Louis Couperus

“ What had become of the melancholy contentment that had brought Constance her gentle happiness? And, when they met again at meals and the boy, the sensible, merry little comrade of old, who had always enlivened those meal-times, sat in silence, ate in silence, with his serious boy’s face, firm in outline already and yet with the soft bloom of the child upon it, and his steel-blue eyes full of thought, then they would timidly stare at each other again and the same discouragement would send its cry of despair from out of their timid glance. ”

“ But Mamma van Lowe had sent Constance a sweet and loving letter, a letter which Constance had kissed, which had made her sob with happiness. Mamma had written that her child was to come to her, that all was forgiven, all forgotten, that the brothers and sisters would receive her with open arms. And she had expressed her own delight, as the old mother, who found it so difficult to get about, who disliked travelling, though it was but a two or three hours’ journey to Brussels, and hated being so far from her child, for Constance was her child, in spite of all. ”

“ She merely asked to live quietly at the Hague, in her own country, and to be loved a little by all her relations, for whom she felt that strange, powerful feeling, that family-affection. That was all; she asked for nothing more. She demanded nothing more of life than to be allowed to grow old like that, with a little forgiveness and forbearance around her, and then to see her boy grow up into a man, while she, for the boy’s sake, would endure her life, as best she could, by the side of her husband. ”

“ Look at Adolphine, Connie. Just like a bird talking slander: pip, pip, pip! How Bertha’s ears must tingle! Great Heavens, those eyes of Bertha’s, always blinking! She ought to have something done to them. . . . Look at Dorine, Connie. She always looks repulsive. . . . As a matter of fact, Connie, there are only two good-looking people in the room: Mamma and yourself. . . .”
“And you, Paul. . . .”
“Your husband has a good figure too: he has an attractive back. I have an eye for nice backs. I don’t like my own back; and yet my coat sits well, doesn’t it? A dress-coat is a very tricky thing. ”

“ Oh, the passionate longing of those last years, ever and ever more passionate! Oh, how lonely she had been, and how she had pined for Holland, for the Hague, for her relations! During all those years, she had been an outcast from her home, an exile, as it were, during all those long, hungry years. Twenty years she had spent abroad! For five of them she had been married to De Staffelaer, the five years in Rome, and then . . . oh, the one mistake of her life! Ah, how she had pined since that mistake, incessantly! . . . And, after the child was born, she had pined incessantly. ”

“ Those were gloomy meals; and Constance asked Van der Welcke why Addie was so gloomy, so different from what he had been. Now that the boy was gloomy, with that new, strange and serious gloominess, they both sought each other more than they had done, talked to each other, calmly, without angry scenes. Now that the child was still suffering, they both, together, sought for a solution, how to stop his suffering. And, helpless in the midst of this entirely new confidence, they looked at each other as though in despair, because they thought the solution too terrible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And now that there’s a guest, now that we are in our dinner-jackets and Constance in an evening-frock, now that there are grapes and flowers on the table and a more elaborate menu than usual, now she does not lose her temper and won’t lose her temper, however many rocks we may have to steer past. I believe that, even if we began to talk about infidelity and divorce, about marriages with old men and love-affairs with young ones, she would remain quite calm, smiling prettily with those little dimples at the corners of her mouth, as though nothing could apply to her. ”

“ That was the crowning glory of her old age, as a mother and grandmother. It represented to her a beautiful idea, a natural ideal, an illusion attained: a comfort for the peaceful declining years of the lonely woman in her big house. That she preferred to be lonely in her big house and would not have Dorine, nor Ernst, nor Paul to live with her was an eccentricity which in no way detracted from her cult of the beautiful idea, from her perfect happiness at seeing the ideal realized, the illusion attained. She had a happy old age. ”

“ I feel that there is neither love nor fear of God in you, that everything in your life, in your relations with your wife, with your child, lacks a religious tendency. It makes me very sad. I could never have pictured things like that. I at least thought that you would have asked God's forgiveness daily for the sin you once committed, the sin against yourself, your parents, that woman, her husband, against the world, against God. I never imagined you, Henri, so obdurate, so entirely without repentance, regretting merely your own ruined life and shattered career. ”

“ I can't be grateful when I feel so bitter."
"But, Constance, you're back now and we are all glad to have you back."
"Bertha, I don't know if you mean what you say. I do know that I am happy to be back, in Holland, among you all. But I also know that, in twenty years, people drift far apart; and perhaps I, who had become a stranger, was not wise to come back to all of you, to want to be a sister to you again."
"Perhaps we shall have to get used to one another, Constance, as sisters; but you always remained a daughter to Mamma; and I am very glad for Mamma's sake." ”

“ She rose and went to Adolphine:
“Phine,” she said, frankly, “don’t be angry if I am not very talkative, but I have such a headache. And I really do think it nice of you to look me up. Come often. Let us see a lot of each other. I only came to the Hague because of you all. I wanted you so badly. I have dragged through so many dreary years. I have no one in my life, except my boy. And he is still so young; and I tell him too much as it is. I have been very unhappy, Adolphine, Phine. Be nice to me, be a little fond of your Constance. ”

“ In that noisy, fussy, bawling household, the girl had always been a little fragile, a little pale, a little quiet, like a small, gentle alien that could not cope with the hard voices of Mamma and the sisters and the rough horseplay of the brothers; and Addie talked so nicely, so pleasantly, so politely, so gallantly, so very differently from Chris and Piet and Jaap.
"The Italian wasn't here last Sunday."
"Then he's sure to come to-day."
"He always comes once a fortnight."
"That's the Italian fashion."
"Why do you boys always call Addie the Italian?" asked Marietje. ”

“ Since then, life had set its mark on Constance. Often now, as a woman of forty-two, she felt a dull melancholy in pondering on her life; she let her life, one woman’s life, glide past her gaze once more; she began with her childish years in India; saw once more the splendour and grandeur of Buitenzorg; criticized her own vanity during her girlhood at the Hague; saw her marriage as the great mistake of her life; saw, as the second, irrevocable mistake of her life, all that had happened with Van der Welcke. ”

“ I say, Connie, look at Mamma: what a grand old woman, the way she walks, laughs and talks! Now that's something like: you see at once that she's a great lady. Look at old Mrs. Friesesteijn beside her: common, noisy, spiteful; a figure like a charwoman's. Hideous, hideous!... Look at Ernst, Connie. Would you ever believe that was a brother of mine? Just like an old Jew; and what a dress-coat, what a dress-coat! Where on earth did the beggar get it cut? He spends all his money on jugs and vases!... Look at Gerrit, Connie. ”

“ The maid, holding up Emilie's train, followed her into the bedroom; Marianne and Constance remained behind alone. Constance saw that Marianne was crying.
"What is it, dear?"
"Oh, Auntie!"
"What is it?"
"Is life worth all this bother and fuss? Getting married, moving your things, dancing, giving dinners and parties, ordering dresses that don't fit and cost hundreds, being ill, having babies, eating boeboer: Auntie, is it really all worth while?"
"Why, Marianne, I might be listening to Paul!" ”

“ I am an idealist: in my own mind, I see everything in a rosy light. My power of imagination is so strong that I see everything white and gold and blue, like the marble statues of ancient temples, with their blue sky and golden sun. But, when I take leave of my imagination, then I see that everything is human wretchedness: wars; politics; the fat stomach of our friend yonder; the rain; and those pots and pans which you’re wanting for your kitchen. All life, high and low, general and individual, in the masses and in the classes, is squalid, ugly, insincere and full of human wretchedness. ”

“ And the delicate bloom on his child-soul, which was like the soul of a little man, was not only offended by that slander and soiled by it and profaned, but that fledgling man's soul, with its downy freshness, was startled and astonished and shocked and did not understand why the people around him uttered slanders, the people for whom Mamma had longed because she missed them so in her loneliness and because she was filled with that strange feeling, that passion for her family. ”

“ But, for this very reason, they did not see how Addie could care to go to Uncle Gerrit’s and play with all those babies there. They thought him a queer boy, they did not really like him; but his intimacy with Frans and Henri van Naghel gave Addie a sort of manly, grown-up air which they secretly envied. And so, in order, in their turn, to appear manly and grown-up before Addie, they could never, walking or bicycling, pass a woman without exchanging a coarse word or phrase or disapproval, like young men-about-town who know all about everything. ”

“ Mrs. van Lowe noticed nothing of what was troubling Constance; and, when, on Sunday, the members of the family all met again, the old woman was radiant in the illusion of their great attachment to one another. The children always kept her in ignorance of their disputes, kept her, out of love and respect, in her dear illusion. Adolphine never spoke cattishly of Bertha, in Mamma's presence; was amiable to Constance. The old lady knew nothing of the quarrel between Addie and Jaap, nothing of the explanation which Van der Welcke had demanded from the Van Saetzemas. ”

“ Adeline was a dear little woman, a fair-haired, little doll-mother, with her seven children, like a family of flaxen-haired dolls: the oldest a girl turned eight, the youngest a baby of a year or so; and Gerrit was always making jokes about not leaving off yet; and indeed Adeline was expecting another in the autumn. So Constance got on well with Gerrit and Adeline, but still she felt out of touch with this brother too, even though Gerrit had such a charming way of bringing back the memory of their early days, when they used to play in the river at Buitenzorg. ”

“ Louise sad because of Otto, whom she is so fond of; Emilie married now—but how married, poor thing, and why?—and Marianne all nerves and not knowing what she wants; and Henri too so melancholy: then I say to myself, 'Why have we all these children, for whom we live and think and contrive? And wouldn't it be better not to have them? And isn't it better to have as little as possible in one's life and to make that life as small and simple and quiet as possible, once we have to live? ”

“ Now De Staffelaer was Netherlands minister at Rome: a good-looking, hale old man; fairly well-suited to his post: not a political genius, like Papa, she thought; but still full of qualities, as Papa had always said. She was Papa’s favourite; and he had thought it so pleasant, was proud that De Staffelaer had just fallen in love with her, like a young man, and been unable to keep away from the Alexanderstraat when he came to Holland, to the Hague, once a year, on leave. She remembered Papa’s smile when he talked to her about De Staffelaer, hinting at what might happen. ”

“ Dorine van Lowe whisked through the hall and rushed upstairs, forgetting to put her wet umbrella in the stand. She clutched it in one hand, together with her skirt, which she forgot to let fall; in her arm she held a parcel pressed close to her, under her cape; in the other hand she carried her muff and her old black satin reticule; with the same hand, making a superhuman effort, she felt for her pocket-handkerchief and managed to blow her nose without dropping anything but four or five tram-tickets, which flew around her on every side.
Old Sientje followed her with her glance, severely. ”

“ You’re afraid of criticism, because you fear that, where so much criticism is passed, in such a hot-bed of criticism as our family, you yourself will not escape a severe judgment. But let me tell you now that you don’t know humanity, the humanity of small people. Small people criticize—because they think it fun, as Gerrit says—criticize a dress, or an evening-party, but they never criticize life. To begin with, they’re afraid to: small people are interested only in what is not serious, in what is really not worth while. ”

“ She was a woman: she did not care so much about the name. Bertha was her daughter, Otto her grandson, his children her grandchildren. She traced them back in this way to herself and the sound of the name mattered less to her. They were her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren; and she loved them all, with one great love, with a clannish love. That she lived alone in her big house was because she was old and could bear bustle only when it was expected, when she could prepare for it. ”

“ Constance looked at him in momentary perplexity. She could not speak for a second or two, did not understand. She herself had been brought up and had lived according to very punctilious rules of card-leaving; but yet she failed to understand how one brother-in-law could leave a card on another brother-in-law, before that other was in town and during a visit paid in his sister’s bedroom, amid all the muddle of her unpacked trunks. But she had been so long away from Holland and the Hague; she did not wish it to appear that she did not understand ”