored light gray
suit, a lavender silk tie - and she was a lady among the boorish and
bourgeois women of her town. For on the point of dress the artistic
Hollanders, as soon as they discard their quaint old national costume,
are probably the most tasteless people in the world, and of these the
women of a North Dutch provincial town are probably even the very worst
dressed.
As we walked along the hot quiet streets we saw the residents peeping
at us through their wire window screens with amazed, well-nigh angry
glances.
"Do you see how we are being stared at?" said Elsje. "That will give
them something to talk about for a whole week again."
"And don't you mind that, Juffrouw Elsje?"
"Why, no!" said Elsje, with a pretty expression of power and personal
dignity: "I have taught them that I do exactly what I myself think
right. Now there isn't one left who dares accost me about it. It does
them no good, anyway. And what they say to each other I do not hear,
nor am I anxious to find out."
We went to the museum. It was silent, cool and deserted there. The
door-keeper sat nodding in his corner. Amid the relics of that old,
stout, merry people that, a few centuries ago, strove to surround their
earthly life with beauty and comfort here, amid the prints and
paintings of the graceful, gorgeous, flag-bedecked vessels; the
portraits of magistrates, charmingly elegant and autocratic, the
muskets and cuirasses and lances, the medals and placards, the rare
bibelots and the fine porcelain from the East and West brought together
in this little sailor's hamlet, we spent a few hours of profound
intimate happiness.
Elsje knew very little, but she was quick to understand, and she
listened to my explanations with such eager desire for learning, with
such rapt attention, with such unlimited faith in my knowledge, that it
made me feel confused and I begged her not to take me for an oracle -
for though I had indeed read much and seen a good deal of the world,
yet I was by no means a scholar such as is demanded in our days.
"Ah! I live in such a small narrow circle here. To me you are the
great, vast world," said Elsje with a charming deference.
When the daylight faded and it grew cooler, we wandered out through the
old, dark gateway up across the thickly wooded dike into the open green
fields, where we watched the sun setting in flame-colored majesty. We
walked to what is now my nursery, and I drew her attention to the
marvellous flight of the gulls soaring motionless against the wind, to
the colors of the sea and of the heavens, to the brightly-sparkling
Venus glittering greenish white against the rose-colored background of
the sky, and I told her all I knew.
Then I came back to our conversation of the morning.
"Have you often such forebodings as when I was approaching in peril on
the sea?"
"Yes, always when something important is going to happen to me, good or
bad, I know it before. It never fails."
"This time it was good, though, I hope?
"Yes, good," she said, smiling sweetly, "but alarming nevertheless. You
must not sail so recklessly again. Boats like your little yacht should
be in the harbor with such a wind blowing. Even all the fishing smacks
were in and they can stand quite a bit more rough weather."
"I was calm and assured. I knew that I would see you. I had dreamt of
you, of your face and of your name."
"Really?" said Elsje, looking straight at me with her frank, innocent
eyes.
Before this look my heart melted with tenderness. I felt a desire to
kneel down before her and cover her hands with tears and kisses. But I
controlled myself, for I reflected that I was an Italian and that it
was a Dutch girl I had to deal with, and I did not want to risk my
fragile happiness by foolish extravagances. And there was a subtle
relish in this sobriety and this respectful self-control. But I wanted
to be honest too - my happiness must rest on a firm foundation of
uprightness - I wanted to make my position clear.
"Yes, really, Elsje; and yet I had never heard of you, and no one had
spoken of you to me. And now, tell me, had you never heard of me
either? Do you know anything about me? Do you know my name?"
"I saw your name in the hotel register. Otherwise I knew nothing of you
until I saw you."
"Really not? Also not ?"
"What?"
"That I am married and have a good wife and four children?" I burst
out, almost roughly in my brave effort to spare myself nothing and to
risk the worst.
Elsje without starting gazed at me long, attentively and thoughtfully.
What I distinctly discerned in her glance was a questioning doubt and a
tender compassion.
"A good wife and four children," she repeated softly, pensively. "I
thought that you were probably married. But you are not happy after
all, I know it."
"No, I am not happy, Elsje, that is true. Or rather - was not until
to-day."
She asked nothing more after that, as though she thought that I would
probably myself tell her what I deemed necessary for her to know. But I
knew enough, and I also saw that she knew enough and we spoke no more
about ourselves that day. We felt as one does in dreams - one
understands and communicates without words.
I slept very little that night. With me also, well balanced in mind as
I am, sleep grows more elusive with the advancing years. But it is not
care, but happiness, that drives it away. I lay all night silent and
happy in a bright cloud of joy, thinking of her who now lay peacefully
breathing under the same roof. Then toward morning I had a short dream,
which by its dark terror gave me a measure for the brightness of my
joy. I dreamt that I was back in my office at The Hague and, coming
home, I found a letter containing my transference to Japan. My sailing
excursions, my little city, Elsje - it had all been a dream and I was
again deep in my old, gloomy life, worldly and yet estranged from the
world. My anguish was terrible, I cried and sobbed desperately and woke
up in that way, my face and my pillow now really wet with tears. And
then - the relief, the transition, the glorious realization of the
reality of my newly-found happiness, my dawning memory of yesterday's
beautiful day, of Elsje's winsome ways and the frank, fervent look in
her eyes, her ready sympathy and tender compassion. Only then I really
comprehended what had been given me. I was no longer a stranger in the
world - life, the sacred human life had won me back. I would not die
after all without having been entirely human.
At my solitary breakfast in the upper room, into which the sun was
shining, Elsje, amid the pressure of her domestic duties, stopped a
moment to greet me. I said that I had no time to sail back, but would
go home by train, leaving the yacht anchored in the harbor, to call for
it the following Sunday.
"That is well considered," said Elsje, with a roguish little laugh of
comprehension.
And at my departure I saw my peaceful, friendly little city, with its
venerable old church steeple, stretched out calm and sunny in matinal
activity. In front of the ugly, bare little station I turned, and
stretching out my hands I blessed the little city with all my heart,
murmuring in my glowing, passionate mother tongue:
"Benedetto sia 'l giorno e 'l mese e 'l anno