De stille kracht. English

by Louis Couperus

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Addie was sitting with Mrs. van Does, in the little back-verandah,when they heard a carriage rattle up in front of the house. Theysmiled at each other and rose from their seats:

  "I shall leave you to yourselves," said Mrs. van Does.

  And she disappeared, to drive round the town in a dog-cart and dobusiness among her friends.

  Leonie entered:

  "Where is Mrs. van Does?" she asked, for she always behaved as thoughit were the first time.

  It was her great charm. He knew this and answered:

  "She has just gone out. She will be sorry to have missed you."

  He spoke like this because he knew that she liked it: the ceremonialopening each time, to preserve above all things the freshness oftheir liaison.

  They now sat down in the little, shut-in middle gallery, side by sideon a settee.

  The settee was covered with a cretonne displaying many-colouredflowers; on the white walls were a few cheap fans and kakemonos; andon either side of a little looking-glass stood a console-table with animitation bronze statue, two nondescript knights, each with one legadvanced and a spear in his hand. Through the glass door the mustylittle back-verandah showed, with its damp, yellow-green pillars,its flower-pots, also yellow-green, with a few withered rose-trees;and behind this was the damp, neglected little garden, with a coupleof lean coco-palms, hanging their leaves like broken feathers.

  He now took her in his arms and drew her to him, but she pushed himaway gently:

  "Doddie is becoming unbearable," she said. "Something must be done."

  "How so?"

  "She must leave the house. She is so irritable that there's no livingwith her."

  "You tease her, you know."

  She shrugged her shoulders; she had been put out by a recent scenewith her step-daughter:

  "I never used to tease her. She was fond of me and we got on all righttogether. Now she flies out at the least thing. It's your fault. Thoseeverlasting evening walks, which lead to nothing, upset her nerves."

  "Perhaps it's just as well that they lead to nothing," he murmured,with his little laugh, the laugh of the tempter. "But I can't breakwith her, you know: it would make her unhappy. And I can't bear tomake a woman unhappy."

  She laughed scornfully:

  "Yes, you're so good-natured. From sheer good-nature you would scatteryour favours broadcast. Anyway, she'll have to go."

  "Go? Where to?"

  "Don't ask such silly questions!" she exclaimed, angrily, roused outof her usual indifference. "She'll have to go, somewhere or other,I don't care where. You know, when I say a thing, it's done. And thisis going to be done."

  He was now clasping her in his arms:

  "You're so angry. You're not a bit pretty like that."

  In her temper, she at first refused to let him kiss her: but, as he didnot like these tempers and was well aware of the irresistible powerof his comely, Moorish virility, he mastered her with rough, smilingviolence and held her so tight to him that she was unable to stir:

  "You mustn't be angry any longer."

  "Yes, I will. I hate Doddie."

  "The poor girl has done you no harm."

  "Possibly."

  "On the contrary, it's you who tease her."

  "Yes, because I hate her."

  "Why? Surely you're not jealous!"

  She laughed aloud:

  "No! That's not one of my failings."

  "Then why?"

  "What does it matter to you? I myself don't know. I hate her. I lovetormenting her."

  "Are you as wicked as you are beautiful?"

  "What does wicked mean? I don't know or care! I should like to tormentyou too, if I only knew how."

  "And I should like to give you a good smacking."

  She again gave a shrill laugh:

  "Perhaps it would do me good," she admitted. "I seldom lose my temper,but Doddie...!"

  She contracted her fingers and, suddenly calming down, nestled againsthim and locked her arms about his body:

  "I used to be very indifferent," she confessed. "Latterly I havebeen much more easily upset, after I had that fright in the bathroom... after they spat at me so, with betel-juice. Do you believe it wasghosts? I don't. It was some practical joke of the regent's. Thosebeastly Javanese know all sorts of things.... But, since then, I have,so to speak, lost my bearings. Do you understand that expression?... Itused to be delightful: I would let everything run off me like wateroff a duck's back. But, after being so ill, I seem to have changed,to be more nervous. Theo one day, when he was angry with me, saidthat I've been hysterical since then ... and I never used to be. Idon't know: perhaps he's right. But I'm certainly changed.... Idon't care so much what people think or say; I think I'm growingquite shameless.... They're gossiping too more spitefully than theyused to.... Van Oudijck irritates me, prying about as he does. He'sbeginning to notice something.... And Doddie! Doddie!... I'm notjealous, but I can't stand her evening walks with you.... Youmust give it up, do you hear, walking with her! I won't have it,I won't have it!... And then everything bores me in this place, atLabuwangi. What a wretched, monotonous life!... Surabaya's a boretoo.... So's Batavia.... It's all so dull and stodgy: people neverthink of anything new.... I should like to go to Paris. I believe Ihave it in me to enjoy Paris thoroughly...."

  "Do I bore you too?"

  "You?"

  She stroked his face with her two hands and passed them over hischest and down his thighs:

  "I'll tell you what I think of you. You're a pretty boy, but you're toogood-natured. That irritates me too. You kiss everybody who wants youto kiss them. At Patjaram, you are always pawing everybody, includingyour old mother and your sisters. I think it's horrid of you!"

  He laughed:

  "You're growing jealous!" he exclaimed.

  "Jealous? Am I really getting jealous? How horrid if I am! I don'tknow: I don't think I am, all the same. I don't want to be. After all,I believe there's something that will always protect me."

  "A devil...."

  "Possibly. Un bon diable."

  "Are you taking to speaking French?"

  "Yes. With a view to Paris.... There's something that protectsme. I firmly believe that life can do me no injury, that nothing cantouch me."

  "You're becoming superstitious."

  "Oh, I was always that! Perhaps I've become more so.... Tell me,have I changed, lately?"

  "You're touchier."

  "Not so indifferent as I was?"

  "You're livelier, more amusing."

  "Used I to be a bore?"

  "You were a little quiet. You were always beautiful, exquisite,divine ... but rather quiet."

  "Perhaps it was because I minded people more then."

  "Don't you now?"

  "No, not now. They gossip just the same.... But tell me; haven't Ichanged more than that?"

  "Yes, you have: you're more jealous, more superstitious, moretouchy.... What more do you want?"

  "Physically: haven't I changed physically?"

  "No."

  "Haven't I grown older?... Am I not getting wrinkled?"

  "You? Never!"

  "Listen. I believe I have still quite a future before me, somethingvery different...."

  "In Paris?"

  "Perhaps.... Tell me, am I not too old?"

  "What for?"

  "For Paris.... How old do you think I am?"

  "Twenty-five."

  "You're fibbing. You know perfectly well that I'm thirty-two. Do Ilook thirty-two?"

  "Rather not!"

  "Tell me, don't you think India a horrible country?... Have you neverbeen to Europe?"

  "No."

  "I was there from ten to fifteen.... Properly speaking, you're abrown native and I a white creole...."

  "I love my country."

  "Yes, because you think yourself a bit of a Solo prince.... That's yourPatjaram nonsense.... As for me, I hate India, I loathe Labuwangi. Iwant to get away. I want to go to Paris.... Will you com
e too?"

  "No. I should never want to go...."

  "Not even when you reflect that there are hundreds of women in Europewhom you have never loved?"

  He looked at her: something in her words, in her voice, made him glanceup; a crazy hysteria, which had never struck him in the old days, whenshe had always been the silently passionate mistress, with half-closedeyes, who always wanted to forget everything at once and to becomeconventional again. Something in her repelled him. He loved the soft,pliant surrender of her caresses, the smiling indolence which sheused to display, but not these half-mad eyes and this purple mouth,which seemed ready to bite. She seemed to feel this, for she suddenlypushed him from her and said, brusquely:

  "You bore me.... I know all there is to know in you.... Go away...."

  But this he would not do. He did not care for futile rendez-vous andhe now embraced her and solicited her....

  "No," she said, curtly. "You bore me. Every one bores mehere. Everything bores me."

  He, on his knees, put his hands about her waist and drew her tohim. She, smiling a little, became slightly more yielding, rumplinghis hair nervously with her hand. A carriage pulled up in front ofthe house.

  "Hark!" she said.

  "It's Mrs. van Does."

  "How soon she's back!"

  "I expect she's sold nothing."

  "Then it'll cost you a ten-guilder note."

  "I dare say."

  "Do you pay her much ... for allowing us to meet here?"

  "Oh, what does it matter?"

  "Listen," she said again, more attentively.

  "That's not Mrs. van Does."

  "No."

  "It's a man's footstep.... It wasn't a dog-cart either: it was muchtoo noisy."

  "I expect it's nothing," said she. "Some one who has mistaken thehouse. Nobody ever comes here."

  "The man's going round," he said, listening.

  They both listened for a moment. And then, suddenly, after two orthree strides through the cramped little garden and along the littleback-verandah, his figure, Van Oudijck's, appeared outside the closedglass door, visible through the curtain. And he had pulled it openbefore Leonie and Addie could change their position, so that VanOudijck saw them both, her sitting on the couch and him kneelingbefore her, while her hand still lay, as though forgotten, on his hair.

  "Leonie!" roared her husband.

  Her blood under the shock of the surprise broke into stormy wavesand seethed through her veins and, in one second, she saw the wholefuture: his anger, the trial, the divorce, her alimony, all in onewhirling vision. But, as though by the compulsion of her nervouswill, the tide of blood within her at once subsided and grew calm;and she remained quietly sitting there, her terror showing for buta moment longer in her eyes, until she could turn them hard as steelupon Van Oudijck. And, by pressing her finger softly on Addie's head,she suggested to him also to remain in the same attitude, to remainkneeling at her feet, and she said, as though self-hypnotized,listening in astonishment to her own slightly husky voice:

  "Otto ... Adrien de Luce is asking me to put in a word with you forhim.... He is asking ... for Doddie's hand...."

  They all three remained motionless, all three under the influence ofthese words, of this thought which had come ... whence Leonie herselfdid not know. For, sitting rigid and erect as a sibyl and still withthat gentle pressure on Addie's head, she repeated:

  "He is asking ... for Doddie's hand...."

  She was still the only one to speak. And she continued:

  "He knows that you have certain objections. He knows that you donot care for his family ... because they have Javanese blood intheir arteries."

  She was still speaking as though some one else were speaking insideher; and she had to smile at that word arteries, she did not know why:perhaps because it was the first time in her life that she had usedthe word arteries, for veins, in conversation.

  "But," she went on, "there are no financial drawbacks, if Doddie likesto live at Patjaram.... And the children have been fond of each other... so long."

  She alone was speaking still:

  "Doddie has so long been overstrung, almost ill.... It would be acrime, Otto, not to consent."

  Gradually her voice became more musical and the smile formed about herlips; but the light in her eyes was still hard as steel, as thoughshe were threatening Van Oudijck with her anger if he refused tobelieve her.

  "Come," she said, very gently, very kindly, patting Addie's headsoftly with her trembling fingers. "Get up ... Addie ... and go ... to... papa."

  He rose, mechanically.

  "Leonie, what were you doing here?" asked Van Oudijck, hoarsely.

  "Here? I was with Mrs. van Does."

  "And he?" pointing to Addie.

  "He?... He happened to be calling.... Mrs. van Does had to goout.... Then he asked leave to speak to me.... And then he asked me... for Doddie's hand...."

  They were again all three silent.

  "And you, Otto?" she now asked, more harshly. "What brought you here?"

  He looked at her sharply.

  "Is there anything you want to buy of Mrs. van Does?" she asked.

  "Theo told me you were here...."

  "Theo was right...."

  "Leonie...."

  She rose and, with her eyes hard as steel, she intimated to him thathe must believe her, that she insisted on his believing her:

  "In any case, Otto," she said; and her manner was once more gentlykind, "do not leave Addie any longer in his uncertainty. And you,Addie, don't be afraid ... and ask papa for Doddie's hand.... I havenothing to say where Doddie is concerned ... as I have often told you."

  They now all three stood facing one another, in the narrow middlegallery; breathing with difficulty, oppressed by their accumulatedemotions. Then Addie said:

  "Resident, I ask you ... for your daughter's hand."

  A dog-cart pulled up at the front of the house.

  "That's Mrs. van Does," said Leonie, hurriedly. "Otto, say somethingbefore she comes...."

  "I consent," said Van Oudijck, gloomily.

  He made off at the back before Mrs. van Does had entered anddid not see the hand which Addie held out to him. Mrs. van Doescame in trembling, following by a babu carrying her bundle, hermerchandise. She saw Leonie and Addie standing stiff and hypnotized:

  "That was the residen's chariot!" stammered the Indian lady, pale inthe face. "Was it the residen?"

  "Yes," said Leonie, calmly.

  "Oh dear! And what happened?"

  "Nothing," said Leonie, laughing.

  "Nothing?"

  "Or rather, something did happen."

  "What?"

  "Addie and Doddie are ..."

  "What?"

  "Engaged!"

  And she shrieked the words with a shrill outburst of uncontrollablemirth at the comedy of life and took Mrs. van Does, who stood withthe eyes starting out of her head, and spun her round and kickedthe bundle out of the babu's hands, so that a parcel of embroideredbedspreads and table-slips fell to the ground and a little jam-potfull of glittering crystals rolled away and broke.

  "Oh dear!... My brilliants!"

  One more kick of frolicsome wantonness; and the table-slips flew toleft and right and the diamonds lay glittering scattered among the legsof the tables and chairs. Addie, his eyes still filled with terror,crawled about on his hands and feet, raking them together.

  Mrs. van Does repeated:

  "Engaged!"