Eline Vere

by Louis Couperus

  Notwithstanding the lowered blinds, the heat in the room was rising. Sophie, the maid, knocked at the door.

  ‘I’ve brought you some ice, Miss!’

  She came in bearing a tray of ice. As soon as she was gone Eline put a shard in her mouth, then took several others and rubbed them over her forehead until the large, icy drops trickled down between her fingers.

  …

  Sophie brought her repast at half-past five, and laid the small round table with much care. But Eline merely picked at the various dishes, and was glad when Sophie came to clear them away. The weather was too hot; the smell of food turned her stomach.

  She glanced at the calling cards Sophie had brought in with her tray: one from Madame Verstraeten and another from Lili.

  ‘Old Madame van Raat also came by this afternoon, Miss!’ said Sophie, and left.

  Eline was alone; the evening crept forward. The sun sank leisurely behind the horizon, and it did not grow dark for a long time, so she raised the blinds again. Then she took from her cabinet a small phial and carefully counted out her drops in a glass of water. She drank slowly. Ah, if only they would bring some relief this time! They didn’t seem half as effective as they used to be.

  Worn out from her long day of inertia, prey to the ramblings of her troubled mind, she decided to have an early night. She would not light the gas lamp; she would sit in the dusk a little longer and then try to get some sleep.

  But her head began to seethe and simmer with unrelenting insistence. The cool evening air wafted into the room, yet she felt suffocated. She let the grey peignoir slide off her shoulders. Her arms were thin, her chest almost hollow, and with a sad smile she surveyed her wasted frame. She ran her fingers through her long, thin, hair. And because the light was fading, because she dreaded not sleeping despite the drops, because of the livid pallor of her skin beside the lace-edged nightdress, because she grew fearful of the deepening shadows, the madness rose up in her once more.

  Ah, perfido! Spergiuro!

  She began to hum, and she raised her arm in a wild gesture of accusation. This was the Beethoven aria that used to remind Vincent of the fragrance of verbena … Then, her features twisting with grief and vengeance, she broke into song, raging at the faithless lover, commanding him out of her sight, invoking the wrath of the gods to punish him to the end of his days. With a sudden movement she pulled the sheet off her bed and draped the long white fabric about her, so that it resembled a robe of marble in the grey dusk.

  Oh no! Fermate, vindici Dei!

  She sang hoarsely, pausing repeatedly to cough. Her expression had altered, for she was now imploring the gods to have mercy on him – however cruel his betrayal, the constancy of her devotion was unchanged, and she would not seek revenge; for him she had lived and for him she wished to die. Slowly she intoned the adagio, very slowly, while the white folds of her drapery billowed and swayed to the supplicating gestures of her arms. She sang on and on, until a heart-rending cry forced itself from her throat, and in that final plaint she suddenly became an actress, a prima donna in the noble art of the opera. Her lover had fled, and she saw herself turning to chorus surrounding her with pity:

  Se in tanto affa … a … a … anno

  She sang, almost weeping, with grief-stricken cadenzas, and in her agonised lamentation her voice rose to a shriek:

  Non son degna di pieta

  She gave a violent start, appalled by the shrill, screeching sound of her ruined voice, then flung off the white sheet and sank down on a chair, trembling. Had anyone heard her? She darted a quick glance through the open door of her balcony at the street below. No, there were only a few strollers in the gathering dusk, and no one was looking up. What about inside? Had they heard? Ah well, if so, it couldn’t be helped. But from now on, she vowed, she would be more sensible.

  She was sobbing, and yet she laughed, too – at herself, for being so silly as to get all carried away like that! No wonder she wasn’t feeling in the least drowsy! She laid herself down on the rumpled bed and kept her eyes firmly closed. But sleep did not come.

  ‘Dear God,’ she moaned. ‘Dear God, let me sleep, I beg you, let me sleep!’

  She wept bitterly, unceasingly. Then a thought flashed into her brain. What if she took a few more drops than the dose prescribed by that physician in Brussels? There would be no harm in that, would there? It was hardly likely, given that her normal dose didn’t seem to do anything for her these days. How many more drops would it be safe for her to take?

  The same amount again? No, that would be too much, obviously. Goodness knows what might happen. Half the amount, then? Another three drops? No, no, she did not dare: the doctor had given her dire warnings about the dangers. Still, it was tempting … and she got out of bed.

  She took up her phial to count out the drops.

  One … two … three, fourfive. The last two spilled out just as she righted the phial. Five … would that be too much? She hesitated a moment. Those five drops would be enough to send her to sleep, of that she was certain.

  She hesitated yet again. Abruptly, she made up her mind: yes, she would sleep. And she drank her potion.

  …

  She lay down on the floor, close to the open door to the balcony.

  Perspiring with fear, she felt herself sliding into numbness; but what a strange sensation it was this time … how different from the numbness she had grown accustomed to.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she thought. ‘My God! My God! Could it have been … too much?’

  No, no, that would be too awful! Death was so black, so empty, so unspeakable! And yet, what if she had taken too much? All at once her fear melted away, and a sense of infinite peace came over her. If that was what she had done, so be it.

  And she began to laugh, with stifled, nervous titters, while the numbness pressed down on her, as though with giant, leaden fists. She tried to ward off the fists with her flailing hands, and her fingers became entangled in the chain she wore about her neck. Oh, his portrait, Otto’s portrait!

  Had she really taken too much? Would she …? She shivered. Would they come knocking at her door in the morning, and find no answer? Would they return later and knock again, and come upon her lying on the floor like this?

  A terrible thought! Her fingers, moist with perspiration, groped for the locket. They must not find that portrait on her breast!

  She raised herself to a sitting position and prised the small oval card from its casing. She could not see it, because it had grown dark in her room and her vision was already clouding over; only the yellow glow of the street lamp by the entrance dispelled the gloom. But she imagined it vividly, and she fondled the slip of cardboard, pressing it to her lips again and again.

  ‘Oh, Otto!’ she faltered, her speech slurring. ‘It was only you, my Otto, not Vincent, not St Clare, only you … you … Otto … oh my God!’

  She was torn between fear of death and acquiescence. Then, in the passion of her kisses, she took the card in her mouth. Yes, she would swallow it, since she no longer had the strength to tear it up or destroy it in any other way! A shuddering sigh convulsed her frame, and she began to chew the rejected proof of Otto’s portrait.

  …

  Her tears were still flowing, but she no longer sobbed. The bitterness had ebbed away, and she wept like a child, with soft, childish whimpers and plaintive little moans. Now and then she gave a short, crazed laugh, and at length grew quiet, seated on the floor by the open door to the balcony with her forearms crossed before her face.

  She made no movement, petrified by the state she was in, by what lay in store. She had a sense of a sea tossing within her, a dark sea flooding her thoughts, drowning her; she wanted to push the sea away, but its force was too great, and she lurched over and fell, deafened by the dull roar in her ears and in her brain.

  ‘God! God! Oh God!’ she moaned in a choked, fading voice of powerless despair.

  Then her consciousness seeped away, drop by drop, and the sleep of death came ove
r her.

  …

  The street lamp was extinguished, and the spacious room was transformed into a dark crypt, a mausoleum of blackness in which a lifeless body lay, ghostly white.

  The night air grew chill, and slowly the pearl-grey pallor of dawn arose.

  …

  Henk van Raat sent a letter at once to Daniel Vere in Brussels, notifying him of Eline’s decease. Uncle Daniel and Eliza both wrote back, full of sympathy for poor Eline. Daniel also informed him that Vincent had returned from Russia a few days previously, accompanied by the American friend whom Eline had met in Brussels, and that they would be travelling to The Hague to attend the funeral.

  XXXVI

  More than a year had passed since Eline’s death. For the Van Erlevoorts momentous changes had taken place. Madame van Erlevoort had been persuaded by her son Theodore to sell the house on the Voorhout, the beloved family home where all her children had been born, and she had moved to De Horze along with Mathilda and the four grandchildren. Paul and Frédérique were married and living in the small town of Heibeek, where Paul had been appointed mayor. Etienne had obtained his degree, and there had been talk of him making a career in the Indies, but his mother could not bear the thought of parting from her youngest boy, and in the end he had established himself as a lawyer in The Hague. Although Madame van Erlevoort was sad at first to lose her home in The Hague, she soon accommodated herself to the warmth and cosiness of her eldest son’s family circle, to which Henrietta, like Marianne before her, had returned from her last term at boarding school, while the boys put in an appearance from time to time. The Van Rijssel foursome – Tina was now eleven years old – were thriving alongside Memée in the wholesome country air.

  Paul had begged his mother to follow Madame van Erlevoort’s example by selling her house and coming to live with him and Frédérique at Heibeek, but to no avail. Madame van Raat promised that she would visit them often, but she did not wish to take up residence in their home, fearing that her world-weariness, which had deepened since the death of her beloved Eline, would cast a pall on their sunny, fresh happiness. The excitement of Paul’s engagement and his subsequent marriage had taken her out of herself for a while, but now that her son had what he wanted and most needed, she gradually became submerged once more in the half-life of her listless despondence.

  The Verstraeten household was hushed, and Marie often shed bitter tears. She had so much love locked away inside her, and all of it would go to waste; she felt as if she would shrivel up, like an overlooked flower. Lili was far too busy with her household and the care for her two fair-haired little ones to pay much attention to her, but she did not blame her sister for not realising how she unhappy she was. Besides, what difference would it have made, even if Lili had known; how could that have comforted her?

  Paul and Freddie invited Marie to spend the summer months with them, and she felt better there than at home, for all that she doted on her papa and mama. At least with Paul and Freddie she could laugh and joke now and then, especially when they reminisced about all the fun they had had putting on those tableaux vivants in the old days. Fancy her having lectured Paul about being lazy! And did he and Freddie remember that Lili couldn’t abide De Woude back then? Well, Lili said it wasn’t true; she claimed that she had always adored him, and got very cross whenever anyone so much as hinted that this might not have been the case!

  The villa in which Paul and Freddie had taken up residence was quite splendid. Built by the previous mayor of Heibeek, it had a colonial aspect to it, with a white-columned porch at the front and an enclosed veranda rather like a large conservatory at the back. Paul had furnished his new home with considerable luxury, which Frédérique thought somewhat exaggerated, given that it was a backwater they were living in where they received no one but the local church minister. But she did not go against her young husband’s extravagant tastes, in which she saw the reflection of unfulfilled artistic ambition; she was happy to see him the way he was now, with a warm heart for the community and contented in his position.

  Otto came over from Elzen now and then to spend a few days with his sister and brother-in-law, and on a few occasions his visit coincided with that of Marie. Frédérique had the feeling that Marie was a shade subdued in Otto’s presence, and she was reminded with some unease of a remark she had made to her some years since.

  ‘Oh, Marie, you would have made Otto such a good wife!’ she had said, and she could still hear Marie’s stammered reply:

  ‘Who, me?’

  Now she wondered whether she had caused Marie pain with those words. But she consoled herself with the thought that her impression might be quite wrong, that she had merely imagined Marie to be affected in her demeanour.

  For Otto the year had passed in sombre, oppressive dejection. After Eline died there had been unpleasant rumours; she was known to have been ill, of course, but the suddenness of her death had given rise to much whispered speculation as to its cause. This had not escaped Otto, who plunged into renewed grief over his loss of Eline. He looked stricken and almost old, and when Frédérique tried to cheer him up, telling him it wouldn’t do to submerge himself entirely in his gloom, he protested gently with the same words he had once used to reassure Suzanne at De Horze: a man’s heart does not break as easily as you think; men have work to do, business to attend to, they do not ponder a lost love for the rest of their days.

  Back then, at De Horze, he had not meant what he said. But lately it had seemed to him that there might be a measure of truth in those words after all. The heaviness in his heart seemed less leaden than it used to be; it was more like a lingering soreness from past hurt and sorrow. He had pangs of conscience whenever he felt his spirits lifting, and would vow to dedicate himself entirely to his grief and to the memory of Eline. But he did not reckon with the fact that time, at once cruel and kind, healed wounds, and that the wound he had come to prize would at length be no more than a scar.

  …

  And now, in midsummer, strolling in Paul and Freddie’s garden with Marie at his side, he felt happy in spite of himself. He had asked her to marry him, which had initially thrown her into confusion and subsequently made her weep, whereupon he had begged her not to turn him away simply because he had previously given his heart to another. He had grown to love her deeply, he loved her for her candid simplicity and her sweet, affectionate nature, in which he found solace – oh, he would not deny it, his love for her was utterly egotistic, but she was not to scorn him for that, since he had suffered so much for that other love. As for Marie, she had no desire to refuse him. Her heart brimmed over with infinite compassion; her tears were not for herself, they were tears of joy that he had come to her at last, not tears of frustration at his mention of the past, they were for him alone, for the suffering he had gone through.

  So she accepted, moisteyed, and pressed a light kiss on his brow. He was unaware that she had always loved him, unaware of how much she, too, had suffered during his courtship of Eline. He had yet to perceive the depth of her love for him, he saw only the depth of her pity, but that alone was like a soothing balm to his soul.

  Through the dense, spreading bushes glimmered the villa, and seated between the columns on the porch, in the light shining from inside, was an animated gathering, for Paul and Freddie had invited more friends to their abode: Georges and Lili with their two small children, and Etienne, boisterous and youthful as ever.

  Otto and Marie made their way back slowly, lingering along the flowerbeds. All around were rose bushes in full bloom, suffusing the freshness of evening with their sultry fragrance. Beyond, on the porch, Etienne appeared to be teasing poor Lili, for they could hear her cries of indignation followed by peals of laughter from the others.

  Marie hung back, as though embarrassed by the joy welling up inside her; then she stooped to shake the stems of a few overblown roses and watch their petals flutter down to the ground.

  ‘Come,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s go and surprise them with our
good news.’

  And as he led her by the hand he felt he could breathe again; he had a new sense of energy, even of rebirth, for the consoling passage of time had not only effaced his sorrow, it seemed to have rekindled his lust for life.

  AFTER WORD

  BY PAUL BINDING

  Almost halfway through Eline Vere we find its eponymous heroine in a state of conscious happiness. Eline, whose life has hitherto centred round the entertainments of high society in The Hague, is staying at De Horze in Gelderland, the country property of the family into which she has agreed to marry. The more she sees of her betrothed, Otto van Erlevoort, the more she appreciates his kindly, virtuous character. Herself highly strung and only too frequently dissatisfied, she has found deep contentment in surrendering to the slow rhythms of the rural summer. These have enabled her to get on with members of the large Van Erlevoort family so well that they are now obviously fond of her – even Otto’s sister Frédérique, who has never much cared for her. Eline is quite aware that she has significantly changed:

  During moments of solitary reflection on her new selfhood, tears welled up in her eyes in gratitude for all the goodness that she had received, and her only wish was that time would not fly, but stand still instead, so that the present would last for ever. Beyond that she desired nothing, and a sense of infinite rest and blissful, blue tranquility emanated from her being.

  Yet the God to whom she prays for this stasis does not answer her prayer, for time by its very nature cannot stand still. And moving and even sympathetic though we may find Eline’s thoughts here, we can also detect in them signs of the pernicious weakness that will destroy her. Her hopes are unrealistic, and fear plays too great a part in them; indeed, they amount to a desperate desire to have subtracted from existence anything demanding or painful. They are also self-centred; in this respect Eline’s ‘new selfhood’ differs little, if at all, from her former one. Does her fiancé have his rightful part in these wishes of hers for the future to be cancelled?