Van der Welcke

“ Brauws roared; and Van der Welcke too. They laughed for quite a minute or two.
“Hans,” said Brauws, “how is it possible for any one to change as little as you have done? In all these years! You are just as incapable as in the old days of believing in anything serious.”
“If you imagine that there’s been nothing serious in my life,” said Van der Welcke, vexed.
And, with great solemnity, he once more told his friend about Constance, about his marriage, his shattered career.
Brauws smiled.
“You laugh, as if it all didn’t matter!” cried Van der Welcke, angrily. ”

“ Van der Welcke, strolling along the paths, found pleasure in watching Klaasje, the big girl of thirteen, tearing round the water, pursued by Jack, the new terrier, who barked and barked incessantly with his sharp, throaty bark.
"She is still just like a child," thought Van der Welcke, "and she is developing like a little woman. It is strange, the influence which Addie has over her . . . and the way the child is perking up now that the fine days have come. But it is not only the fine days, it is Addie above all that gives her this balance: what's it through, I wonder? ”

“ It was no longer the Hague now: it was Driebergen; it was Van der Welcke's house and Gerrit's children: Gerrit, how rough, how very rough he used to be, but even so not exactly wicked and depraved! And the cards as they were played one after the other fell from the fingers of Van der Welcke, Gerdy, Alex and Marietje. The same game; only life changed; the game did not change nor did the souls, the poor souls, ever and ever suffering around him, linking themselves to his soul with dragging chains.... ”

“ Van der Welcke got up, walked restlessly across the room, all blue with smoke, walked back again and suddenly stopped in front of Addie and took his son's head in his two hands:
"My boy, why was it necessary that your fate should be the same as your father's, an unhappy marriage?"
"Father...."
"Don't deny it. Why should you? Aren't we two friends who have always known all about each other? As a child, you were my friend. We were always like brothers. Why must your fate be the same as your father's, an unhappy marriage? You, who are so clever where others are concerned." ”

“ 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! ”

“ Van der Welcke seized him by the arm, took him into the garden. Klaasje lay half-asleep against the thick trunk of a beech, with Jack nestling in her little skirts, both tired with playing. The child was humming a tune, looking up at the sky, dreaming away amid all the gold that rained down upon her from between the leaves like glittering coins. ”

“ Whatever important things might be happening in the world, the one interest, when all was said, was to discuss, over and over again, a case like that of Constance. They disliked neither her nor Van der Welcke; and her case even attracted their interest, if not their sympathies. Only, the Van der Welckes must not think that their memory was so poor that they did not remember the “case” jolly well. . . . Only, the Van der Welckes ought not to have come back to the Hague, bringing fresh scandal into the exalted morality of the different Hague sets. ”

“ When he was to speak at the Hague for the second time, Van der Welcke said, excitedly:
"Constance, you must absolutely go and hear Brauws this evening. He's grand. You know, I can never listen to any one for more than a quarter of an hour . . ."
"Nor I for more than three minutes," said Paul, who was there. "But I love to talk for an hour on end myself."
"But Brauws: the fellow electrifies you. Though I think that Peace idea of his all rot. But that makes no difference: the chap speaks magnificently . . . I'm dining with Van Vreeswijck and we're going on together." ”

“ She did not often have scenes with Van der Welcke now, as though a brooding sadness had numbed her nerves. At half-past four, she would go to the window and watch longingly for her son, would cheer up a little when she saw him, when he talked nicely and pleasantly, her boy who was becoming more of a man daily. ”

“ Yes, those Dutchmen: they never wanted to fight if they could help it! He, Van der Welcke, would have liked to fight, though Van Naghel had been a thousand times his brother-in-law, a thousand times colonial secretary. And it wasn't only that the whole family had thought the very idea of a duel so dreadful; but his wise son had interfered, had taken up a very severe attitude to his father, had reproached him because he still "a young man," as Addie put it in his amusing way wanted to insult and strike a man of Uncle van Naghel's age, even though it was for Mamma's sake! ”

“ Karel and Cateau looked at Adriaan. The boy stood bolt upright before them, a strikingly handsome lad: he certainly resembled his father; he had Van der Welcke’s regular features, his round head, his short, soft, curly hair. At thirteen, an age when other boys are overgrown, gawky and clumsy in their ways, he was not tall, but well-proportioned and rather broadly built, with a pair of square shoulders in his blue serge jacket, with something about his gestures and movements that denoted a certain manliness and self-possession, uncommon in so young a boy. ”

“ Marietje, really very ill; Alex, so weak; Emilie, so crushed and melancholy: a Van Naghel, she, but still with Van Lowe blood in her: and Guy was a nice-looking boy, but so dull and sleepy; and Gerdy was a nice-looking girl, but full of eccentric ways, of course because she was a Van Lowe! Bah, they turned her stomach, that always ailing, half-mad family of her mother-in-law's, who had ensconced themselves in their house; and it was lucky that in Addie she found simply a Van der Welcke, Baron van der Welcke, a healthy fellow belonging to a healthy, normal family. ”

“ And the fishermen . . . the fishermen, Addie, went about like that too! . . . And the musicians . . . in the bandstand . . . were half-naked too; and . . . the tails . . . of their dress-coats . . . hung down . . . well . . . like that!"
Van der Welcke, as he told his dream in broken sentences, lay shaking with laughter; his whole bed shook, the sheets rose and fell; he was red in the face, as if on the verge of choking; he wept as though consumed with grief; he gasped for breath, threw the bed-clothes off:
"Just imagine it . . . just imagine it . . . you never . . . ”

“ And Van der Welcke now took his son's head in his hands.
"Father," said Addie, "I wonder if you realize . . . how devotedly I love you! It's something that I feel only for my parents and for my children, not for any woman."
"You're a funny chap," said Van der Welcke. "But it is not your fault. It is your parents' fault."
"If you only knew," Addie repeated, "how devotedly I love you . . . and Mamma! . . . And all of them here a bit too! . . . If I had my children here, then . . . Perhaps, perhaps they will come back later . . . very much later, with . . . with Mathilde. . . . ”

“ Van der Welcke, however, managed to keep cool and civil towards the father and mother, but again warned Jaap, so that he might know what to expect. And the whole family soon learnt that Van der Welcke had been to the Van Saetzemas’ and threatened Jaap; and all the members of the family had their different opinions, all except Mamma van Lowe, who was not told, who was always spared the revelation of any unpleasantness, from a sort of reverence on her children’s part, so that she really lived and reigned over them in a sort of illusion of harmony and close communion. ”

“ And she felt sorry even for her husband and for what he had always querulously resented, his shattered career, which had constituted his grudge, his obsession, the excuse for his inertia: for Van der Welcke and even for that grudge she felt compassion. How young he was when she met him, when they had acted their comedy, their comedy which had become deadly earnest! And she had at once fettered him to herself, in ever-increasing antagonism! ”

“ Henri van der Welcke had been brought up, from childhood, to yield unquestioning obedience to his parents. His father and mother were both descended from those strict, religious, doughty, aristocratic Dutch families to which the Hague "set" is a thorn in the flesh ”

“ But in his eyes, which had always remained young, there was seen a faint inflexion, of surprise, as though for the first time they had looked into the deeper life. His son kissed him, gently, went away, closed the door. And Van der Welcke's fingers continued to fumble with a newly-rolled cigarette. He forgot to light it. He stared in front of him....
Outside the house the wind blew moaning along the walls and drew its tapping fingers along every window, as along a vast keyboard.... ”

“ 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?” ”

“ Addie stood up and embraced his father.
"Don't squeeze the breath out of my body!" said Van der Welcke. "You're strong enough still. And you're looking well too. Your eyes look interested again, even though they're a bit too pensive. And they were always calm. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII Two days later, Addie went to meet his father at the station.
“Daddy, Daddy!” he shouted, as Van der Welcke stepped from the train.
They embraced; Van der Welcke was much moved, because it was fifteen years since he had been in Holland. Addie helped Papa with his luggage, like a man; and they drove away in a cab. ”

“ Chapter IX
“I went last night with Van Vreeswijck to hear Brauws speak at Diligentia,” said Van der Welcke, one morning. “The fellow’s inspired. He speaks extempore and magnificently; he’s an orator. A splendid fellow, the way he spoke: it was astounding.... I knew him years ago at Leiden. He was a queer chap even then. He did not belong to any particular club, not to ours either: his family is nothing out of the way. His father has a factory, I believe, somewhere in Overijssel. He himself has nothing of the tradesman about him. ”

“ He is not a young man, Constance, and your husband is under forty. It's true, Van der Welcke has apologized and Van Naghel appreciates it, but that doesn't prevent him from wishing to shake hands with Van der Welcke."
"I'll tell my husband, Bertha. But I don't know that he will think it so necessary to shake hands, any more than I do. We live very quietly now, Bertha, and people, Hague people, no longer concern us. And Van Naghel only wants to shake hands because of people." ”

“ Van der Welcke continued:
"Why must you always know so little that will help yourself? . . . At the time, I raised no objection. You were fond of the woman; you always knew your mind with such certainty ”

“ On returning home, Addie would look in for a cup of tea with Mamma and afterwards go to his turret-room to work. And then Van der Welcke always had a pretext, just like a schoolboy, to go and sit with his son, instead of staying in his little smoking-room:
"Addie, my fire's gone out. Shall I be disturbing you if I come and sit in here?" ”

“ And I want to tell you also that Van Naghel greatly appreciated Van der Welcke's writing to him to apologize. He has written to Van der Welcke to say so. But we should both like to call on you one day, to show you how glad we should be to come back to the old terms once more."
"Bertha," said Constance, a little impatiently and wearily, "I am prepared to receive your visit, but I should really like to know what is the good of it and why you suggest it. Do let us have some sincerity . . . when there is no occasion for hypocrisy. Sometimes one has to be insincere . ”

“ The boy, one-ideaed and persevering, worked on. . . .
“He’s an industrious little beggar,” thought Van der Welcke; and he hardly dared move for fear of disturbing Addie. “He’ll get through, this summer, though he was a bit behindhand. . . . One couldn’t go on as we were doing at Brussels, with that outside tutor. It’s just as well the boy came to Holland. He’ll get through, he’ll get through. . . . Four years at the grammar-school and then Leiden. And then he must enter the service. It’s lucky that Constance doesn’t object. But will he himself consent? ”

“ Constance, it was true, had taken some money of her own with her; but still, since they had come to the Hague, Van der Welcke no longer made anything out of wine- and insurance-commissions; he was no longer an agent for the Brussels firms; and they had not much to live on and had to be very economical. And so Van der Welcke, after seven weeks had passed, was obliged to tell Addie that it wouldn’t [14] do for Mamma to stay on at Nice, in an expensive hotel, and that he had better write to her. ”

“ They reached the street: the hum of the crowd floated through the wintry air.
"How excited our stolid Haguers are!" said Paul.
"There's our man," said Van Vreeswijck.
"Yes, there he is!" exclaimed Van der Welcke.
And he darted forwards, stopped Brauws, who was walking fast and saw nobody, and seized his hand. The others drew near. Van Vreeswijck, out of politeness, stayed by Constance, waved his hand to Brauws. Van der Welcke was in a great state of excitement:
"Where are you going?" they heard him ask Brauws. "To the Witte?" ”