But then, with a little ill-tempered gesture, she threw down the pen, pushed the book aside, and, letting her head fall into her hands, sobbed aloud.
VI
Cecile was astonished at this unusually long fit of abstraction, that it should continue for days before she could again enter into her usual condition of serenity, the delightful abode from which, without wishing it, she had wandered. But she compelled herself, with gentle compulsion, to recover the treasures of her loneliness. She argued with herself that it would be some years before she would have to part from Dolf and Christie: there was time enough to grow accustomed to the idea of separation. Besides, nothing had altered either about her, or within her, and so she let the days glide slowly over her, like gently flowing water.
In this way, gently flowing by, a fortnight had elapsed since the evening she spent at Dolf’s. It was a Saturday afternoon; she had been working with the children – she still taught them herself – and she had walked out with them; and now she sat again in her favourite room awaiting the Van Attemas, who came every Saturday at half-past four to afternoon tea. She rang for the servant, who lighted the blue flame of methylated spirit. Dolf and Christie were with her; they sat upon the floor on footstools, cutting the pages of a children’s magazine to which Cecile subscribed for them. They were sitting quietly and well-bred, like children who grow up in a feeble surrounding, in the midst of too much refinement, too pale, with hair too long and too blonde, Christie especially, whose little temples were veined as if with lilac blood. Cecile stepped by them as she went to glance over the tea-table, and the look she cast upon them wrapped the children in a warm embrace of devotion. She was in her calmly happy mood; it was so pleasant that she would soon see the Van Attemas coming in. She liked these hours in the afternoon when her silver tea-kettle hissed over the blue flame. An exquisite intimacy filled the room; she had in her long, shapely feminine fingers that special power of witchery, that gentle art of handling by which everything, over which they merely glided, acquired a look of herself; an indefinable something, of tint, of position, of light, which the things had not until the touch of those fingers came across them.
There came a ring. She thought it rather early for the Van Attemas, but she rarely saw anyone else in her seclusion from the outer world – therefore it must be they. A few moments, however, and Greta came in, with a card. Was Mevrouw at home, and could the gentleman see her?
Cecile recognised the card from a distance: she had seen one like it quite recently. Yet she took it up, glanced at it discontentedly, with drawn eyebrows.
What an idea! Why did he do it? What did it mean? But she thought it unnecessary to be impolite and refuse to see him. After all he was a friend of Dolf’s.
“Show Meneer up,” she said.
Greta went, and it seemed to Cecile as though something trembled in the intimacy which filled the room; as if the objects over which her fingers had just passed took another aspect, a look of fright. But Dolf and Christie had not changed; they were still sitting looking at the pictures, with occasional remarks falling softly from their lips. The door opened, and Quaerts entered the room. He had in still greater measure than before his air of shyness as he bowed to Cecile. To her this air was incomprehensible in him, who seemed so strong, so determined.
“I hope you will not think me indiscreet, Mevrouw, taking the liberty to visit you.”
“On the contrary, Mr Quaerts,” she said coldly. “Pray sit down.”
He sat down and placed his hat on the floor. “I am not disturbing you, Mevrouw?”
“Not in the least; I am expecting Mrs Van Attema and her daughters. You were so polite as to leave a card on me; but you know, I see nobody.”
“I know it, Mevrouw. Perhaps it is to that knowledge the indiscretion of my visit is due.”
She looked at him coldly, politely, smilingly. There was a feeling of irritation in her. She felt a desire to ask him frankly why he had come.
“How is that?” she asked, her mannerly smile converting her face into a veritable mask.
“I feared I should not see you for a long time, and I should consider it a great privilege to be allowed to know you more intimately.”
His tone was in the highest degree respectful. She raised her eyebrows, as if she did not understand, but the accent of his voice was so very courteous that she could not find a cold word with which to answer him.
“Are those your two children?” he asked, with a glance towards Dolf and Christie.
“Yes,” she replied. “Get up, boys, and shake hands with Meneer.”
The children approached timidly, and put out their little hands. He smiled, looked at them penetratingly with his small, deep-set eyes, and drew them to him.
“Am I mistaken, or is not the little one very like you?”
“They both resemble their father,” she replied.
It seemed to her she had set a shield of mistrust about herself, from which the children were excluded, within which she found it impossible to draw them. It troubled her that he held them, that he looked at them as he did.
But he set them free, and they went back to their little stools, gentle, quiet, well-behaved.
“Yet they both have something of you,” he insisted.
“Possibly,” she said.
“Mevrouw,” he resumed, as if he had something important to say to her, “I wish to ask you a direct question: tell me honestly, quite honestly, do you think me indiscreet?”
“Because you pay me a visit? No, I assure you, Mr Quaerts. It is very polite of you. Only if I may be candid.”
She gave a little laugh.
“Of course,” he said.
“Then I will confess to you that I fear you will find little in my house to amuse you, I see nobody …”
“I have not called on you for the sake of the people I might meet at your house.”
She bowed, smiling as if he had paid her a special compliment.
“Of course I am very pleased to see you. You are a great friend of Dolf’s, are you not?”
She tried continually to speak differently to him, more coldly, defiantly; but he was too courteous, and she could not do it.
“Yes,” he replied, “Dolf and I have known each other a long time. We have always been great friends, though we are so entirely different.”
“I like him very much; he is always very kind to us.”
She saw him look smilingly at the little table. Some reviews were scattered about it, and a book or two; among these a little volume of Emerson’s essays.
“You told me you did not read much,” he said, mischievously.
“I should think …”
And he pointed to the books.
“Oh,” said she, carelessly, with a slight shrug of her shoulders, “a little …”
She thought him tiresome; why should he remark that she had hidden herself from him? Why, indeed, had she hidden herself from him?
“Emerson,” he read, bending forward a little. “Forgive me,” he added quickly. “I have no right to spy upon your pursuits. But the print is so large; I read it from here.”
“You are far-sighted?” she asked, laughing.
“Yes.”
His politeness, a certain respectfulness, as if he would not venture to touch the tips of her fingers, placed her more at her ease. She still felt antipathy towards him, but there was no harm in his knowing what she read.
“Are you fond of reading?” asked Cecile.
“I do not read much: it’s too great a pleasure to me for that; nor do I read all that appears, I am too eclectic.”
“Do you know Emerson?”
“No …”
“I like his essays very much. They look so far into the future. They place one upon a delightfully exalted level.”
She suited her phrase with an expansive gesture, and her eyes lighted up.
Then she observed that he was following her attentively, with his respectfulness. And she recovered herself; she no longer wished
to talk with him about Emerson.
“It is very fine indeed,” was all she said, in a most uninterested voice, to close the conversation. “May I give you some tea?”
“No, thank you, Mevrouw; I never take tea at this time.”
“Do you look upon it with so much scorn?” she asked, jestingly.
He was about to answer, when there was a ring at the bell, and she cried:
“Ah, here they are!”
Amélie entered, with Suzette and Anna. They were a little surprised to see Quaerts. He said he had wanted to call on Mrs Van Even. The conversation became general. Suzette was very merry, full of a dance fair, at which she was going to assist, in a Spanish costume.
“And you, Anna?”
“Oh, no, Auntie,” said Anna, shrinking together with fright. “Imagine me at a fancy fair? I should never sell anybody anything.”
“It is a gift,” said Amélie, with a faraway look.
Quaerts rose: he bowed with a single word to Cecile, when the door opened. Jules came in with books under his arm, on his road home from school.
“How do you do, Auntie? Hallo, Taco, are you going away just as I arrive?”
“You drive me away,” said Quaerts, laughing.
“Ah, Taco, do stay a little longer!” begged Jules, enraptured to see him, in despair that he had chosen this moment to leave.
“Jules, Jules!” cried Amélie, thinking it was the proper thing to do.
Jules pressed Quaerts, took his two hands, forced him, like the spoilt child that he was. Quaerts laughed the more. Jules in his excitement knocked some books from the table.
“Jules, be quiet!” cried Amélie.
Quaerts picked up the books, while Jules persisted in his bad behaviour. As Quaerts replaced the last book he hesitated; he held it in his hand, he looked at the gold lettering: “Emerson …”
Cecile watched him.
“If he thinks I am going to lend it to him he is mistaken,” she thought.
But Quaerts asked nothing: he had released himself from Jules and said goodbye. With a quip at Jules he left.
VII
“Is this the first time he has been to see you?” asked Amélie.
“Yes,” replied Cecile. “A superfluous politeness, was it not?”
“Taco Quaerts is always very correct in matters of etiquette,” said Anna, defending him.
“But this visit was hardly a matter of etiquette,” Cecile said, laughing merrily. “Taco Quaerts seems to be quite infallible in your eyes.”
“He waltzes delightfully!” cried Suzette. “The other day at the Eekhof’s dance …”
Suzette chattered on; there was no restraining Suzette that afternoon; she seemed to hear already the rattling of her castanets.
Jules had a fit of crossness coming on, but he stood still at a window, with the boys.
“You don’t much care about Quaerts, do you, Auntie?” asked Anna.
“I do not find him very sympathetic,” said Cecile. “You know, I am easily influenced by my first impressions. I can’t help it, but I do not like those very healthy, strong people, who look so sturdy and manly, as if they walked straight through life, clearing away everything that stands in their way. It may be a morbid antipathy in me, but I can’t help it that I always dislike a super-abundance of robustness. These strong people look upon others who are not so strong as themselves much as the Spartans used to look upon their deformed children.”
Jules could restrain himself no longer.
“If you think that Taco is no better than a Spartan you know nothing at all about him,” he said fiercely.
Cecile looked at him, but before Amélie could interpose he continued:
“Taco is the only person with whom I can talk about music, and who understands every word I say. And I don’t believe I could talk with a Spartan.”
“Jules, how rude you are!” cried Suzette.
“I don’t care!” he exclaimed furiously, rising suddenly, and stamping his foot. “I don’t care! I won’t hear Taco abused, and Aunt Cecile knows it, and only does it to tease me. I think it is very mean to tease a child, very mean …”
His mother and his sisters tried to calm him with their authority. But he seized his books.
“I don’t care! I won’t have it!”
He was gone in a moment, furious, slamming the door, which muttered at the shock. Amélie shook with nervousness.
“Oh, that boy!” she hissed out, shivering. “That Jules, that Jules …”
“It is nothing,” said Cecile, gently, excusing him. “He is excitable …”
She had grown a little paler, and glanced towards her boys, Dolf and Christie, who looked up in dismay, their mouths wide open with astonishment.
“Is Jules naughty, Mamma?” asked Christie.
She shook her head, smiling. She felt strangely weary, indefinably so. She did not know what it meant; but it seemed to her as if distant perspectives opened up before her eyes, fading away into the horizon, pale, in a great light. Nor did she know what this meant; but she was not angry with Jules, and it seemed to her as if he had not lost his temper with her, but with somebody else. A sense of the enigmatical deepness of life, the unknown of the soul’s mystery, like to a fair, bright endlessness, a faraway silvery light, shot through her in a still rapture.
Then she laughed.
“Jules,” she said, “is so nice when he gets excited.”
Anna and Suzette broke up the circle, and played with the boys, looking at their picture books. Cecile spoke only to her sister. Amélie’s nerves were still quivering.
“How can you defend those tricks of Jules?” she asked, in a relenting voice.
“I think it so noble of him to stand up for those he likes. Don’t you think so too?”
Amélie grew calmer. Why should she be disturbed if Cecile was not?
“Oh yes, yes …” she replied, “I don’t know. He has a good heart I believe, but he is so unmanageable. But, who knows? … perhaps the fault is mine; if I understood better, if I had more tact …”
She grew confused; she sought for something more to say, found nothing, wandering like a stranger through her own thoughts. Then, suddenly, as if struck by a ray of certain knowledge she said …
“But Jules is not stupid. He has a good eye for all sorts of things, and for persons too. For my part, I believe you judge Taco Quaerts wrongly. He is a very interesting man, and a great deal more than a mere sportsman. I don’t know what it is, but there is something about him different from other people, I couldn’t say precisely what …
“I wish Jules got on better at school. He is not stupid, but he learns nothing. He has been two years now in the third class. The boy has no application. He makes me despair of him.”
She was silent again, and Cecile too remained silent.
“Ah,” said Amélie, “I daresay it is not his fault. Perhaps it is my fault. Perhaps he takes after me …”
She looked straight before her: sudden, irrepressible tears filled both her eyes, and fell into her lap.
“Amy, what is the matter?” asked Cecile, kindly.
But Amélie had risen, so that the girls, who were still playing with the children, might not see her tears. She could not restrain them, they streamed down, and she hurried away into the adjacent drawing room, a big room, where Cecile never sat.
“What is the matter, Amy?” repeated Cecile.
She threw her arms about her sister, made her sit down, pressed her head against her shoulder.
“How do I know what it is?” sobbed Amélie. “I do not know, I do not know … I am wretched because of that feeling in my head. After all, I am not mad, am I? Really, I don’t feel mad, or as if I were going mad! But I feel sometimes as if everything had gone wrong in my head, as if I couldn’t think. Everything runs through my brain. It is a terrible feeling!”
“Why don’t you see a doctor?” asked Cecile.
“No, no, he might tell me I was mad, and I am not. He might try to send me
into an asylum. No, I won’t see a doctor. I have every reason to be happy otherwise, have I not? I have a kind husband and dear children; I have never had any great sorrow. And yet I sometimes feel deeply miserable, unreasonably miserable! It is always as if I wanted to reach some place and could not succeed. It is always as if I were hemmed in …”
She sobbed violently; a storm of tears rained down her face. Cecile’s eyes, too, were moist; she liked her sister, she felt for her. Amélie was only ten years her senior, and already she had something of an old woman about her, withered, mean, her hair growing grey at the temples, under her veil.
“Cecile, tell me, Cecile,” she said suddenly, through her sobs, “do you believe in God?”
“Of course, Amy.”
“I used to go to church, but it was no use … I don’t go any more … Oh, I am so unhappy! It is very ungrateful of me, I have so much to be grateful for … Do you know, sometimes I feel as if I would like to go at once to God, all at once!”
“Pray, Amy, do not excite yourself so.”
“Ah, I wish I were like you, so calm. Do you feel happy?”
Cecile nodded, smiling. Amélie sighed; she remained lying a moment with her head against her sister’s shoulder. Cecile kissed her, but suddenly Amélie started:
“Be careful,” she whispered, “the girls might come in here. They … they need not see that I have been crying.”
Rising, she arranged herself before the looking-glass, carefully dried her veil with her handkerchief, smoothed the string of her bonnet.
“There, now they won’t know,” she said. “Let us go in again. I am quite calm. You are a dear girl …”
They went into the little room.
“Come, girls, we must go home,” said Amélie, in a voice which was still unsettled.
“Have you been crying, Mamma?” asked Suzette immediately.
“Mamma was a little upset about Jules,” said Cecile quickly.
VIII
Cecile was alone; the children had gone upstairs to get ready for dinner. She tried to get back her distant perspectives, fading into the pale horizon; she tried to get back the silvery endlessness which had shot through her as a vision of light. But it confused her too much: a kaleidoscope of recent petty memories: the children, Quaerts, Emerson, Jules, Suzette, Amélie. How strange, how strange was life! … The outer life; the coming and going of people about us; the sounds of words which they utter in accents of strangeness; the endless changing of phenomena; the concatenation of those phenomena, one with the other; strange, too, the presence of a soul somewhere, like a god within us, never in its essence to be known, save by itself. Often, as now, it seemed to Cecile that all things, even the most commonplace, were strange, very strange; as if nothing in the world were absolutely commonplace; as if everything were strange together; the strange form and exterior expression of a deeper life, that lies hidden behind everything, even the meanest objects; as if everything displayed itself under an appearance, a transitory mask, while underneath lay the reality, the very truth. How strange, how strange was life … For it seemed to her as if she, under all the ordinariness of that afternoon tea-party, had seen something very extraordinary; she did not know what, she could not express nor even think it; it seemed to her as if beneath the coming and going of those people there had glittered something: reality, ultimate truth beneath the appearance of their happening to come to take tea with her.
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