Eline Vere

by Louis Couperus

  He leant back against the Persian cushions beneath the overhanging aralia, and brushed his hand over his hair. Eline was struck by how much he resembled Henk despite being his junior by ten years: of slimmer build, of course, and much more lively, with finer features and an altogether brighter look. But the occasional gesture, such as the raising of an eyebrow, brought out the resemblance to a startling degree, and while his lips were thinner beneath his light moustache than Henk’s beneath his bushy whiskers, his laugh was much like his brother’s: deep, and warm and hearty.

  …

  ‘Why don’t you take proper painting lessons, Paul?’ asked Eline. ‘Surely, if you have talent–’

  ‘But I haven’t!’ he laughed. ‘So it wouldn’t be worth it. I just dabble, you know, whether it’s in painting or singing. None of it amounts to anything.’

  And he sighed at his own lack of energy for making the most of what little talent he might possess.

  ‘You remind me of Papa,’ she said in a wistful tone, as she evoked the poeticised image of her father. ‘He had enormous talent, but his health was poor and in the end he was too weak to undertake anything on a big scale. He had just started work on a huge canvas, a scene from Dante’s Paradiso, as I recall, and then … then he died. Poor Papa! But you, you’re young and fit; I can’t imagine why you have no ambition to do something great, something out of the common.’

  ‘You know I’m to be working at Hovel’s, don’t you? Uncle Verstraeten saw to that for me.’

  Hovel was an established lawyer, and as Paul had indeed, after alternate bouts of studiousness and sloth, graduated at a relatively early age, Uncle Verstraeten thought he would be doing the young man a good turn by commending him to his friend. So it was settled that Paul would join Hovel’s office until such time as he set up a practise of his own.

  ‘At Hovel’s? A very nice man! I like his wife very much, too. Oh, but that’ll be splendid, Paul.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘You know, if I were a man I’d make sure I became famous. Come along now, Ben, be a good boy, sit down on the floor and look at those pretty pictures. Wouldn’t you love to be famous? You see, if I weren’t Eline Vere, I’d want to be an actress!’

  And she broke into a roulade, which poured from her lips like liquid diamonds.

  ‘Famous!’ he said with a dismissive shrug. ‘Oh no, such a childish idea, wanting to be famous! It’s the last thing I’m interested in. Still, I’d like to be good at painting, or at singing, for that matter.’

  ‘So why don’t you take lessons, either in painting or in music? Shall I speak to my singing teacher?’

  ‘No thanks, not grumpy old Roberts. And besides, Eline, honestly, it wouldn’t be worth it. I’d never stay the course, whatever it was. I have these sudden moods, you know, when I feel I can do anything, and off I go looking for some great subject for a painting …’

  ‘Like Papa,’ she smiled sadly.

  ‘And then I get all excited about making the best of my voice, such as it is, but before I know it all my plans and resolutions have fizzled out like so many burnt matches.’

  ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘From now on I shall be hiding the aspirations of my genius in law cases, you’ll see,’ he said with a chuckle as he rose to his feet. ‘But now I must go to Prinsessegracht – to the Verstraetens’, as a matter of fact. So don’t expect me this afternoon. We have a good deal to do before Losch arrives. Goodbye, Eline! Bye-bye little Ben!’

  ‘Goodbye, then. I hope your throat will mend soon.’

  Paul left and Eline returned to her piano. For a while she sat thinking what a pity it was that Paul had so little energy, and from him her thoughts drifted to Henk.

  But she felt altogether too cheerful to do much philosophising, so she resumed her singing with gusto, and did not pause until the tinkle of the noon bell summoned her and Ben downstairs.

  …

  Paul had said he would not be lunching at home, as he was expected at the Verstraetens’. He lived in Laan van Meerdervoort with his mother, who was Madame Verstraeten’s elder sister and a respectable lady with pensive, pale-blue eyes, a slightly old-fashioned, silvery-grey coiffure, and a demeanour suffused with resignation and fatigue. As she was having increasing trouble walking, she was usually to be found sitting in her high-backed easy chair with her head bowed down and her blue-veined hands folded in her lap. She led a calm, monotonous life, the aftermath of a calm, contented and nigh cloudless existence at the side of her husband, whose portrait hung close by. She looked at it often: a handsome figure in general’s uniform, strong, open features set with a pair of faithful, sensible eyes and an engaging expression about the firm, closed mouth. Life had brought her few great sorrows, and for that, in the poetic simplicity of her faith, she thanked the Lord. Of late, however, she had been feeling increasingly tired, her spirit quite broken by the loss of the man for whom she had felt affection until the end, by which time her youthful, ebullient love for him had subsided into the unruffled serenity of a becalmed lake. Since his passing she had taken to fretting over a thousand trivialities, which gave rise to daily vexations with servants and tradesmen, and these sources of annoyance had come together in her mind as an intolerable burden. She was feeling her age; life had little more to offer her, and she withdrew into a quietly egotistic state of daydreaming about the lost poetry of her past.

  She had borne him three children, the youngest of whom, a girl, had died.

  Of her two sons her favourite was Henk, whose sturdy posture reminded her most of her husband. But in his good-natured disposition, too, there was more of the upright robustness of their father than in Paul’s high-strung wilfulness and constrained genius. Paul she had always found rather too unsettled and nervous; as a student in Leiden he had interrupted his law studies several times, and had only graduated after Uncle Verstraeten stepped in to apply some moral pressure. And she was no less concerned nowadays, what with his staying out late, his passions for painting, tableaux vivants and the singing of duets, not to mention his recurring bouts of idleness, during which he would lounge on the sofa all afternoon pretending to read a book.

  In the years preceding his marriage, Henk, being more staid and homely than Paul, had fitted in better with his old mother’s habits. He was not given to conversation, but she had never found fault with his taciturn habit: to her it was like being in the comforting presence of a faithful Newfoundland dog keeping a half-closed, watchful eye on its mistress. She felt so secure in dear Henk’s company. She disliked being alone, for it was then that the rose-tinted remembrances of far-off times contrasted all too painfully with the uniform greyness of the present, and of Paul she saw little more than when he was bolting down his dinner in order to keep some appointment, or lazing about the house. She seldom went out, having grown unaccustomed to the noisy traffic of the streets and the hubbub of crowds.

  Henk was her pet, and despite the worries clouding her mind she was ever alert where his welfare was concerned. She regretted her son’s marriage to Betsy Vere. She had never considered Betsy a suitable match for her boy, nor indeed had she been able to give him her wholehearted maternal blessing when he announced whom he intended to take for a wife. But she had made no attempt to dissuade her beloved son from his choice, for fear of causing him unhappiness. On the contrary, and somewhat to her own surprise, she had concealed her feeling of unease toward the intruder and had welcomed her as a daughter. All the same, she felt deeply concerned about Henk’s future. She had been acquainted with the late Madame Vere, though not closely, and had not been taken with her: she remembered her as domineering and disagreeable, and was troubled by Betsy’s resemblance to her. Although Henk was clearly possessed of much more firmness of character than Betsy’s father, whom she remembered as being deathly pale and plagued by migraines while letting his wife think and act for him, although Henk had inherited his father’s frank robustness and would not stand for any nonsense from a wife, she was
convinced he would never be as happy with Betsy as she herself had been with her husband. Dwelling on these thoughts, she would sigh and grow moisteyed; the maternal instinct that made her blind to Henk’s failings also gave her a keen sense of an underlying truth, while her only wish was for her son to find the same happiness in marriage as she had known herself.

  She was roused from her meditation by Leentje, the maid, laying the round table for one in the next room, and with weary resignation she seated herself to partake of her luncheon alone. How hateful this solitude was! Tomorrow would be the same to her as today: the summer of her life had come to an end, and though autumn and winter might be free from storms, all they brought was dreariness and cold lethargy. She might as well be dead!

  The sense of loneliness and abandonment made her so dull that she did not once scold Leentje for her clumsiness, although it did not escape her that her porcelain serving dish had become severely chipped along the edges during the washing-up.

  …

  That afternoon Eline left the house earlier than usual, to call at the Verstraetens’. It was nearing the end of November, and winter had set in with a vengeance. There was a sharp frost; the snow, still bluish-white and unsullied, crackled under Eline’s light, regular tread, but where possible she took to the pavements that had been swept clear of snow. With her daintily gloved hands tucked into the small muff, now and then bestowing a cordial smile and nod on some acquaintance from under her short veil of tulle, she made her way along Javastraat towards Prinsessegracht. She was still in a happy humour, content with her smart winter ensemble trimmed with brown fur, and quite unaffected by the slight argument she had just had with Betsy, who had accused her of ordering Grete to do Mina’s work. This kind of disagreement was becoming increasingly frequent of late, much to Henk’s dismay, for he hated nothing more than the pettiness of domestic bickering.

  This time, however, Eline had paid little heed to Betsy’s remark, and had responded less sharply than usual; she had no intention of letting her good humour be spoilt by such trivialities – life was too dear to her.

  And, thankful for having curbed her temper, she turned the corner of Javastraat.

  Arriving at the Verstraetens’, she found the household still in some disarray. Dien declared that her mistress was not receiving, but Eline brushed her aside and made her way to the suite, where she came upon the lady of the house, who apologised for being in her peignoir. Losch, the photographer, had his head tucked under the green cloth of his apparatus to view the ensemble portraying the five senses. Etienne and Paul and the girls were all smiles, and Eline, after apologising to Madame Verstraeten for her absence the previous evening, said how glad she was of the opportunity to see something of the tableaux after all. But now, in the bleak daylight reflected from the snowy garden, the scene did not make the same glowing, lavish impression as the previous evening, nor were the colours as rich as they had been in the blaze of Bengal lights. The draperies hung in loose and crumpled folds, Frédérique’s cloth of gold had a dingy, mottled tint, her ermine turned out to be a plain woollen blanket embroidered with black, and Etienne’s blonde wig was decidedly out of curl. Losch begged them to put on a more affable expression, to no avail; Lili, as the Sense of Smell, lay half asleep on her cushions.

  ‘I’m afraid it won’t amount to much,’ said Marie, while Losch adjusted her robe, but young Cateau van der Stoor thought otherwise, and remained lying motionless despite the unbearable cramp in her side owing to her difficult posture.

  Eline, not wishing to disturb the concentration of the posing artistes, went into the conservatory, where she seated herself beside Mr Verstraeten to offer him her birthday greetings. He laid his book aside and removed his spectacles, the better to focus his twinkling brown eyes on the smart young visitor.

  ‘Do you know,’ she said, unfastening her fur-trimmed jacket, ‘do you know that I’m rather jealous of that happy little lot next door, always together, always jolly, brimming with ideas and fun. Why, they make me feel quite old!’

  ‘Well I never!’ said Madame Verstraeten, laughing as she stood in her peignoir behind a chair. ‘You’re the same age as Marie, aren’t you? Twenty-three, am I right?’

  ‘Yes, dear lady, but I was never as spoiled as Marie and Lili, not that I would have minded it one bit! As you know, at our house – when I was little – Papa was often ill and naturally that made us quiet, and afterwards at Aunt Vere’s … she was extremely kind, but far older than Papa, and not very jolly either.’

  ‘You mustn’t speak ill of Aunt Vere, Eline!’ said Mr Verstraeten. ‘She was an old flame of mine, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘Ah, and you mustn’t poke fun at her! I loved her dearly, she was like a second mother to us, and when she died after that long illness it was a dreadful blow. I felt quite alone in the world … So you see, I didn’t have an altogether happy time growing up.’ She gave a wistful smile, her eyes moistening at the thought of all she had missed. ‘But when you look at Paul and Etienne and the girls, there’s nothing but laughter and jollity. Really, it would make anyone jealous. And Cateau is a sweet girl, too.’

  The artistes could be heard jumping down from the stage: the photography session had come to a close. Paul and Etienne entered the conservatory with Freddie, Marie and Cateau, all in costume, while Lili went up to bed, worn out from the excitement of the last two days.

  ‘Goodbye, Miss Vere,’ said Cateau, offering her small hand.

  Eline felt a sudden, inexplicable affection for the young girl, so pure and unselfconsciously beguiling, and as she rose to leave she had to hide her emotion by giving Cateau a brusque, playful hug.

  ‘Goodbye, darling!’ she cooed. ‘Well, Madame Verstraeten, I’d better be off. I expect you have lots of things to attend to now that things are back to normal. Only, I promised Betsy I’d ask about the opera tickets. Might I take them with me, if you have them to hand, that is?’

  …

  It was still early, just gone half-past two, and it occurred to Eline that she had neglected to call on Madame van Raat for quite some time, although she knew the old lady was devoted to her and liked receiving visitors in the afternoon for a chat. Henk called on his mother faithfully every morning after his ride, invariably accompanied by the two Ulmer hounds his wife could not abide, which would gleefully bound up the stairs in his mother’s house. Betsy seldom put in an appearance; she was aware of her motherin-law’s reservations towards her. Eline, however, had won Madame van Raat’s heart thanks to the particularly engaging manner she had towards elderly ladies: something in her tone of voice, in her solicitous little attentions, that betokened a pleasing respectfulness.

  Eline returned through Javastraat to Laan van Meerdervoort, and found Madame van Raat alone, sitting in her high-backed chair with her hands folded on her lap. The image she presented was of such utter despondency as to unsettle her young visitor; the grand but worn furnishings were redolent of nostalgia for past conviviality, and from the hallway to the front room with its sombre green-velvet curtains the sadness and yearning were almost palpable. Eline felt her heart sinking. How miserable it all was! No, life was not worth living. Why, oh why …?

  Then she mastered herself. Gathering together all the thoughts that had made her so cheerful that morning, she gave a smile and adopted her habitual tone of respectful concern and affection as she enthused about Paul, about the tableaux, about that evening’s dinner party and about the opera, and she promised to send Madame van Raat some books: lighthearted, entertaining literature, in which the world was viewed through rose-tinted glasses.

  It pained her to keep up her lively prattle while she would have liked to have a good cry together with Henk’s mother, in woeful sympathy, but she contained her emotion and even plucked up courage to broach a more serious subject. She had seen tears in the dear lady’s eyes when she arrived, she said in her soothing voice, it was no use denying it; she did not wish to be inquisitive, but would love to console her if only she knew what wa
s wrong, and besides, dear Madame had confided in her before, hadn’t she?

  Eline was alluding to complaints about Betsy and various other, minor preoccupations, which she thought better not to spell out.

  The old lady, feeling comforted already, gave a light laugh and shook her head: truly, there was nothing wrong, it was just that she felt lonely at times, or perhaps it was merely the tedium of her years; she had so few interests nowadays, but then that was her own fault, was it not? Other old people read the newspapers and continued to keep abreast of things generally, but not she. Oh, Eline was such a dear, sweet creature; why couldn’t Betsy be a bit more like her?

  She perked up a little and began to talk of her girlhood, and then, gesturing toward her beloved husband’s portrait, of her life with him.

  It was past four o’clock when Eline took her leave and hurried away. Dusk was falling, a thaw had set in, and the darkening clouds seemed about to come down to smother her. The old lady had said that she had been happy once, very happy … but was that really true? And then look at her, Eline: she wasn’t happy, even if she was young. How would she feel if she were the same age as old Madame van Raat, and all wrinkled and ugly? She wouldn’t even have the consolation of happy memories to look back on; her entire life would be a sombre shade of grey, leaden like the clouds! Dear God, she thought, why must I live if I am not to be happy?

  ‘Why, oh why?’ she whispered, quickening her step at the thought of having to dress for dinner.

  …

  It was to be a simple, informal dinner party. The Ferelijns arrived at half-past five, followed soon after by Emilie and Georges. Betsy received them in the salon and enquired after the Ferelijns’ little girl.