Old People and the Things That Pass

CHAPTER II [1] Pronounced "Lo," as in the French "Charlot." [2] The Witte and the Plaats are the two leading clubs at the Hague. [3] Dutch East Indies: Java. [4] British India. CHAPTER II Elly Takma was very happy and looked better than she had done for a long time. Well, thought Cousin Adèle, who had long kept house for Grandpapa Takma—she was a Takma too and unmarried—well, a first little love-romance which a girl experiences when not much over twenty and which makes her feel unhappy, an engagement broken off with a fellow who used to go and see his mistress after spending the evening with his betrothed: a romance of that sort does not influence a girl's life; and, though Elly had moped for a while, Lot Pauws was making her happy and making her look better, with a glad laugh on her lips and a bright colour in her cheeks. Cousin Adèle—Aunt Adèle, as Elly called her, Indian-fashion—buxom, full-figured, fresh and young-looking for her age, had nothing of a poor relation employed to do the housekeeping, but was altogether the capable mistress of the house, seeing to everything, caring for nothing but the details of her household and proud of her orderly home. She had never been in India and ruled Grandpapa's house with true Dutch conscientiousness, leaving Elly entirely to her hobby of the moment; for Elly had her hobbies, which she rode until she attained absolute perfection, after which she would take up a fresh one. At eighteen, she had been a famous tennis-player, winning medals in tournaments, well-known for her exquisite, powerful and graceful play, mentioned in all the sporting-papers. After achieving perfection in tennis, she had suddenly grown bored with it, hung up her racket, studded round with the medals, by a pink ribbon in her bedroom and begun to work zealously for the Charity Organization Society, doing much practical slumming and sick-visiting; they thought highly of her in the committee. One day, however, when a sick man showed her his leg with a hole in it, she fainted and considered that she had overstepped her philanthropic limits. She resigned the work; and, feeling a certain handiness quivering at the tips of her sensitive fingers, she started making her own hats and also modelling. She was successful in both pursuits: the hats were so pretty that she thought seriously of setting up as a milliner and working for her living. The modelling too was most charming: after the first few lessons, she was modelling from the life; and her head of A Beggar Boy was accepted for exhibition. Then Elly had fallen in love and was very much in love; her engagement lasted three months; then it was broken off; and Elly, who did nothing by halves, for all her varying interests, had suffered a great deal and faded and pined and been dangerously ill, until one day she recovered, with a feeling of melancholy as her only remembrance. She was then twenty-three and had taken to writing. Under a pseudonym, she published her own engagement in the form of a short story: it was not a bad short story. Her new hobby brought her gradually into contact with Charles Pauws, who also wrote, mostly for the newspapers: articles, causeries . Elly was of opinion that she had soon reached her literary limits. After this short story, which had blossomed in her and blossomed out of her heart, she would never write anything more. She was twenty-three, she was old. She had lived her life, with different vicissitudes. Still there was something, there was Charles. Soft, weak, passably witty, with his mother's attractive eyes, with his fair hair carefully brushed, with his too pale blue ties, he was not the man of her dreams; and she still felt, sometimes very grievously, the sadness of her sorrow. But she was fond of him, she was very fond of him and she considered that he was wasting his talent on trivial work, on journalism, which he did with remarkable ease—after all, it was an art in itself, Charles would retort—whereas his two novels were so good; and he had attempted no serious work for the last ten years. And in this girl, with her thoroughness—within limits—there arose, on the now somewhat romantic ground of her melancholy and her sorrow, the mission to rouse Lot to work, to produce real work, fine work. She must work no longer for herself but for another, for Lot, who possessed so many good qualities, but did not cultivate them earnestly. She saw more and more of him; she had him to tea; they talked, talked at great length; Lot, though not physically in love with her, thought it really pleasant to be with Elly, allowed himself to be stimulated, began a novel, stuck in the middle. She created in his mind the suggestion that he wanted her. And he proposed to her. She was very happy and he too, though they were not passionately in love. They were attracted by the prospect of being together, talking together, living, working, travelling together, in the smiling sympathy of their two souls: his a rather small, vain, cynical, artistic soul, with above all much kindly indulgence for others and a tinge of laughing bitterness and one great dread, which utterly swayed his soul, the dread of growing old; hers, at this moment, full of the serious thought of remaining true to her mission and giving her life a noble object by wrapping it up in another's. Elly, that morning, was singing while the wind sent the early autumn leaves driving in a shower of golden sunlight along the window-panes. She was busy altering a winter hat, with a talent which she had not quite lost, when Cousin—Aunt—Adèle entered the room: "Grandpapa has had a bad night; I kept on hearing him moving." "Yes, then he's troubled with buzzings which are just like voices," said Elly. "Grandpapa is always hearing those voices, you know. Dr. Thielens looks upon them as a premonitory symptom of total deafness. Poor Grandad! I'll go to him at once ... I must just finish my hat first: I want to wear it to-day. We are going to old Mrs. Dercksz and to Aunt Stefanie.... Auntie, I am so happy. Lot is so nice. And he is so clever. I am certain that we shall be very happy. I want to travel a great deal. Lot loves travelling.... There is some talk of our living with Steyn and Ottilie. I don't know what to say. I would rather we were by ourselves. Still, I don't know. I'm very fond of Mamma; and she's Lot's mother after all. But I like harmony around me; and Steyn and she quarrel. I call him Steyn, simply. Meneer is too stiff; and I can't call him Papa. Besides, Lot calls him Steyn too. It's difficult, that sort of household. Steyn himself would think it odd if I called him Papa.... Do you like the hat like this? I'll alter yours to-morrow. Look, it's an absolutely new hat!... I'll go to Grandpapa now. Poor Grandad, so he's had a bad night?..." She left the door open. Aunt Adèle looked round: the room was lumbered with hat-trimmings. The Beggar Boy smiled in a corner; the medals were studded round the racket, on its pink ribbon; the writing-table was tesselated with squares of note-paper. "What a litter!" said Aunt Adèle. She dared not touch the papers, though she would have liked to tidy them: she could not bear to see such a heap of scattered papers and she had to restrain her itching fingers. But she cleared up the hat-trimmings, quickly, and put them away in cardboard boxes. Then she went downstairs, where the maids were turning out the dining-room. Elly, flitting up the stairs, heard the blows beating on an arm-chair, felt them almost on her own back, ran still quicker up the stairs, to the next floor, where Grandpapa's room was. She stopped outside his door, recovered her breath, knocked, opened the door and went in with a calm step: "How are you this morning, Grandad?" The old gentleman sat at a knee-hole table, looking in a drawer; he locked it quietly when Elly entered. She went up and kissed him: "I hear you did not sleep well?" "No, child, I don't think I slept at all. But Grandad can do without sleep." Grandpapa Takma was ninety-three: married late in life and his son married late made it possible for him to have a granddaughter of Elly's age. He looked younger, however, much younger, perhaps because he tactfully mingled a seeming indifference to his outward appearance with a really studied care. A thin garland of grey hair still fringed the ivory skull; the clean-shaven face was like a stained parchment, but the mouth, because of the artificial teeth, had retained its young and laughing outline and the eyes were a clear brown, bright and even keen behind his spectacles. His figure was small, slender and slight as a young man's; and a very short jacket hung over his slightly-arched and emaciated back: it was open in front and hung in folds behind. The hands, too large in proportion to the man's short stature, but delicately veined and neatly kept, trembled incessantly; and there was a jerk in the muscles of the neck that twitched the head at intervals. His tone was cheerful and lively, a little too genial not to be forced; and the words came slowly and well-weighed, however simple the things which they expressed. When he sat, he sat upright, on an ordinary chair, never huddled together, as though he were always on his guard; when he walked, he walked briskly, with very short steps of his stiff legs, so as not to betray their rheumatism. He had been an Indian civil servant, ending as a member of the Indian Council, and had been pensioned years ago; his conversation showed that he kept pace with politics, kept pace with colonial matters: he laughed at them, with mild irony. In his intercourse with others, who were always his juniors—for he had no contemporaries save old Mrs. Dercksz, née Dillenhof, who was ninety-seven, and Dr. Roelofsz, eighty-eight—in his intercourse he was kindly and condescending, realizing that the world must seem other to people even of sixty and seventy than it did to him; but the geniality was too great, was sometimes too exuberant not to be assumed and not to make people feel that he never thought as he spoke. He gave the impression of being a diplomatist who, himself always on his guard, was sounding another to find out what he knew. Sometimes, in his bright eyes, a spark shone behind the spectacles, as though he had suddenly been struck by something, a very acute perception; and the jerk of the neck would throw his head on one side, as though he suddenly heard something. His mouth would then distort itself into a laugh and he would hurriedly agree with whomever he was addressing. What was most striking in him was that quick, tremulous lucidity in so very old a man. It was as though some strange capacity had sharpened his senses so that they remained sound and serviceable, for he still read a great deal, with glasses; he was sharp of hearing; he was particular in the matter of wine, with an unimpaired sense of smell; he could find things in the dark. Only, sometimes, in the midst of a conversation, it was as though an invincible drowsiness overcame him; and his eyes would suddenly stare glassily in front of him and he would fall asleep. They left him alone and had the civility not to let him know it; and, five minutes later, he would wake up, go on talking, oblivious of that momentary unconsciousness. The inward shock with which he had woke was visible to no one. Elly went to see her grandfather in the morning, always for a minute. "We are going to pay calls this afternoon," said Elly. "On the family. We have been nowhere yet." "Not even to Grandmamma." "We shall go to her first this afternoon. Grandad, we've been engaged three days. And you can't go troubling everybody with your happiness immediately." "And you are happy, child," Grandpapa began, genially. "I think so...." "I'm sorry I can't keep you with me, you and Lot," he continued, lightly: he sometimes had an airy way of treating serious topics; and his thin voice then lacked emphasis. "But you see, I'm too old for that: a young household grafted on mine! Besides, to live by yourselves is more charming.... Baby, we never talk of money, you and I. As you know, Papa left nothing and he ran through your mother's money, lost it in different businesses in Java; they none of them succeeded. Your poor parents never had any luck. Well, Baby, I'm not a rich man, but I can live like this, on my Mauritskade, because an old man doesn't want much and Aunt Adèle manages things so cleverly. I've worked out that I can give you two hundred guilders a month. But that's all, child, that's all." "But, Grandad, it's really very handsome...." "Well, you can accept it from your grandfather. You're my heiress, after all, though you're not all alone; no, Grandfather has others: kind acquaintances, good friends.... It won't last very long now, child. You won't be rich, for my house is my only luxury. All the rest, as you know, is on an economical scale. But you will have enough, especially later on; and Lot appears to make a good bit. Oh, it's not money that matters to him, child: what matters to him is ... is ..." "What, Grandad?" A drowsiness suddenly overcame the old man. But, in a few minutes, he resumed: "There is some talk of your living with Steyn...." "Yes, but nothing's decided." "Ottilie is nice, but hot-tempered," said the old gentleman, sunk in thought: he seemed to be thinking of other things, of more important things especially. "If I do, it will be for Mamma's sake, Grandad, because she is so much attached to Lot. I would rather have my own little house. But we shall travel a good deal in any case. Lot says that he can travel cheaply." "You might be able to do it, child, with a little tact: live with the Steyns, I mean. Ottilie is certainly very much alone, poor thing. Who knows? Perhaps you would supply a little affection, a little sympathy...." His airy voice became softer, fuller, sounded more earnest. "We shall see, Grandpapa. Will you stay upstairs, or are you coming down to lunch?" "No, send me something up here. I've not much appetite, I've no appetite...." His voice sounded airy again, like the whisper of a breeze. "It's windy weather; and I think it's going to rain. Are you going out all the same, this afternoon?" "For a moment, I think.... To Mrs. Dercksz' ..." "To Grandmamma's...." "Yes, yes, better say Grandmamma. When you see her, call her Grandmamma at once. It's less stiff: she will like it ... even though you're not married to Lot yet...." His voice sank; he sighed, as though he were thinking of other things, of more important things; and, with the jerk in his neck, he started up and remained like that for a second, with his head on one side, as if he heard something, as if he were listening. Elly did not think Grandpapa looking well to-day. The drowsiness overcame him again; his head dropped and his eyes grew glassy. And he sat there, so frail and fragile, as if one could have blown the life out of him like a dancing feather. Elly, after a moment's hesitation, left him alone. The old gentleman gave a start, when he heard the door close gently, and recovered his full consciousness. He sat for a second or two without moving. Then he unlocked the drawer of his writing-table, with which he had been busy before, and took out the pieces of a letter that had already been torn up. He tore the pieces still smaller, as small as they possibly could be, and scattered them in his waste-paper-basket, in among other discarded papers. After that he tore up a second letter, after that a third, without reading them over. He scattered the tiny pieces in the basket and shook the basket, shook the basket. The tearing tired his stiff fingers; the shaking tired his arm. "A few more this afternoon," he muttered. "It's getting time, it's getting time...." CHAPTER III The old gentleman went out at about three o'clock, alone: he did not like to be accompanied when he went, though he was glad to be brought back home; but he would never ask for this service. Aunt Adèle looked out of the window and followed him with her eyes as he turned by the barracks and crossed the razor-back bridge. He was not going farther than just down the Nassaulaan, to Mrs. Dercksz'; and he managed the distance with a delicate, erect figure and straight legs: he did not even look so very old a man, in his overcoat buttoned up to the throat, even though each step was carefully considered and supported by his heavy, ivory-knobbed stick. In order above all not to let it be perceived that this short walk was his exercise and his relaxation, a great deal of exercise and relaxation for his now merely nervous strength, he had needs to consider every step; but he succeeded in walking as though without difficulty, stiff and upright, and he studied his reflection in the plate-glass of the ground-floor windows. In the street, he did not strike a passer-by as so very old. When he rang, old Anna hurried and the cat slipped crosswise through her petticoats, cat and maid making for the front-door at one run: "The old gentleman, I expect." Then she drove the cat back to the kitchen, afraid lest the old gentleman should stumble, and drew him in with little remarks about the weather and questions about his health; and to Takma it called for rare art to let his overcoat, which he took off in the hall, slip from his shoulders and arms into the maid's hands. He did it slowly and gradually, a little tired with the walk, but in the meanwhile he recovered breath sufficiently to go upstairs, one flight only, with the aid of the stick—"We may as well keep the stick, Anna," he would say—for Mrs. Dercksz nowadays never came down to the ground-floor rooms. She was expecting him. He came almost every day; and, when he was not coming, Aunt Adèle or Elly would call round to say so. So she sat, in her high-backed chair, waiting for him. She sat at the window, looking out at the gardens of the villas in the Sofialaan. He murmured heartily, though his salutation was indistinct: "Well, Ottilie?... It's blowing out of doors.... Yes, you've been coughing a bit lately.... You must take care of yourself, you know.... I'm all right, I'm all right, as you see...." With a few more words of genial heartiness, he sat down straight upright in the arm-chair at the other window, while Anna now for the first time relieved him of his hat, and rested his hands, still clad in the wide, creased gloves of glacé kid, on his stick. "I haven't seen you since the great news," said Mrs. Dercksz. "The children are coming presently to pay their visit of inspection...." They were both silent, their eyes looking into each other's eyes, chary of words. And quietly for a while they sat opposite each other, each at a window of the narrow drawing-room. The old, old woman sat in a twilight of crimson-rep curtains and cream-coloured lace-and-canvas blinds, in addition to a crimson-plush valance, which kept out the draught and hung with a bend along the window-frame. She had only moved just to raise her thin hand, in its black mitten, for Takma to press. Now they both sat as though waiting for something and yet pleased to be waiting together.... The old lady was ninety-seven and she knew that what she was waiting for must come before her hundredth year had dawned.... In the twilight of that curtained corner, against the sombre wall-paper, her face seemed almost like a piece of white porcelain, with wrinkles for the crackle, in that shadow into which she still withdrew, continuing a former prudent habit of not showing too much of her impaired complexion; and her wig was glossy-black, surmounted with the little black-lace cap; the loose black dress fell in easy, thin lines around her almost brittle, lean figure, but hid her so entirely in those never-varying folds of supple cashmere that she could never be really seen or known, but only suggested in that dark drapery. Besides the face, nothing else seemed alive but the frail fingers trembling in her lap, like so many tapering, luminous wands in their black mittens; the wrists were encircled in close-fitting woollen cuffs. She sat upright on her high-backed chair, as on a throne, supported by a stiff, hard cushion; another cushion was under her feet, which she never showed, as they were slightly deformed by gout. Beside her, on a little table, was some crochet-work, untouched for years, and the newspapers, which were read to her by a companion, an elderly lady who withdrew as soon as Mr. Takma arrived. The room was neat and simple, with a few framed photographs here and there as the only ornament amid the highly-polished, black, shiny furniture, the crimson sofa and chairs, with a few pieces of china gleaming in a glass cabinet. The closed folding-doors led to the bedroom: these were the only two rooms inhabited by the old woman, who took her light meal in her chair. Golden-sunny was the late summer day; and the wind blew gaily, in a whirl of early yellow leaves, through the garden of the Sofialaan. "A nice view, that," said Mrs. Dercksz, as she had said so often before, with her mittened hand just hinting at an angular pointing gesture. The voice, long cracked, sounded softer than pure Dutch and was mellower, with its creole accent; and, now that she looked out of the window, the eyes also took on an eastern softness in the porcelain features and became darker. She did not clearly distinguish things outside; but yet the knowledge that there were flowers and trees over the way was dear to her dim eyes. "Fine asters in the garden opposite," said Takma. "Yes," Mrs. Dercksz assented, unable to see them, but now knowing about the asters. She understood him quite well; her general deafness she concealed by never asking what was said and by replying with a smile of her thin, closed lips or a movement of her head. After a pause, as each sat looking out of his own window, she said: "I saw Ottilie yesterday." The old gentleman felt bewildered for a moment: "Ottilie?" he asked. "Lietje ... my daughter...." "Oh, yes!... You saw Lietje yesterday.... I thought you were speaking of yourself." "She was crying." "Why?" "Because Lot is going to be married." "She'll be very lonely, poor Lietje; yet Steyn is a decent fellow.... It's a pity.... I like Steyn...." "We are all of us lonely," said Mrs. Dercksz; and the cracked voice sounded sad, as though she were regretting a past full of vanished shades. "Not all of us, Ottilie," said Takma. "You and I have each other. We have always had each other.... Our child, when Lot is married, will have no one, not even her own husband." "Ssh!" said the old woman; and the straight, lean figure gave a shiver of terror in the twilight. "There's no one here; we can speak at our ease." "No, there's no one...." "Did you think there was some one?" "No, not now.... Sometimes ..." "Yes?" "Sometimes ... you know ... I think there is." "There's no one." "No, there's no one." "Why are you afraid?" "Afraid? Am I afraid? What should I be afraid of? I am too old ... much too old ... to be afraid now.... Even though he may stand over there." "Ottilie!" "Ssh!" "There's no one." "No." "Have you ... have you seen him lately?" "No.... No.... Not for months, perhaps not ... for years, for years.... But I did see him for many, many years.... You never saw him?" "No." "But ... you used to hear him?..." "Yes, I ... I used to hear him.... My hearing was very good and always keen.... It was hallucinations.... I often heard his voice.... Don't let us talk about it.... We are both so old, so old, Ottilie.... He must have forgiven us by now. Else we should never have grown so old. Our life has passed peacefully for years: long, long, old years; nothing has ever disturbed us: he must have forgiven us.... Now we are both standing on the brink of our graves." "Yes, it will soon come. I feel it." But Takma brought his geniality into play: "You, Ottilie? You'll live to be a hundred!" His voice made an effort at bluff braggadocio and then broke into a shrill high note. "I shall never see a hundred," said the old woman. "No. I shall die this winter." "This winter?" "Yes. I foresee it. I am waiting. But I am frightened." "Of death?" "Not of death. But ... of him! " "Do you believe ... that you will see him again?" "Yes. I believe in God, in the communion of souls. In a life hereafter. In atonement." "I don't believe in an atonement hereafter, because we have both of us suffered so much in our lives, Ottilie!" The old man's tone was almost one of entreaty. "But there has been no punishment," said she. "Our suffering was a punishment." "Not enough. I believe that, when I am dead, he, he will accuse me." "Ottilie, we have become so old, quietly, quietly. We have only had to suffer inwardly. But that has been enough, God will consider that punishment enough. Don't be afraid of death." "I should not be afraid if I had seen his face wearing a gentler expression, with something of forgiveness. He always stared at me.... Oh, those eyes!..." "Hush, Ottilie!..." "When I sat here, he would stand there, in the corner by the cabinet, and look at me. When I was in bed, he appeared in my mirror and gazed at me. For years and years.... Perhaps it was an hallucination.... But I grew old like that. I have no tears left. I no longer wring my hands. I never move except between this chair and my bed. I have had no uneasiness ... or terror ... for years: nobody knows . Of the baboe [1] ..." "Ma-Boeten?" "Yes ... I have had no news for years. She was the only one who knew. She's dead, I expect." "Roelofsz knows," said the old gentleman, very softly. "Yes ... he knows ... but ..." "Oh, he has always kept silent!..." "He is ... almost ... an accomplice...." "Ottilie, you must think about it calmly.... We have grown so very old.... You must think about it calmly, as I think about it.... You have always been too fanciful ..." His voice sounded in entreaty, very different from its usual airy geniality. "It was after that in particular that I became full of fancies. No, I have never been able to think about it calmly! At first I was afraid of people, then of myself: I thought I should go mad!... Now, now that it is approaching ... I am afraid of God!" "Ottilie!" "It has been a long, long, long martyrdom.... O God, can it be that this life is not enough?" "Ottilie, we should not have grown so very old—you ... and I ... and Roelofsz—if God ... and he also had not forgiven us." "Then why did he so often ... come and stand there! Oh, he stood there so often! He just stared, pale, with dark, sunken eyes, eyes like two fiery daggers: like that!... " And she pointed the two slender, wand-like fore-fingers straight in front of her. "I ... I am calm, Ottilie. And, if we are punished afterwards, after our death, we must endure it. And, if we endure it ... we shall receive mercy." "I wish I were a Catholic. I thought for a long time of becoming a Catholic. Thérèse was quite right to become a Catholic.... Oh, why do I never see her now? Shall I ever see her again? I hope so. I hope so.... If I had been a Catholic, I should have confessed ..." "There is no absolution among Catholics for that ." "Isn't there? I thought ... I thought that a priest could forgive anything ... and cleanse the soul before you died. The priest at any rate could have consoled me, could have given me hope! Our religion is so cold. I have never been able to speak of it to a clergyman...." "No, no, of course not!" "I could have spoken of it to a priest. He would have made me do penance all my life long; and it would have relieved me. Now, that is always here, on my breast. And I am so old. I sit with it. I lie in bed with it. I cannot even walk about with it, roam about with it, forget myself in movement...." "Ottilie, why are you talking about it so much to-day? Sometimes we do not mention it for months, for years at a time. Then the months and years pass quietly.... Why are you suddenly talking so very much about it to-day?" "I began thinking, because Lot and Elly are getting married." "They will be happy." "But isn't it a crime, a crime against nature?" "No, Ottilie, do reflect ..." "They are ..." "They are cousins. They don't know it, but that isn't a crime against nature!" "True." "They are cousins." "Yes, they're cousins." "Ottilie is my daughter; her son is my grandson. Elly's father ..." "Well?" "Do reflect, Ottilie: Elly's father, my son, was Lietje's brother. Their children are first cousins." "Yes." "That's all they are." "But they don't know that they are cousins. Lietje has never been told that she is your daughter. She has never been told that she was your son's sister." "What difference does that make? Cousins are free to marry." "Yes, but it's not advisable.... It's not advisable because of the children that may come, because of the blood and because ... because of everything." "Of what, Ottilie?" "They inherit our past. They inherit that terror. They inherit our sin. They inherit the punishment for our offence." "You exaggerate, Ottilie. No, they don't inherit as much as that." "They inherit everything. One day perhaps they will see him standing, perhaps they will hear him, in the new houses where they will live.... It would have been better if Elly and Lot had found their happiness apart from each other ... in other blood, in other souls.... They will never be able to find the ordinary happiness. Who knows, perhaps their children will be ..." "Hush, Ottilie, hush!" "Criminals...." "Ottilie, please be quiet! Oh, be quiet! Why do you speak like that? For years, it has been so peaceful. You see, Ottilie, we are too old. We have been allowed to grow so old. We have had our punishment. Oh, don't let us speak about it again, never again! Let us wait calmly, calmly, and suffer the things that come after us, for we cannot alter them." "Yes, let us wait calmly." "Let us wait. It will come soon. It will come soon, for you and me." His voice had sounded imploringly; his eyes shone wet with terror. She sat stiff and upright in her chair; her fingers trembled violently in the deep, black folds of her lap. But a lethargy descended upon both of them; the strange lucidity and the anxious tension of their unaccustomed words seemed but for a moment to be able to galvanize their old souls, as though by a suggestion from without. Now they both grew lethargic and became very old indeed. For a long time they stared, each at his window, without words. Then there was a ring at the front-door. [1] Malay: nurse, ayah . CHAPTER IV It was Anton Dercksz, the old lady's eldest son by her second marriage; by her first she had only an unmarried daughter, Stefanie de Laders. Anton also had never married; he had made his career in Java; he was an ex-resident. He was seventy-five, taciturn, gloomy and self-centred, owing to his long, lonely life, full of lonely thoughts about himself, the heady thoughts of a sensualist who, in his old age, had lapsed into a sensualist in imagination.... It had been his nature, first instinctively, then in a more studied fashion, to hide himself, not to give himself; not to give of himself even that which would have won him the praise and esteem of his fellow-men. Endowed with intelligence above the ordinary, a student, a man of learning, he had fostered that intelligence only for himself and had never been more than an average official. His self-centred, gloomy soul had demanded and still demanded solitary enjoyments, even as his powerful body had craved for obscure pleasures. He entered in his overcoat, which he kept closely wrapped about him, feeling chilly, though it was still a sunny September and autumn had hardly given its first shiver. He came to see his mother once a week, from an old habit of respect and awe. Her children—elderly men and women, all of them—all called regularly, but first asked Anna, the maid, with the cat always among her skirts, who was upstairs with Mamma. If some member of the family were there already, they did not go up at once, anxious on no account to tire her with too great a gathering and too many voices. Then Anna would receive them in the downstairs morning-room, where she kept up a fire in the winter, and often the old servant would offer the visitor a brandy-cherry. If old Mr. Takma had only just arrived, Anna did not fail to say so; and the children or grandchildren would wait downstairs for a quarter of an hour and longer, because they knew that Mamma, that Grandmamma liked to be alone for a while with Takma, her old friend. If Takma had been there some time, Anna would reckon out whether she could let them go upstairs at once.... The companion was not there in the afternoons, except when mevrouw sent for her, as sometimes happened when the weather was bad and nobody called. Anton Dercksz entered, hesitating because of Takma, uncertain whether he was intruding. The old woman's children, however much advanced in years, continued to behave as children to the once stern and severe mother, whom they still saw in the authority of her motherhood. And Anton in particular always saw her like that, seated in that chair which was as an unyielding throne, strange in that very last and fragile life hanging from a brittle, invisible thread, which, in snapping, would have broken life's last string. At the window, because of a lingering ray of sunshine outside, the mother sat in a crimson twilight of curtains and valance, sat as if she would never move again until the moment came for the dark portals to open. For the "children" did not see her move, save with the single, angular gesture sometimes suggested by once active, but now gouty, slender, wand-like fingers. Anton Dercksz knew that—if the portals had not opened that day—his mother would move, round about eight o'clock, to be taken to bed by Anna and the companion. But he never saw this: what he saw was the well-nigh complete immobility of the brittle figure in the chair that was almost a throne, amid a twilight just touched with pink. Old man as he himself was, he was impressed by this. His mother sat there so strangely, so unreally: she sat waiting, waiting. Her eyes, already glazed, stared before her, sometimes as though she were afraid of something.... The lonely man had developed within himself an acute gift of observation, a quick talent for drawing inferences, which he never allowed any one to perceive. For years he had held the theory that his mother was always thinking of something, always thinking of something , an invariable something. What could it be?... Perhaps he was mistaken, perhaps he looked too far, perhaps his mother's expression was but the staring of almost sightless eyes. Or was she thinking of hidden things in her life, things sunk in her life as in a deep, deep pool? Had she her secrets, as he had his, the secrets of his sullen hedonism? He was not inquisitive: everybody had his secrets; perhaps Mother had hers. He would never strive to find out. People had always said that Takma and Mother had been lovers: she no doubt thought of those old things ... or was she not thinking, was she merely waiting and staring out of her window?... However this might be, his awe remained unchanged. "It is lovely weather, for September," he said, after the usual greetings. He was a big man, broad in his overcoat, with a massive florid face, in which deep folds hung beside the big nose and made dewlaps under the cheeks; the grey-yellow moustache bristled above a sensual mouth with thick, purple lips, which parted over the yellow teeth, crumbling, but still firm in their gums; the thick beard, however recently shaved, still left a black stubble on the cheeks; and a deep scar cleft the twice deeply-wrinkled forehead, which rose towards a thinning tuft of yellow-grey hair, with the head bald at the back of it. The skin of his neck was rough, above the low, stand-up collar, and grooved, though not quite so deeply, like that of an old labourer, with deep-ploughed furrows. His coarse-fisted hands lay like clods on his thick knees; and a watch-chain, with big trinkets, hung slackly over his great stomach, which had forced open a button of his worn and shiny waistcoat. His feet rested firmly on the carpet in their Wellington boots, whose tops showed round under the trouser-legs. This outward appearance betrayed only a rough, sensual, elderly man: it showed him neither in his intellect nor, above all, in his power of imagination. The great dream-actor that he was remained hidden from whoever saw him no otherwise than thus. Takma, so many years older, with his habit of gaiety and his sometimes shrill heartiness, which gave a birdlike sound to his old voice and a factitious glitter to his false teeth, Takma, in his short, loose jacket, had something delicate beside Anton Dercksz, something younger and more restless, together with a certain kindly, gentle, benevolent comprehension, as if he, the very old man, understood the whole life of the younger one. But this was just what always infuriated Anton with Takma, because he, Anton Dercksz, saw through it. It concealed something: Takma hid a secret, though he hid it in a different way from Anton Dercksz'. He hid a secret: when he started, with that jerk of his head, he was afraid that he had been seen through.... Well, Anton was not inquisitive. But this very old man, this former lover of his mother, of the woman who still filled Anton with awe when he saw her sitting erect, waiting, in her chair by the window: this old man annoyed him, irritated him, had always roused his dislike. He had never allowed it to show and Takma had never perceived it. The three old people sat without exchanging many words, in the narrow drawing-room. The old woman had now calmly mastered herself, because her son, her "child," was sitting there and she had always remained calm before the splenetic glance of his slightly prominent eyes. Straight up she sat, as though enthroned, as though she were a sovereign by reason of her age and her authority, dignified and blameless, but so frail and fragile, as though the aura of death would presently blow away her soul. Her few words sounded a note of appreciation that her son had come to see her, asking, as was his filial duty, once a week, after her health. She was pleased at this; and it was not difficult for her to calm herself, suddenly put in a placid mood by that feeling of satisfaction, even though but now, as in a suggestion from without, she had been obliged to speak of former things which she had seen pass before her eyes. And, when the bell rang again, she said: "That's the children, I expect...." They all three listened, in silence. Sharp-eared old Takma heard some one speaking to Anna in the hall: "They're asking if it won't be too much for you," said Takma. "Anton, call down the stairs to have them shown up," said the old lady; and her voice rang like a maternal command. Anton Dercksz rose, went to the door and called out: "You can come up. Grandmamma's expecting you." Lot and Elly came in and their entrance was as though they feared to dispel the atmosphere around the old woman with the too-great youthfulness approaching her. But the old woman made an angular movement of her arms, which lifted themselves in the black folds of the wide sleeves; and a hint of the gesture was given, gouty-stiff, in the crimson shade of the curtains, while she said: "So you're going to get married; that's right." The gesture brought the mittened hands to the level of Lot's head, which she held for a moment and kissed with a trembling mouth; she kissed Elly too; and the girl said, prettily: "Grandmamma...." "I am glad to see you both. Mamma has already told me the great news. Be happy, children, happy ...." The words sounded like a short speech from out of the twilight of the throne-like chair, but they trembled, breaking with emotion: "Be happy, children, happy ," Mamma had said. And Anton Dercksz seemed to see that his mother was thinking that there had not been many happy marriages in the family. He was conscious of the underlying thought in her words and was glad that he had never been married: it gave him a silent, pleasurable sense of satisfaction, as he looked at Lot and Elly. They were sitting there so youthful and unwrung, he thought; but he knew that this was only on the surface, that Lot, after all, was thirty-eight and that this was not Elly's first engagement. Yet how young those two lives were and how many vigorous years had they not before them! He became jealous at the thought and envious; and his eyes grew sullen when he reflected that vigorous years were no longer his. And, with the sly glance of a man secretly enjoying the sensual pleasures of the imagination, he asked himself whether Lot was really a fellow who ought to think of marrying. Lot was delicately built, was hardly a man of flesh and blood, was like his mother in appearance, with his pink face and his fair plastered hair, his short fair moustache above his cynical upper lip, and very spruce in his smooth-fitting jacket and the neat little butterfly tie beneath his double collar. And yet no fool, thought Anton Dercksz: his articles written from Italy, on Renascence subjects, were very good and Anton had read them with pleasure, without ever complimenting Lot upon them; and his two novels were excellent: one about the Hague, one about Java, with a keen insight into Dutch-Indian society. There was a great deal in the lad, more than one would think, for he looked not a man of flesh and blood, but a fair-haired, finikin doll, a fashion-plate. Elly was not pretty, had a pale but sensible little face: he did not believe that she was a woman of warm passion, or, if she was, it would not reveal itself till later. He did not expect that they would kiss each other very rapturously; and yet that was the most genuine consolation in this confounded life of ours, always had been so to him. Everything grew confused before his jaundiced eyes, in a regret for things that were lost; but nevertheless he listened to the conversation, which was carried on calmly and quietly, in order not to tire Grandmamma: when Lot and Elly meant to get married, where they would go for the honeymoon. "We shall be married in three months," said Lot. "There's nothing to wait for. We shall go to Paris and on to Italy. I know Italy well and can show Elly about...." Anton Dercksz rose and took his leave; and, when he went downstairs, he found his sister, Ottilie Steyn de Weert, and Roelofsz, the old doctor, in the morning-room: "The children are upstairs," he said. "Yes, I know," said Ottilie. "That's why I'm waiting; it would be too much for Mamma otherwise ..." "Well-well-well," muttered the old doctor. He sat huddled in a chair, a shapeless mass of dropsical obesity: his one stiff leg was stuck out straight in front of him and his paunch hung sideways over it in curving lines; his face, clean-shaven but bunched into wrinkles, was like the face of a very old monk; his thin grey hair looked as if it were moth-eaten and hung in frayed wisps from his skull, which was shaped like a globe, with a vein at one temple meandering in high relief; he lisped and muttered exclamation upon exclamation; his watery eyes swam behind gold spectacles. "Well-well-well, Ottilie, so your Lot is getting married at last!..." He was eighty-eight, the doctor, the last surviving contemporary of Grandmamma and Mr. Takma; he had brought Ottilie Steyn into the world, in Java, at a time when he was a young doctor, not long since arrived from Holland; and he called her either by her Christian name or "child." "At last?" cried Ottilie, in a vexed tone. "It's early enough for me! " "Yes-yes-yes, yes-yes, child; you'll miss him, you'll miss your boy, I daresay.... Still, they'll make a nice couple, he and Elly, well-well, yes-yes-yes, working together, artistic, yes, well.... That good old Anna hasn't started her fires yet! This room's warm, but upstairs, yes-yes, it's very chilly.... Takma's always blazing hot inside, eh-eh? Well-well! Mamma likes a cool room too; well-well, cool: cold, I call it. I consider it warmer in here: ay-ay, it is warmer down here. Well-well!... Mamma wasn't so well, child, yesterday...." "Come, doctor," said Anton Dercksz, "you'll make Mamma see a hundred yet!" And he buttoned up his coat and went away, satisfied at having performed his filial duty for that week. "Oh-oh-oh!" cried the doctor; but Anton was gone. "A hundred! A hundred! Oh-dear-no, oh-dear-no, tut-tut! No, I can do nothing, I can do nothing. I'm old myself, yes-yes, I'm old: eightee-eight years old, eightee-eight, Lietje!... Yes-yes, that counts, yes-yes.... No, I can do nothing more, what do you say? And it's a good thing that Mamma's got Dr. Thielens: he's young, ay-ay, he's young.... Here come the children! Well-well!" the doctor continued, by way of greeting. "Best congratulations, ay-ay, very nice! Art, eh, art for art's sake?... Is Granny better to-day? Then I'll just go upstairs, yes-yes, well-well!..." "Where are you going now, children?" asked Mamma Ottilie. "To Aunt Stefanie's," said Elly. "And perhaps to Uncle Harold's afterwards." Anna let them out; and Ottilie, going upstairs behind Dr. Roelofsz, who hoisted himself up one step after the other, tried to understand what he was muttering, but understood nothing. He kept talking to himself: "Yes-yes, that Anton, all-very-well, make her see a hundred! A hundred! Well, he'll see a hundred all right, ay-ay, yes-yes, though he has been such a beast!... Yes-yes, yes-yes, a beast: don't I know him? Tut-tut! A beast, that's what he's been!... Yes-yes, perhaps he's still at it!" "What do you say, doctor?" "Nothing, child, nothing.... Make her see a hundred! I, I , who am old myself; eightee-eight ... eightee-eight!..." Puffing with the effort of climbing the stairs, he entered and greeted the two old people, his contemporaries, who nodded to him, each at a window: "Well-well, yes-yes, how-do, Ottilie? How-do, Takma?... Well-well, yes-yes.... Well, I don't call it warm in here!..." "Come," said Takma, "it's only September...." "Yes, you're always blazing hot inside!..." Ottilie walked behind him, like a little child, and kissed her mother, very gently and carefully; and, when she went up to Takma afterwards, he pulled her hand, so that she might give him a kiss too. CHAPTER V Papa Dercksz had not left much behind him, but Stefanie de Laders, the only child of the first marriage, was a rich woman; and the reason why old Mamma had only a little left of her first husband's fortune was because she had never practised economy. Stefanie, however, had saved and put by, never knowing why, from an inherited proclivity for adding money to money. She lived in a small house in the Javastraat and was known in philanthropic circles, devoting herself prudently and thriftily to good works. Lot and Elly found Aunt at home: she rose from her chair, amidst a twittering of little birds in little cages, and she herself had something of a larger-sized little old bird: short, lean, shrivelled, tripping with little bird-like steps, restless, in spite of her years, with her narrow little shoulders and her bony hands, she was a very ugly little old woman, a little witch. Never having been married, devoid of passions, devoid of the vital flame, she had grown old unscathed in her little egoisms, with only one great fear, which had clung to her all her life: the fear of encountering Hell's terrors after her death, which, after all, was drawing nearer. And so she was very religious, convinced that Calvin knew all about it, for everybody and for all subsequent ages; and, trusting blindly in her faith, she read anything of this tendency on which she could lay hands, from paper-covered tracts to theological works, though she did not understand the latter, while the former left her full of shuddering. "Quite a surprise, children!" Aunt Stefanie de Laders screamed, as though Lot and Elly were deaf. "And when are you getting married?" "In three months, Aunt." "In church?" "I don't think so, Aunt," said Lot. "I thought as much!" "Then you made a good guess." "But it's not the thing. Don't you want to get married in church either, Elly?" "No, Aunt, I agree with Lot.... May I say Aunt?" "Yes, certainly, child, say Aunt. No, it's not the thing. But you get that from the Derckszes: they never thought of what might be in store for them hereafter...." The birds twittered and Aunt's high-pitched voice sounded aggressive. "If Grandpapa could be at the wedding, I should do it perhaps, for his sake," said Elly. "But he's too old to come. Mamma Steyn doesn't make a point of it either." "No, of course not!" screamed Aunt Stefanie. "You see, Aunt, you're the only one in the family who does ," said Lot. He did not see Aunt Stefanie often; but, when he saw her, it amused him to draw her out. "And there's no need to do it for my sake," said Aunt, self-righteously; and she thought to herself, "They sha'n't come in for a cent, if they don't get married in church and do the proper thing. I had intended to leave them something: now I shall leave everything to Harold's grandchildren. They at least behave properly...." But, when Elly made as though to rise, Aunt, who was flattered at having visitors, said: "Well, stay a bit longer, come, Elly! I don't see Lot so often; and he's his aunt's own nephew after all.... It's not the thing, my boy.... You know, I just speak out. I've done so from a child. I'm the eldest: with a family like ours, which has not always behaved properly, I have always had to speak out.... I've shown a great deal of tact, however. But for me, Uncle Anton would have been quite lost, though even now he isn't always proper. But leave him to his fate I will not . Uncle Daniel and especially Uncle Harold, with their children: how often haven't they needed me!..." "Aunt, you have always been invaluable," said Lot. "But you were not able to do much for Aunt Thérèse: she turned Catholic; and that wasn't due to your influence, surely!" "Thérèse is lost!" cried Aunt Stefanie, violently. "I've long since given up having anything to do with Thérèse.... But any one for whom I can do anything ... I sacrifice myself for. For Uncle Harold I do what I can, also for his children; to Ina I am a second mother, also to D'Herbourg: now there's a proper man for you; and Leo and Gus are good and proper boys...." "Not forgetting Lily," said Lot, "who didn't hesitate to call her first-born son after you, though I think Stefanus a queer sort of name!" "No, you'll never call your children after me," screamed Aunt, in between the birds, "not though you get a dozen girls! What do you want me to say, my boy? Uncle Harold's family has always shown me more affection than your mother's family has; I got most perhaps from the Trevelley children! And yet God alone knows what your mother owes to me: but for me, Lot, she would have been lost! I'm not saying it to be unpleasant, my boy; but she would have been lost, Lot, but for me! Yes, you can feel grateful to me! You can see for yourself, your dear Mamma, twice divorced, from her first two husbands: no, Lot, that was anything but proper." "My dear Aunt, Mamma has always been the black sheep of our virtuous family." "No, no, no!" said Aunt Stefanie, shaking her restless little bird-like head; and the birds around her agreed with her and twittered their assent. "The family's not so virtuous as that. Generally speaking, it has never been proper! I won't say a word against my mother, but this much is certain: she lost my father too early. You can't compare Papa Dercksz with him ." "Of course, there's no comparing a Dercksz with a De Laders," said Lot. "You're being sarcastic!" said Aunt; and the birds twittered their indignation in sympathy. "But there's many a true word spoken in jest. I'm not saying it because of your mother, who's a dear child, whom I'm fond of, but all the other Derckszes, with the exception of Uncle Harold, are ..." "Are what, Aunt Stefanie?" "Are a sinful, hysterical crew!" cried Aunt Stefanie, aggressively. "Uncle Anton, Uncle Daan, Aunt Thérèse and, my boy—though she's not a Dercksz, it's in her blood—your sister Ottilie as well! They're a sinful, hysterical, crew!" And she thought, "Your mother's one of them too, my boy, though I'm not saying so." "Then I'm once more glad," said Lot, "that my Dercksz hysteria is steadied by a certain Pauws calmness and sedateness." And he thought, "Aunt's quite right, but it all comes from her own mother ... only it happened to pass over Aunt Stefanie." But Aunt went on, seconded by the birds: "I'm not saying it to say anything unpleasant about the family, my boy. I daresay I'm hard, but I speak out properly. Who speaks out properly in our family?" "You do, Aunt, you do!" "Yes, I do, I, I, I!" cried Aunt; and all the birds in all the cages twittered their agreement. "Don't go away just yet, stay a little longer, Elly. I think it's so nice of you to have come. Elly, just ring the bell, will you? Then Klaartje will bring a brandy-cherry: I make them after the recipe of Grandmamma's Anna; and she makes them properly." "Aunt, we must really be getting on." "Come, just one cherry!" Aunt insisted; and the birds joined in the invitation. "Otherwise Aunt will think that you're angry with her for speaking out...." The brandy-cherries were tasted; and this put Aunt in a good humour, even when Lot exclaimed, through the twittering of the birds: "Aunt ... have you never been hysterical?" "I? Hysterical? No! Sinful, yes: I am sinful still, as we all are! But hysterical, thank God, I have never been! Hysterical, like Uncle Anton, Aunt Thérèse and ... your sister Ottilie, I have never been, never!" The birds could not but confirm this. "But you've been in love, Aunt! I hope you'll tell me the story of your romance one day; then I'll make it into a very fine book." "You've put too much about the family into your sinful books, as it is, for Aunt ever to tell you that, though she had been in love ten times over. For shame, boy! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Write a moral book that's a comfort to read, but don't go digging up sinfulness for the sake of describing it, however fine the words you choose may be." "So at any rate you think my words fine?" "I think nothing fine that you write, it's accursed books that you write!... Are you really going now, Elly? Not because I don't admire Lot's books, I hope? No? Then just one more cherry. You should get the recipe from Anna, at Grandmamma's. Well, good-bye, children; and think over what sort of present you'd like from Aunt. You can choose your own, child, you can choose your own. Aunt'll give a present that's the proper thing." The birds agreed and, as Lot and Elly took their leave, twittered them lustily out of the room. CHAPTER VI "Oof!" said Lot, outside, putting two fingers in his ears, which had been deafened by the birds. "No more uncles and cousins for the present, Elly: I'm not going to Uncle Harold and the D'Herbourgs after this! A grandmamma, a future grandpapa, an uncle, an aunt and a very old family-doctor: that's enough antediluvianism for one day! I can't do with any more old people to-day, not even Uncle Harold, who is far from being the most repellent. So many old people, all in one day: it's too oppressive, it's stifling!... Let's walk a bit, if you're not tired. It's fine, the wind'll refresh us, it won't rain.... Come into the dunes with me. Here's the steam-tram coming: we'll take it as far as the Witte Brug [1] and then go into the dunes. Come along!" They went by tram to the Witte Brug and were soon in the dunes, where they went and sat in the sand, with a strong sea-breeze blowing over their heads. "I hope I shall never grow old," said Lot. "Elly, don't you think it terrible to grow old, older every day?..." "Your pet aversion, Lot?" asked Elly. She smiled. He looked at her seriously, almost pale in the face, but, because he saw her smiling, he managed to speak lightly: "Worse than that. It's my nightmare. To see more and more wrinkles every day in your skin, more streaks of grey in your hair; to feel your memory going; to feel the edge of your emotions growing blunt; to feel an extra crease in your stomach which spoils the fit of your waistcoat; to feel your powers waning and your back bending under all the weight of the past which you drag along with you ... without being able to do a thing to prevent it!... When your suit gets old, you buy a new one: I'm speaking from the capitalist's point of view. But your body and soul you get once for all and you have to take them with you to the grave. If you economize with either of them, then you haven't lived, whereas, if you squander them, you have to pay for it.... And then that past, which you tow and trail along! Every day adds its inexorable quota. We are just mules, dragging along till we can go no farther and till we drop dead with the effort.... Oh, Elly, it's terrible! Think of those old people of to-day! Think of Grandpapa Takma and Grandmamma! I look upon them as something to shudder at.... There they sit, nearly every day, ninety-three and ninety-seven, each looking out of a window. What do they talk about? Not much, I expect: their little ailments, the weather; people as old as that don't talk, they are numbed. They don't remember things. Their past is heavy with years and crushes them, gives them only a semblance of life, of the aftermath of life: they've had their life.... Was it interesting or not? You know, I think it must have been interesting for those old people, else they wouldn't trouble to meet now. They must have lived through a good deal together."

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