Ecstasy (2 page)

“You are not angry with me, are you?”

“No, dear, of course we are not angry; you have had so much sorrow.”

“Yes; I seem to have lost everything.”

How was it she suddenly realised this? She never had had any feeling but of contentment in her own home, among the clouds of her daydreams, but outside, among other people, she immediately felt that she had lost everything, everything.

“But you have your children …”

“Yes …”

She answered faintly, wearily, with a sense of loneliness, oh! terrible loneliness, like one floating aimlessly in space, borne upon thinnest air, in which yearning arms grope in vain.

Mrs Hoze stood up. Dolf came to take her into the other room to play whist.

“And you too, Cecile?” he asked.

“No; you know I don’t …”

He did not press her; there was Quaerts and the girls who would play.

“What are you doing there, Jules?” he asked, glancing over the piano.

The boy had remained sitting there, forgotten. He now rose and appeared, tall, grown out of his strength, with strange eyes.

“What were you doing?”

“I … I was looking for something … a piece of music.”

“Don’t sit moping in that style, my boy!” growled Dolf kindly, with his deep voice. “What’s become of these cards again, Amélie?”

“I don’t know,” said his wife, looking about vaguely. “Where are the cards, Anna?”

“Aren’t they in the box with the counters?”

“No,” Dolf grumbled, “nothing is ever where it should be.”

Anna got up, looked, found the cards in the drawer of a boulle cabinet. Amélie too had risen; she stood arranging the music on the piano. She was forever ordering things in her rooms, and immediately forgetting where she had put them, tidying with her fingers, and perfectly absent in her mind.

“Anna, draw a card too. You can come in later!” cried Dolf from the other room.

The two sisters remained along with Jules.

The boy sat down on a footstool near Cecile.

“Mamma, do leave my music alone.”

Amélie sat down near Cecile.

“Is Christie better?”

“He is a little livelier today.”

“I am glad. Have you never met Quaerts before?”

“No.”

“Really? He comes here so often.”

Cecile looked through the open folding-doors at the card table. Two candles stood upon it. Mrs Hoze’s pink face was lit up clearly, smooth and stately; her coiffure gleamed silver-grey. Quaerts sat opposite her; Cecile noticed the round, vanishing silhouette of his head, the hair cut very close, thick and black above the glittering white streak of his collar. His arms made little movements as he threw down a card, or gathered up a trick. His person had something about it of great power, something energetic and sturdy, something of everyday life, which Cecile disliked.

“Are the girls fond of cards?”

“Suzette is, Anna not so much; she is not quite so brisk.”

Cecile saw that Anna sat behind her father, staring with eyes which did not understand.

“Do you go out much with them now?” Cecile asked.

“Yes, I am obliged to: Suzette likes going out, but not Anna. Suzette will be a pretty girl, don’t you think?”

“Suzette is a nasty coquettish thing,” said Jules. “At our last dinner-party …”

He suddenly stopped.

“No, I can’t tell you. It’s not right to tell tales, is it, Auntie?”

Cecile smiled.

“No, certainly it’s not.”

“I want always to do what is right.”

“That is very good.”

“No, no!” he said deprecatingly. “Everything seems to me so bad, do you know. Why is everything so bad?”

“But there is much that is good too, Jules.”

He shook his head.

“No, no!” he repeated. “Everything is bad. Everything is very bad. Everything is selfishness. Just mention something that is not selfish!”

“Parental love!”

But Jules shook his head again.

“Parental love is ordinary selfishness. Children are a part of their parents, who only love themselves when they love their children.”

“Jules!” cried Amélie. “You talk far too rashly. You know I don’t like it: you are much too young to talk like that. One would think you knew everything.”

The boy was silent.

“And I always say that we never know anything. We
never know anything, don’t you think so too, Cecile? I, at least, never know anything, never …”

She looked round the room absently. Her fingers smoothed the fringe of her chair, tidying up. Cecile put her arm softly round Jules’ neck.

It was Quaerts’ turn to sit out from the card-table, and although Dolf pressed him to continue playing, he rose. She saw him coming towards the room where she still sat with Amélie – Jules sitting at her feet – engaged in desultory talk, for Amélie could never maintain a conversation, always wandering and losing the threads. She did not know why, but Cecile suddenly wore a most serious expression, as if she were discussing very important matters with her sister; though all she said was:

“Jules should really take lessons in harmony, when he composes so nicely …”

Quaerts had approached her; he sat down next to them with a scarcely perceptible shyness in his manner, with a gentle hesitation in the brusque force of his movements. But Jules fired up.

“No, Auntie; I want to be taught as little as possible. I don’t want to learn names and principles and classifications, I could not do it. I only compose like this,” suiting his phrase with a vague movement of his fingers.

“Jules can hardly read, it’s a shame!” said Amélie.

“And he plays so sweetly,” said Cecile.

“Yes, Auntie; I remember things, I pick them out on the piano. Ah! it’s not very clever; it just comes out of myself, you know.”

“That is just what is fine.”

“No, no! You have to know the names and principles and classifications. You must have that in everything. I shall never learn technique; I can’t do anything.”

He closed his eyes a moment; a look of sadness flitted across his restless face.

“You know, a piano is so … so big, such a piece of furniture, isn’t it? But a violin, oh, how delightful! You hold it to you like this, against your neck, almost against your heart; it is almost part of you, and you caress it, like this, you could almost kiss it! You feel the soul of the violin throbbing inside the wood, and then you only have a string or two, which sing everything.

“Jules …” Amélie began.

“And, oh, Auntie, a harp! A harp, like this, between your legs, a harp which you embrace with both your arms: a harp is just like an angel, with long golden hair. Ah, I have never yet played on a harp!”

“Jules, leave off!” cried Amélie, angrily. “You drive me silly with that nonsense! I wonder you are not ashamed, before Mr Quaerts.”

“Before Taco? Do you think I have anything to be ashamed of, Taco?” said Jules in surprise.

“Of course not, my boy.”

The sound of his voice was like a caress. Cecile looked at him, astonished; she would have expected him to make fun of Jules. She did not understand him, but she disliked him very much, so healthy and strong, with his energetic face and his fine expressive mouth, so different
from Amélie and Jules and herself.

“Of course not, my boy.”

Jules looked up at his mother contemptuously …

“You see! Taco is a good chap.” He twisted his stool round towards Quaerts, laying his head against his knee.

“Jules!”

“Pray let him be, Mevrouw.”

“Everyone spoils that boy …”

“Except yourself,” said Jules.

“I,” cried Amélie, indignantly. “I spoil you out and out! I wish I could send you to the Indies! Then you would be more of a man! But I can’t do it; and your father spoils you too. I don’t know what will become of you!”

“What is to become of you, Jules?” asked Quaerts.

“I don’t know. I mustn’t go to college, I am too weak a chap to do much work.”

“Would you like to go to the Indies someday?”

“Yes, with you. Not alone; oh, to be alone, always alone! I shall always be alone, it is terrible to be alone!”

“But, Jules, you are not alone now,” said Cecile.

“Oh, yes, yes, in myself I am alone, always alone …” he pressed himself against Quaerts’ knee.

“Jules, don’t talk so stupidly,” cried Amelie, nervously.

“Yes, yes!” said Jules, with a sudden half sob. “I will hold my tongue! But don’t talk about me!” He locked his hands and implored them, dread in his face. They all stared at him, but he buried his face in Quaerts’ knees, as though deadly frightened of something …

Anna had played execrably, to Suzette’s despair: she could not even remember the trumps! and Dolf called to his wife:

“Amélie, do come in for a rubber; at least if Quaerts does not wish to. You can’t give your daughter very many points, but you are not quite so bad!”

“I would rather stay and talk to Mrs Van Even,” said Quaerts.

“Go and play without minding me, if you prefer, Mr Quaerts,” said Cecile, in a cold voice, as towards someone she utterly disliked.

Amélie dragged herself away with an unhappy face. She, too, did not play a brilliant game, and Suzette always lost her temper when she made mistakes.

“I have so long been hoping to make your acquaintance, Mevrouw, that I should not like to miss the opportunity tonight,” answered Quaerts.

She looked at him: it troubled her that she could not understand him. She knew him to be somewhat of a
gallant
. There were stories in which the name of a married woman was coupled with his. Did he wish to try his blandishments upon her? She had no hankering for that sort of pastime; she had never cared for flirtations.

“Why?” she asked, calmly, immediately regretting
the word; for her question sounded like coquetry, and she intended anything but that.

“Why?” he repeated. He looked at her in slight embarrassment as he sat near her, with Jules on the ground between them, against his knee, his eyes closed.

“Because … because,” he stammered, “because you are my friend’s sister, I suppose, and I used never to see you here …”

She made no answer: in her seclusion she had forgotten how to talk, and she did not take the least trouble about it.

“I used often to see you formerly at the theatre,” said Quaerts, “when Mr Van Even was still alive.”

“At the opera?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Ah! I did not know you then.”

“No.”

“I have not been out in the evening for a long time, on account of my mourning.”

“And I always choose the evening to pay my visits here.”

“So it is easily explained that we have never met.”

They were silent for a moment. It seemed to him she spoke very coldly.

“I should like to go to the opera!” murmured Jules with closed eyes. “Ah no, after all, I think I would rather not.”

“Dolf told me that you read a great deal,” Quaerts continued. “Do you keep up with modern literature?”

“A little. I do not read so very much.”

“No?”

“Oh, no. I have two children, and consequently not much time for it. Besides, it has no particular fascination for me; life is so much more romantic than any novel.”

“So you are a philosopher?”

“I? Oh, no, I assure you, Mr Quaerts. I am the most commonplace woman in the world.”

She spoke with her wicked little laugh and her cold voice: the voice and the laugh she employed when she feared lest she should be wounded in her secret sensitiveness, and when therefore she hid herself deep within herself, offering to the outside world something very different from what she really was. Jules opened his eyes and sat looking at her, and his steady glance troubled her.

“You live in a charming place, on the Scheveningen Road.”

“Yes.”

She realised suddenly that her coldness amounted to rudeness, and she did not wish this, even if she did dislike him. She threw herself back negligently; she asked at random, quite without concern, merely for the sake of conversation:

“Have you many relations in the Hague?”

“No; my father and mother live at Velp, and the rest of my family are at Arnhem chiefly. I never fix myself anywhere; I cannot remain long in one place. I have lived for a considerable time in Brussels.”

“You have no occupation, I believe?”

“No; as a boy my longing was to enter the navy, but I was rejected on account of my eyes.”

Involuntarily she looked into his eyes: small, deep-set eyes, the colour of which she could not determine. She thought they looked sly and cunning.

“I have always regretted it,” he continued. “I am a man of action. There is always within me the desire of movement. I console myself as best I can with sport.”

“Sport?” she repeated coldly.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“Quaerts is a Nimrod and a Centaur, and a Hercules, are you not?” said Jules.

“Ah, Jules,” said Quaerts, with a laugh, “names and theories and classifications. Which class do you really place me in?”

“Among the very, very few people I really love!” the boy answered, ardently, and without hesitation. “Taco, when are you going to give me my riding-lessons?”

“Whenever you like, my son.”

“Yes, but you must fix the day for us to go to the riding-school. I won’t fix a day, I hate fixing days.”

“Well, tomorrow? Tomorrow is Wednesday.”

“Very well.”

Cecile noticed that Jules was still staring at her. She looked at him back. How was it possible that the boy could like this man? How was it possible that it irritated
her and not him – all that healthiness, that strength, that power of muscle and rage of sport? She could make nothing of it; she understood neither Quaerts nor Jules, and she herself drifted away again into that mood of half-consciousness, in which she did not know what she thought, nor what at that very moment she might say; in which she seemed to be lost, and wandering in search of herself.

She rose, tall, frail, in her crêpe, like a queen who mourns; touches of gold in her flaxen hair, where a little jet
aigrette
glittered like a black mirror.

“I am going to see who is winning,” she said, and went to the card-table in the other room. She stood behind Mrs Hoze, seeming to be interested in the game, but across the light of the candles she peered at Quaerts and Jules. She saw them talking together, softly, confidentially, Jules with his arm on Quaerts’ knee. She saw Jules looking up, as if in adoration, into the face of this man, and then the boy suddenly threw his arms around his friend in a wild embrace, while this latter kept him off with a patient gesture.