# Small Souls/Chapter XXXIX

A few mornings later, when Constance woke, she remembered that it was Saturday; and, with the apprehension which had kept her nerves on the rack all the week long, she said to herself, as she rose:
“This is the day . . . this is the day. . . .”
She went to the letter-box again and again, almost hoping to find the last issue of the scurrilous paper there. She was afraid also lest Addie, before going to school or on coming home, should see it in the box and look at it, to see what it was. She knew that Van der Welcke was thinking of it too and that this was why he did not go out and also kept coming down the stairs, as though accidentally, and passing through the hall, with a glance at the glass pane of the letter-box. She went and sat in the drawing-room, looking out for the postman or for an errand-boy who might strike her as suspicious. . . . The morning passed, Addie came home and her nervous apprehension never left her. The afternoon passed and she remained indoors, wandering through the hall and always, always gazing at that letter-box. Nothing appeared through the little glass pane. And the whole day was one long apprehension, one incessant oppression.
The next morning, Sunday, Constance again looked out of the window, but she had now made up her mind that nothing would come and that there was ​nothing in the Dwarskijker. She stayed at home that day too, as it was raining hard, and she saw nobody. At half-past eight in the evening, she went to Mamma van Lowe’s in a cab, with Van der Welcke and Addie. And Constance, the moment she entered, saw that there was a certain excitement among the members of the family, all of whom were present. Even Mamma seemed uneasy about something; and she at once said to Constance:
“You were at Bertha’s on Tuesday, child. . . .”
“Yes. . . .”
“Why didn’t you ask me first, Connie?”
“Is a visit to Bertha such a very important matter, Mamma?”
“No, no,” said the old woman, deprecatingly, “not that . . .”
But the old aunts arrived:
“How are you, Marie?”
“How are you, Dorine and Christine? So nice of you to come.”
“What d’you say?” asked Auntie Rine.
“Marie says . . . it’s so nice of you to co-o-ome!” screamed Auntie Tine.
“Oh, ah! Did she say so? Yes, yes. . . . And who’s that? . . .”
“That’s Constance,” said the old lady.
“Who?”
“That’s Marie’s daughter!” screamed Auntie Tine. “Marie’s daugh-ter!”
“Whose daughter?”
“Marie’s?” ​“Bertha?”
“No, not Bertha, Gertrude: Ger-tru-ude!” yelled Auntie Tine.
“Oh, Gertrude?” said Auntie Rine, nodding her head.
“Oh dear!” said Mrs. van Lowe, upset by the thought of the little daughter who had died at Buitenzorg.
“Never mind, Mamma,” said Constance. “They’ll never remember who I am.”
“They’re so obstinate!”
“But they’re so old.”
“It makes me so sad to hear them always taking you for Gertrude. Poor Gertrude!”
“Come, Mamma, you mustn’t mind.”
“No, child. But, oh, why did you go to Bertha’s on Tuesday?”
“What harm did I do, Mamma?”
“No harm, child. But oh dear! . . . Good-evening, Herman; good-evening, Lotje.”
It was Uncle and Aunt Ruyvenaer, with their girls following behind. And Constance saw a look of pity in their eyes.
“I say, Constance . . .” whispered Aunt Lot
“Yes, Auntie?”
“Does Mamma know about that hor-r-rid article?”
Constance turned pale:
“I don’t think so, Auntie.”
“But your sister Dorine must know . . .” ​Aunt Ruyvenaer beckoned to Dorine, who was very fidgety:
“I say, Dorine, does Mamma know about that hor-r-rid article?”
“No, Auntie,” said Dorine, forgetting to say good-evening to Constance. “I kept coming in and looking at the letter-box . . .”
“To-day?” asked Constance.
“Yes.”
“What do you mean, to-day? A week ago, you mean.”
“No, Mamma didn’t see that article last week, but I was afraid about to-day.”
“To-day?”
“Yes, to-day’s article.”
Constance caught Dorine by the arm:
“Is there something in it, to-day?”
“Yes,” Dorine whispered, coldly. “Didn’t you know?”
“Don’t you know, Constance?” asked Auntie Lot.
“No, I haven’t had it . . .”
“So you haven’t read it, Constance?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s just as well, child,” said Auntie, as though relieved. “Better not read it, eh? Hor-rrid article. Scandalous, child, about you. . . . Eh, soedah all those people. . . . And it’s so long ago, you and your husband; and he is your husband now! . . . Eh, what I say is, leave her alone. ​Forgive and forget, soedah! But I tell you, people always love to korek about tempo doeloe. It makes me sick when I think what people are!”
“Dorine, have you that article?”
“Do you think I carry it about with me?” said Dorine, irritably.
“Why are you angry with me, Dorine?”
“I’m not angry; but, when you give occasion . . .”
“I? . . . Give occasion? . . . Fifteen years ago? . . .”
“No, on Tuesday last. What an idea of yours, to go to Bertha’s!”
“I intend to do more than that, Dorine. And I can’t help it if I don’t share your awe for Bertha’s days. . . .”
“At which you may meet all sorts of people . . .”
“Dorine, one has so many unpleasant meetings in this world,” said Constance, haughtily. “You, you don’t know the world.”
“Thank goodness for that!”
“Then don’t condemn me. You don’t know why I am acting as I am.”
“If you only kept to yourself . . .”
“I wanted to keep to myself.”
“You give people occasion . . .”
“Yes, now: I give them occasion now . . .”
“Oh, children,” said Auntie, “don’t quarrel. . . . There’s soesah enough, with that hor-r-rid article!”
Gerrit arrived:
“I thought I’d just look in, Mamma . . .” ​“How’s Adeline?”
“She’s well. The doctor called this afternoon. She’s very well indeed. Oh, she doesn’t upset herself for a small affair like that!”
The big, fair man laughed nervously, boisterously filling the whole room with his loose-limbed strength. Then he went up to Constance:
“Connie,” he whispered, “I’m so furious, so furious!”
“I haven’t read it.”
“Haven’t you? Haven’t you? Then don’t!”
“But what do they say?”
“Nothing. Don’t read it.”
But she hardly listened to Gerrit, for she now saw Van der Welcke and Paul standing in a corner, in the back-drawing-room. She moved in their direction. She saw that Van der Welcke, with his back turned to the other room, was reading something, screened by a curtain, while Paul was warning him, anxiously:
“Come, give it me, quick . . . Van der Welcke . . .”
Constance was behind them:
“Paul, tell me, that article . . .”
“The scoundrels, the scoundrels!” Van der Welcke was hissing.
“Henri, have you it? Give it to me.”
“No, Constance!” Paul implored her. “Don’t read it, don’t read it.”
“Give it to me, Henri!”
“I want to read it myself first!” ​And he cursed as he read:
“The damned scoundrels! And it’s not true; it didn’t happen like that. . . .”
“But what is it they say?” Constance demanded, furiously.
Paul took her by the arm and led her into the little boudoir, where their father’s portrait hung:
“Be quiet, Constance. Please, please don’t read it! What good will it do you; all that dirty language, all that vulgarity? It’s filthy, it’s filthy!”
“And is there nothing we can do?”
“No, no, for God’s sake, no!” Paul begged, as though preferring to hush up everything. “Every one will have forgotten it in ten days’ time.”
“Is there nothing we can do?”
“What do you want to do?” Paul asked, changing his tone, harshly. “Surely you wouldn’t sue the cad for libel?”
“No, no!” she said, startled and terrified.
“Well, what then? Keep quiet, don’t read it, don’t upset yourself about it. . . .”
But Van der Welcke came up to them. He was purple, there was no restraining him:
“I’m going to the fellow. . . .”
“For God’s sake, Van der Welcke!”
Uncle Ruyvenaer joined them:
“What are you doing in here? Oh, yes, that rag! It’s disgraceful, it’s disgraceful!”
“I want to read it!” cried Constance.
“No!” they all three exclaimed. “Don’t read it!” ​“Don’t let Mamma notice!” Uncle Ruyvenaer warned them.
And he went away, full of suppressed excitement.
But they remained in the boudoir. The portrait looked down upon them.
“Oh, my God!” Constance began sobbing; and she looked up at the portrait. “Papa, Papa! Oh, my God!”
“Hush, Constance!”
“Let me read it!”
“No.”
Adolphine appeared in the doorway. She said nothing, but realized what they were talking about and turned away. And they heard Adolphine say aloud, in a hard voice, to Uncle Ruyvenaer:
“It’s their own fault!”
Van der Welcke flared up, no longer able to master himself. He spun round to the door; Paul tried to hold him back, but it was too late; and, on the threshold, with his face close to Adolphine’s, he roared:
“Why is it my own fault?”
“Why?” asked Adolphine, furiously, remembering the lofty tone which he had adopted to her after the quarrel of the two boys. “Why? You should have remained in Brussels!”
“Adolphine!” cried Van der Welcke, purple in the face, seething, roaring, with every nerve quivering. “You’re a woman and an ill-mannered woman; and so you can allow yourself to say anything you please to a man. But, if your husband ​shares your opinion that I ought to have remained in Brussels, he’s only got to tell me so, in your name or in his own! Then I’ll send him my seconds!”
Van Saetzema came up at that moment.
“Then I’ll send you my seconds!” Van der Welcke repeated, blazing.
“For God’s sake, don’t, my dear fellow!” cried Van Saetzema, frightened to death.
And Adolphine began to clasp her hands together; she too was frightened and took refuge in a feeble exhibition of wounded vanity:
“He says I’m ill-mannered! He says I’m ill-mannered! The hound! The cad! I have to swallow everything! Every one says just what he likes to me!”
She was now really crying into her handkerchief. Everything in the two drawing-rooms seemed in one great ferment of excitement. On all sides, there were quick, hushed conversations, whispered words, nervous glances among the brothers and sisters and their juniors, the nephews and nieces; not a single quiet group had been formed; the card-tables remained untouched; and there was no one at the table in the conservatory where the children’s round games were played.
“Herman!” Mamma called out, almost querulously. “Aren’t you going to start a rubber?”
“Yes, do come along!” said Auntie Lot to Ruyvenaer, “Ajo, shall we have a game? Come on, who’s going to play? . . . You, Saetzema? Come ​along . . . Toetie? Come along. Cut for partners. . . . Come, Paul . . . Do!”
“No, Aunt, I won’t play, thanks.”
“Oh, it’s difficult this evening!” said Auntie. “Van Naghel and Bertha not yet here, eh? Come on. . . . Ajo now, let’s play! Ah, there are Karel and Cateau! Why are you so late, eh? . . . Ajo then, cut for partners . . . let’s have a rubber!”
And Auntie at once enlisted Karel and Cateau, refused to let them go, forced matters, insisted on having a nice, quiet, friendly rubber, as at all the usual “family-groups.” But Cateau at once noticed the excitement infecting everybody in both the big rooms with restlessness and, catching sight of Adolphine, she managed, before cutting, to escape Auntie Lot and ask:
“Why, Adolph-ine, what are you cry-ing for? Are you up-set about any-thing?”
“The hound! The cad! And he wants to challenge my husband in addition!”
“Chal-lenge him?” cried the terrified Cateau. “A reg-u-lar du-el! No! The bro-thers and sisters will nev-er consent to that! There’s too much been talked and writ-ten about the family as it is!” she whispered. “Writ-ten and print-ed!”
And Cateau’s whining words bore evidence to the tragic alarm that fluttered through her sleek, broad-bosomed respectability, while her owl’s eyes opened rounder and wider than ever.
But Auntie Lot came to fetch Cateau and dragged ​her by the arm to the card-table. The rubber was made up: Auntie, Karel, Cateau and Toetie. But they none of them paid attention to their cards, which fell on the table, one after the other, without the least effort of intelligence on the part of the players, as though obeying the laws of some weird and fantastic game of bridge. . . . Auntie was constantly trying to ruff with spades though clubs were trumps:
“Oh, what kassian!” said Auntie.
“Ka-rel,” said Cateau, excitedly, “as the eld-est bro-ther, you must inter-fere and stop that du-el!”
“I? Thank you: not if I know it!”
“You must, Ka-rel: You are the eld-est brother. . . . Of course, Van Na-ghel”—and she pronounced the name with a certain reverence—“is the hus-band of your eld-est sist-er; but if he, if Van”—reverentially—“Van Na-a-ghel refuses to inter-fere, then it’s your duty, Ka-rel, as the eld-est bro-ther, to stop that du-el.”
“It won’t come off!” said Toetie, good-humouredly.
“Massa, brothers-in-law don’t fight!” said Auntie Lot. “But Adolphine shouldn’t have behaved like that. . . . Very wrong of Adolphine.”
“But it’s sa-ad, all the same, very sa-ad, for Adolph-ine, all those art-icles,” whined Cateau. “They up-set her. She’s cry-ing, And it’s anything but plea-sant for Van Na-ghel, don’t you think, Un-cle?” ​This to Uncle Ruyvenaer, who was standing behind her.
“It’s beastly, it’s beastly!” said Uncle. “They ought never to have come and lived here. It was very wrong of Marie to encourage them.”
“Oh, well, Herman,” said Auntie, “you must remember she’s the mother!”
“Just for that reason . . .”
“Oh, Papa!” said Toetie, wearily. “That old perkara!”
“Nothing but korek in tempo doeloe in Holland,” said Auntie, crossly.
“Well, Aunt-ie,” said Cateau, taking offence, “they’re not al-ways so mor-al in the Ea-east!”
“But there’s not so much talk in Java as here,” said Auntie, angrily.
“Oh, I daresay they do some talk-ing there too!”
“But not so spitefully!” said Auntie, very angrily and finding her Dutch words with great difficulty. “Not . . . not so cruelly, so cruelly.”
“They ought never to have come and lived here,” Uncle Ruyvenaer repeated.
And he fussed off to Van Saetzema, whose eyes were still filled with terror at the possible duel.
“Look, Mamma,” said Toetie, winking towards Auntie Tine and Auntie Rine, who were sitting side by side in a corner of the big drawing-room, each with her knitting in her lap. “Those two are quite happy! They don’t bother about all these matters! They don’t know anything.” ​“In Holland . . .” said Auntie, crossly.
“But in the Ea-east!” . . . Cateau at once broke in, spitefully.
The rubber was spoilt, for Auntie, in her present state of irritation, could no longer see the cards in her hand. The old Indian lady felt that there was hostility to Constance among the relations; and, with the kindliness of a nature used to the little Indian scandals, she thought it exaggerated. Moreover, Cateau’s Dutch arrogance in speaking of “the East” had put her quite out of temper; and she flung her cards on the table and said:
“Soedah, I won’t play with you any more!”
And, without further explanation, she broke up the table and walked straight to Constance, who sat talking to Paul in a corner:
“I’m coming to sit with you a bit, Constance!”
“Do, Auntie.”
“What I want to say to you is, don’t mind about it! Shake it off your cold clothes! What does it matter? Hor-r-rible article! But I tell you: shake it off your cold clothes!”
And Auntie talked away, suddenly lighting on all sorts of queer Dutch words and expressions, told Constance of horrible articles in India which people out there had shaken off their cold clothes.
At this moment, Bertha, Van Naghel and Marianne arrived, very late. Mamma at once went up to them. The people in the two rooms now made ​some attempt to adopt an attitude; and their excitement cooled down. But it struck them all that Van Naghel looked exceedingly tired, Bertha pale and Marianne as though she had been crying; her eyes were specks under her swollen lids. They exchanged vague, almost doleful good-evenings, giving a hand here, a kiss there. . . .
After all the agitation, a gloom descended upon the family. The voices sank into a whisper. And, through the whispering, suddenly, the voices of the two old aunts sounded piercingly, as they spoke to the Van Naghels:
“Yes, yes, I remember you, I know you. Good-evening, Van Naghel.”
“Good-evening, Aunt.”
“Good-evening, Toetie. Yes, yes, I know you: you’re Toetie, Van Naghel’s wife. And who’s that?”
“That’s my girl, Auntie: Marianne. And I’m Bertha. . . .”
“Oh, yes, that’s Emilietje!” Auntie Tine screamed in Auntie Rine’s ear, in a moment of sudden and not yet perfect lucidity. “That’s Toetie’s daughter Emilie-etje!”
“No, Auntie, Emilie is married!”
“What d’you say? Is she dead?”
“No,” screamed Auntie Tine, “Floortje, Floortje is married! This is Emilie-etje!”
“Oh, I see! Good-evening, Emilietje.”
A smile lit up gloomy features here and there. The aunts never knew any one properly, were always ​a little muddled among all those nephews and nieces of a later generation. And, as a rule, nobody troubled for more than a moment to remind them of the real names. With the stubbornness of extremely old women, they continued to cling to their confusion of generations, persons and names.
Constance, sitting beside Paul, watched Bertha. In an importunate obsession to immerse herself in what she, at that moment, called her own disgrace—especially as that disgrace had been stamped in print—she had done nothing but ask Paul:
“Let me read it!”
And Paul had done nothing but say:
“No, Constance, don’t read it!”
Constance now saw, by the faces of Van Naghel, Bertha and Marianne, that they knew about it and had read it. All three said how-do-you-do to her in a very cold tone.
Van Naghel was at once asked by Mamma to make up one of the tables. The old woman, like Constance, had read nothing, knew nothing certain; but a word seized here and there had alarmed her, had worried her; and she felt very unhappy, as if on the verge of tears. She noticed in her children, as it were for the first time, something strange and hard, in the nervous excitement of that evening, something, it is true, which at once hushed and calmed down when she approached, but which left a strained feeling behind it, a lack of harmony which she did not understand. Was it because of that scurrilous paper? Or did they disapprove of Constance’ going ​to Bertha’s on her day? The old woman did not know; but never had a Sunday evening passed with such difficulty; and yet what was it all about? An article, a visit. . . . An article, a visit. . . . She endeavoured, despairingly, to look upon these things as small, as meaningless, as nothing; but it was no use: the question of the visit was very important, an undoubted blunder on Constance’ part; and the article—Heavens, the article!—was, though she herself had not read it, a disgrace, raking up the scandal of years ago which soiled and defiled all her children, all, all her nearest and dearest. No, these things were not insignificant: they were great and important things in their lives. What, what could be more important than what might happen through that visit to Bertha and—Heavens!—a scurrilous article? . . .
Bertha refused to play, declared that she hadn’t the head for it. And, though she had at first deliberately avoided Constance, she now seemed constantly, almost fatally, to be moving nearer her, restlessly, unable to keep her seat, amid the excitement which once more slowly took hold of them all, after their first attempt at calmness from respect for their brother-in-law, the cabinet-minister. But Constance went on talking to Paul and, in her turn, avoided her sister’s glances; until, at last, Bertha, as though unable to keep it in any longer, sat down on a chair beside her and said:
“Constance . . .”
“Well?” ​“Van Naghel is. . .”
“Van Naghel is what?”
“Van Naghel is . . . very much put out. I can’t understand how he can play bridge.”
“What is he put out about?”
“About you.”
“About me?”
“Yes, about you.”
“I’m sorry, Bertha!” said Constance, coolly. “What have I done wrong?”
“Of course, it’s not your fault, about those articles. But the first was exceedingly unpleasant for Van Naghel . . .”
“And the second I haven’t read,” said Constance, coldly.
“No,” Paul broke in, “I advised Constance not to read it.”
“And I don’t mean to read it: it has ceased to interest me. Is Van Naghel put out by that article about me?”
“He’s put out by the visit . . .”
“The visit . . .?”
“The visit you paid me, on Tuesday.”
“Is Van Naghel put out by a visit which I paid you on Tuesday?” asked Constance, very contemptuously, in surprise.
“You ought not to have come on my day.”
“I ought not to have . . .?”
“Don’t be angry, Constance: I have had such a scene with my husband as it is! Don’t be angry, for Heaven’s sake! Don’t misunderstand me. I ​am full of sympathy for you: you are my sister and I am fond of you; but that doesn’t alter the fact that you were wrong, that you ought not to have come on my day. Why did you do it? I am so glad to see you at any other time. But just on an at-home day, when you risked meeting, well, just the people whom you did meet: Mrs. van Eilenburgh, the Van den Heuvel Steyns! Why did you do it? What made you do it?”
“So I am not fit to appear at my sister’s at-home day?”
“Please, Constance, don’t take it like that. I am not unsympathetic. We even had a talk once . . .”
Constance laughed aloud:
“Once!” she said. “Once!”
“Life is very busy, Constance. But I am always glad to see you. Only, only . . .”
“Only not on your days.”
“It’s not my fault.”
“No, it’s mine.”
“Mrs. van Eilenburgh is a niece of . . .”
“De Staffelaer.”
It was the first time that his name had been mentioned between them.
“The Van den Heuvel Steyns are . . .”
“His friends.”
“So, Constance, you understand for yourself . . .”
“I told you on Tuesday, Bertha, I am going to make my fifteen years count.”
“Constance, don’t attempt impossibilities.” ​“What’s an impossibility?”
“Don’t think only of yourself. Think of us. Think of Van Naghel, of his position. You make it impossible for him, if you insist on . . .”
“Coming to your at-home days . . .?”
“For goodness’ sake, Constance, don’t be angry. It is impossible.”
“What is?”
“For you to . . .”
“What?”
“To force the position. When Mamma spoke to us, eight months ago, about you coming to the Hague, Van Naghel at once said that our house was open to you and your husband, but that you must not push and assert yourselves.”
“So that was the condition?”
“It was not a condition, Constance: it was merely advice, given in your own interest . . .”
“And in yours.”
“Very well, in ours too. People come to my days, just because of my husband’s position and connections, people who are relations and friends of De Staffelaer’s, people who have never forgiven you and never will. Can’t you see that for yourself, Constance? Must I explain it to you?”
“Bertha, I never had any desire to push or assert myself.”
“Then what makes you?”
“What makes me?” And it was as though Constance was searching for the answer. “What but you, all of you?” ​“Don’t be unreasonable, Constance.”
“What else did I want but to come and live here quietly at the Hague and see all of you again—my brothers, my sisters, your children—without ever dreaming of pushing myself? Who first spoke of pushing? You, you and your husband, Bertha!”
“Constance!”
“Who first spoke about the Court, Bertha? Adolphine.”
“Please, Constance, please . . .”
“I never thought, Bertha, of getting presented at Court; but now I shall, at the first occasion that offers.”
“Constance!” And Bertha wrung her hands. “It’s impossible!”
“Yes, it is possible; and I mean to do it.”
“Constance, how can you wish to defy people’s opinions like that!”
“Because of those very people!”
“I don’t understand you, Constance. All my friends . . .”
“Exactly, because of your friends.”
“All our family . . .”
“Because of our family.”
“Wait a bit, Constance. I don’t understand you. I don’t know what you mean to say. But just consider, just consider. You are not only making yourself impossible, but you are making us impossible: my husband, my house, our position, our children. . . .”
“Nonsense!” ​“It’s not nonsense, Constance. Do you want to make me regret that we yielded to Mamma’s wish to have you here again, near her, among us all?”
“No, Bertha, but I can no longer remain—for the sake of people, for the sake of the family—in the same obscure corner in which I remained for years in Brussels, where I was disowned by all of you as a disgrace. I can’t do it, Bertha, I can’t do it. I could do it, as far as I am concerned; but I can’t, because of my son.”
“He is a child still.”
“He is growing older every day. I see, Bertha, that I ought either to have stayed away from you all, without indulging my modest yearnings and simple wishes, or else to have rehabilitated myself at once, in the eyes of all the Hague.”
“Constance . . .”
“But it’s not too late. It’s not too late to repair my mistake. I can still take steps towards my rehabilitation. And I ask, I demand that rehabilitation, of you, Bertha, in particular.”
“Of me?”
“Yes, Bertha, of you in particular. Just because you are the sister whose husband not only occupies a high position, but also possesses more connections than any of us in the set that used to be our father’s. Just for that reason, Bertha, I demand my rehabilitation of you. If I’m not to be allowed to live quietly, in a corner, at the Hague, surrounded by a little family-affection; if those simple wishes are to ​be discussed and criticized; if they are the cause that my unfortunate past—my fault, my sin, whatever you like to call it—is raked up, not only in dirty little scurrilous rags, but also at the gossipy tea-parties and clubs at the Hague, then I will come out of my corner, then I will be rehabilitated: not for my own sake alone, but mainly for my son’s; and I demand my rehabilitation of you. It is possible that you don’t care for my sisterly love; but, as a condition of that love, I now demand my rehabilitation.”
“But, good Heavens, Constance, what can I, what can I do for you?”
“What can you do for me? Receive me on your at-home days. Make it clear to your husband that you must receive me, that you can’t act otherwise towards a sister than receive her, now that she has once—in an evil hour—returned to the Hague. Not hesitate any longer to introduce me to whoever it may be, in your drawing-room,” she exclaimed, with her dark eyes quivering, her every nerve trembling, as she sat between Bertha and Paul.
Her sister was almost panting with suppressed excitement and helplessness, while her brother listened in dismay to her demands, which appeared to him, the blasé, world-worn sage, to contain no philosophy whatever. And Constance went on:
“What can you do for me? Look upon it as only natural—and try to make your friends look upon it as natural—that you should receive me!”
“I should be very glad to do all that you ask of me, Constance, if there was not the objection that ​we see and always have seen relations and friends of De Staffelaer’s.”
“Isn’t your sister worth a single effort to you?”
“I can’t choose between my husband and my sister.”
“Bertha!” said Constance, almost weeping with excitement and nervousness. “Bertha! Try! For Heaven’s sake, try to do what I ask! It’s for my child! It’s not for me: it’s for my son! He will have to take up a career which I, which I made impossible for Van der Welcke. Do it for my son’s sake. God in His Heaven! Must I go on my knees to you? Do it, I beseech you, Bertha: try, try to do it; speak to Van Naghel. . . .”
“Constance, I will speak to Van Naghel; but how can you ever hope not that we, but that other people will forgive, will forget: De Staffelaer’s relations, De Staffelaer’s old friends?”
“Yes, I do hope it! And, if you help me, Bertha, if you help me, it will not be so utterly impossible.”
“How do I know that Mrs. van Eilenburgh or the Van den Heuvel Steyns will ever come to us again, after meeting you at my house?”
“So you decline?” cried Constance, flaring up. “So you refuse?”
“Constance, I should like to do what you ask; there is nothing I should like better. But people, but Van Naghel . . .”
“Then let me speak to Van Naghel!”
“Constance . . .”
“Let me speak to Van Naghel, I say!” ​“Don’t make a scene.”
“I sha’n’t make a scene; but let me speak to Van Naghel. I see your husband is getting up: he has finished playing. Tell him I want to speak to him. Let Van der Welcke be present at our conversation. Paul, you must be there too. . . .”
“But, Constance, why, why speak to him? I am so afraid Mamma will notice . . .”
“No, Mamma will see nothing. I want to give her as little pain as possible. But I must speak to your husband, in your presence and Van der Welcke’s. I must, Bertha, and I will. Call your husband. And we’ll go into the boudoir.”
She rose, trembling. She was shaking all over; and, as she almost fell where she stood, a sudden thought arose in her and paralyzed all her energies:
“Why am I talking like this, thinking like this, wishing this? How small I am, how small my conduct is! Really, what does it all matter: people; and what they think; and what they write and say? Is that life? Is that all? Is there nothing else? . . .”
But another thought gave her fresh zest, fresh courage. She remembered the conversation which she had had with her husband a little while ago, she remembered his reproach that she was not thinking of her son, that she was doing nothing for her son, that she would let herself take root in the shade, continue to vegetate, in her disgrace, in her corner, withdrawn into herself, in her own rooms, would continue to sit “cursing her luck” in her ​Kerkhoflaan. No, she felt fresh zest, fresh courage; and she almost pushed Bertha as she repeated:
“Call your husband. . . . Paul, will you please call Van der Welcke and ask him to come to the boudoir? . . .”
She could hardly walk, she was pale as a corpse; and her black eyes quivered. She went alone to the little boudoir. There was no one there. Decanters, glasses, cakes and sandwiches were put out, as usual. She looked up at her father’s portrait. Oh, what an ugly daub it seemed to her: hard, with the hard, expressionless eyes and all that false glitter on the yellow-and-white stars of the decorations! It stared at her like an implacable spectre, grim and unforgiving. It stared at her almost as though it wished to speak:
“Go. Go away. Go out of my house of honour, of greatness and decency. Go. Go away. Go out of my town. Go away from me and mine. Go. It was you who murdered me. You caused my long illness, you caused my death, you, you! Go!”
The little room stifled her. She would have liked to run away, but Van der Welcke and Paul entered.
“What do you want to do, Constance?” asked Van der Welcke.
“To speak to Van Naghel.”
“Not an explanation?”
“I don’t know. He’s annoyed at my visit of Tuesday last.”
“Annoyed!” Van der Welcke seethed. “Annoyed at your visit!” ​“For God’s sake, Van der Welcke!” cried Paul, terrified. “Don’t always fly out like that. Do remember . . .”
“Annoyed!” foamed Van der Welcke. “Annoyed!”
“Henri, please!” cried Constance. “I thank you for resenting the insult offered to your wife. But restrain yourself: he’ll be here in a minute. Restrain yourself, for Addie’s sake. . . .”
“Restrain myself! Restrain myself!” shouted Van der Welcke, like a madman.
The door opened. Van Naghel and Bertha entered.
“Do you want to speak to me, Constance?” asked Van Naghel.
“I should very much like to speak to you for a moment, Van Naghel,” said Constance, while Paul made signs to Van der Welcke as though begging him to control himself. “Bertha tells me that you are sorry that I called at your house on Tuesday, on her reception-day.”
“Constance,” Van Naghel began, cautiously, trying to be diplomatic, “I . . .”
“Forgive me for interrupting you, Van Naghel. I ask you kindly, let me finish and say what I have to say. It is simply this: I regret that I went to your house, on Bertha’s at-home day, without first asking if I should be welcome. I admit, it was a mistake. I oughtn’t to have done it. I ought first to have spoken to the two of you as I am glad to be speaking to you now, Van Naghel, to explain my ​position and my wishes, in the hope that you will show some indulgence to your wife’s sister and consent to help her fulfil a natural desire. You see, Van Naghel, when I arrived here, eight months ago, I had no other thought than to live here quietly, in my corner, with a little affection around me, a little affection from my brothers and sisters, whom I had not seen for so long. It is true, I had no particular claim to that affection; but, when I felt within myself a wish, a longing, a yearning for Holland, for the Hague, for all of you, I cherished the illusion that there would be something—just a little—of that feeling in my brothers and sisters. I don’t know how far I was mistaken; I won’t go into that now. Bertha has just told me that she feels to me as to a sister; and I accept that gratefully. Van Naghel, I cannot expect that you, my brother-in-law, should have any sort of family feeling for me; but, as Bertha’s husband, I ask you, I beg of you, try to be a brother to me. Help me. Don’t resent that I paid you a visit without notice and, in so doing, shocked and surprised you. But allow me, allow me—I ask it as a favour, Van Naghel, for my son’s sake—allow me, in your house first of all, to try and attain . . . to attain a sort of rehabilitation, in the eyes of our acquaintances, in the eyes of all the Hague. I stand here entreating you, Van Naghel: grant me this and help me. Allow me to come on your wife’s days, even though I do meet friends and relations of De Staffelaer’s. Good Heavens, Van Naghel, what harm, what earthly harm can it do you to exercise ​your authority and protect me a little and defend me against mean and petty slanders? If you show some magnanimity and help me to make people . . . to make people forget what I did fifteen, fifteen years ago, they will drop their slanders; and I shall be rehabilitated, in your house, Van Naghel, just because of your high position and the consideration which you enjoy and your many connections and your power to carry out what you set your mind on. Van Naghel, if only you would help me: if not for my own sake, for my son’s! It’s to help him, later, in his career, which he will take up at his father’s wish and his grandparents’: the same career as his father’s, which I ruined. I am asking so little of you, Van Naghel; and because you are you, it means so little for you to consent to my request. Van Naghel, Papa helped you, in the old days: I ask you now to help me, his child and your wife’s sister. Let me come to Bertha’s receptions. You know Mrs. van Eilenburgh: help me to prepare people for my intention—which they were really the first to suggest—to be presented at Court; and ask us, this winter, once, just once, to one of your official dinners.”
She stood before her brother-in-law, pale and trembling, almost like a supplicant; and, while she besought him, the thought flashed through her mind:
“What am I begging for? How base and small I am making myself: dear God, how terribly small! And is that, seriously, life? Is that the only life? Or is there something else? . . .” ​She looked around her. While she stood in front of Van Naghel, Bertha had sunk into a chair, trembling with nervous excitement, while Van der Welcke and Paul, as though in expectation, listened breathlessly to Constance’ words, which came in broken jerks from her throat. Then, at last, slowly, as though he were speaking in the Chamber, Van Naghel’s voice made itself heard, softly, with its polite, rather affected and pompous intonation:
“Constance, I shall certainly do my best to satisfy all your wishes, all your requests. I will help you, as far as I can, if you really think that I can be of use to you. Certainly I owe a great deal to Papa; and, if, later, I can possibly do anything for your son, I assure you—and you, too, Van der Welcke—I shall not fail to do so. I give you my hand on it, my hand. I shall certainly, gladly, with all my heart, help Addie in the career which he selects: you may be sure of that. But, Constance, what you ask me so frankly, to . . . to invite you and Van der Welcke to one of our dinners, at which you would meet people who really, really would have no attraction for you: oh, you wouldn’t care for it, Constance, I assure you, you really wouldn’t care for it! And, if you want my honest opinion, honestly, as between brother and sister, I should say to you, candidly, Constance, don’t insist on coming to our official dinners: they’re no amusement; they’re an awful bore, sometimes: boring, aren’t they, Bertha? Very tedious, very tedious, sometimes. And the receptions, ​at which you are always likely to meet people you wouldn’t care for: well, if you take my advice . . .”
“Is that all, Van Naghel, that you have to say, when I lay bare my soul to you, here, between brothers and sisters, and, without any diplomatic varnish, ask you, as far as you can, to rehabilitate me in your house?”
“But, Constance, what a word! What a word to use! . . .”
“It’s the right word, Van Naghel; there is no other word: I want my rehabilitation.”
“Constance, really, I am prepared to help you in all you ask: and whatever is in my power . . .”
But Van der Welcke flared up:
“Van Naghel, please keep those non-committal expressions for the Chamber. My wife asked you and I now ask you: will you receive us this winter in a way that will make your set, which was once ours, take us up, even though we rub shoulders with De Staffelaer’s nephews and nieces and even though people talk about what happened fifteen years ago?”
“Van der Welcke,” said Van Naghel, nettled, “the expressions I choose to employ in the Chamber are my own affair.”
“Answer my question!”
“Henri!” Constance implored.
“Answer my question!” insisted Van der Welcke, full of suppressed rage, feeling ready to smash everything to pieces.
“Well then, no!” said Van Naghel, haughtily. ​“No? . . .”
“It’s impossible! I have too many attacks to endure as it is, in the Chamber, in the press, everywhere; and I can’t do what you ask. You have made yourself impossible, to our Hague society, you and your wife, the wife of your former chief; and it’s simply impossible that I should receive you in my house on the same footing as my friends, acquaintances and colleagues. That is no reason why we should not continue to be brothers and sisters.”
“And do you think I would wish for or accept your brotherliness on those terms?”
“Then refuse it!” cried Van Naghel, himself losing his temper and forgetting to pick his words. “Refuse it; and all the better for me! I shall be only too glad to have nothing more to do with you. Your wife compromised me the other day by coming to Bertha’s reception, as if it were a matter of course . . .”
Van der Welcke clenched his fists:
“My wife,” he echoed, “compromised you? By coming to . . .?”
“Van der Welcke!” Paul entreated.
“Yes,” said Van Naghel. “She did.”
“Don’t you dare,” cried Van der Welcke, “don’t you dare to criticize my wife’s actions in any way!”
“Your wife compromised us,” Van Naghel repeated.
But Van der Welcke let himself go, unable to restrain himself any longer. He made a rush for Van Naghel, raised his hand: ​“Take that!” he shouted, crimson with rage, utterly beside himself.
But Paul flung himself between them and seized Van der Welcke’s arm. Bertha burst into hysterics, uttered scream after scream. Constance almost fainted. The two men stood facing each other, no longer drawing-room people, blazing now with mutual hatred:
“I am at your disposal, whenever you please!” said Van der Welcke.
“Of course you are!” yelled Van Naghel, his eyes starting out of his head, his cheeks scarlet as though he had actually received the blow. “Of course you are! You have nothing to lose. You can afford to behave like a quarrelsome puppy, hitting people, fighting, duelling . . .”
And, turning on his heel, quivering with rage and shame, he disappeared from their eyes through the door that opened on the landing. . . .
The door of the drawing-room opened. Dorine, Adolphine and Cateau had heard the angry words, had heard Bertha’s sobs and screams. They went to Bertha’s assistance, while Paul urged Constance, who was half fainting, to go into the drawing-room. She staggered to her feet:
“My God!” she cried. “Henri! Henri! What have you done!”
Mrs. van Lowe came up, with Aunt Ruyvenaer:
“My child, my child!”
Constance was clinging to Paul like a madwoman and kept on repeating: ​“My God! Henri! Henri! What have you done!”
Addie came up.
"Mamma!”
“Addie! Addie! My boy! My God! My God! What has Papa done!”
Mamma van Lowe dropped into a chair, sobbing.
But, at that moment, the two old aunts, sitting all alone in the second drawing-room, looked up. On those evenings, they used generally to doze, hardly recognizing the various relations, and to wait until the cakes and lemonade were handed round, going home after they had had them. But, this evening, sitting quietly in their chairs, looking quietly, with eyes askance, at the people talking and playing their cards and uttering their harsh judgments, they felt the usual peaceful calmness to be absent from Marie’s family-Sunday. There was something the matter. Something was happening, they did not know what. But it suddenly seemed as though Auntie Tine, when she saw her younger sister, Mrs. van Lowe, bursting into sobs, became very lucid, for, opening wide and clear her screwed-up eyes, she said to Auntie Rine, very loudly, with the sharp tone of a woman hard of hearing, to whom her own voice sounds soft and almost whispering:
“Rine, Rine, Marie’s crying!”
“What? Is she crying, Tine?”
“Yes, she’s crying.”
“What is she crying for?” ​“No doubt, Rine, because one of the children’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, Rine.”
“Oh, how sad! Is she crying?”
“Yes, she’s crying. She’s crying, Rine, about Gertrude.”
“About whom?”
“About Gertrude. About Ger-tru-ude!” Auntie Rine began to scream. “She’s dead, Rine.”
“Is she dead?”
“Yes, the poor little thing died at Buitenzorg.”
“Oh, how sad! Is Marie still crying, Tine?”
“Yes, she’s still crying, Rine.”
“But then who’s that one, Tine?”
“Who, Rine?”
“That one, the girl standing beside her? She’s crying, she’s crying too!”
“Beside her?”
“Yes, can’t you see? She’s crying too!”
“Yes, yes!” screamed Tine, quite lucid now. “I know her, Rine, I know her quite well, quite well.”
“Then who is it? Is it Bertha?”
“No, Rine!” Auntie Tine screamed, gradually more and more shrilly, always thinking that she was whispering in her deaf sister’s ear. “It’s not Bertha. It’s not Bertha. But I know her, I know her.”
“Then who is she?” Auntie Rine screamed, in her turn.
“I’ll tell you who she is. I’ll tell you who she is. It’s Constance!” yelled Auntie Rine. ​“Who?”
“Constance!”
“Constance?”
“Yes, Constance!”
“Constance?”
“Yes, Constance!”
“The bad one!” screamed Auntie Rine.
“Yes, Rine, the bad one, Rine. She’s a wicked woman, Rine, a wicked woman! She has a lover! . . .”
“A lover?”
“Yes, Rine. Can you understand her being here? Can you understand that she’s not ashamed? Can you understand her showing herself? Yes, Rine, she’s a wicked woman, she’s . . . she’s . . .”
“What is she, Tine?”
“She’s . . . she’s a trollop, Rine!” Auntie Tine yelled, shrilly. “A common trollop! A trollop!”
“Christine!” cried Mrs. van Lowe. “Christine! Dorine!”
And she stood up and tottered, with outstretched arms, towards the two old sisters. But there was a loud scream and a laugh that cut into everybody like a knife: Constance had fainted in Paul’s arms. . . .
The boy, Addie, looked round with a haughty glance. He had heard everything, as had Van der Welcke, who stood listening apprehensively at the door of the boudoir. The son saw his father’s deathly-pale face staring like a mask. He saw the horror of his grandmother and of all his uncles and aunts. He now saw his mother prostrate in a chair, ​her head hanging back, like a corpse. And his boyish lips, with their faint shading of down, curved into a scornful smile as he said:
“It’s all about nothing! … ”
THE END
* ↑ Enough of, have done with.
* ↑ To rake up old times.
* ↑ Fuss, unpleasantness.
* ↑ Hullo!
* ↑ Bad luck.
* ↑ Oh, nonsense!
* ↑ Business.
* ↑ Aunt Ruyvenaer here perpetrates the blunder, common among half-caste ladies, of mixing up two separate Dutch proverbs.