Ecstasy (5 page)

Then she reflected. How was it she had written so,
and why? How had she come to do it? She went back upon her thoughts: the present, the speck of the present, which was so small … Quaerts, Quaerts’ very attitude, rising up before her just now. Was it in any way owing to him that she had written down these sentences? The past a sorrow, the future an illusion … Why, why illusion?

“And Jules, who likes him,” she thought. “And Amélie, who spoke of him … but she knows nothing. What is there in him, what lurks behind him, what is he himself? Why did he come here? Why do I dislike him so? Do I dislike him? I cannot see into his eyes.”

She would have liked to do this once; she would have liked to make sure that she disliked him, or that she did not – whichever it might be. She was curious to see him once more, to know what she would think and feel about him then …

She had risen from her writing-table, and now lay at full length on the
chaise-longue,
her arms folded behind her head. She no longer knew what she dreamed, but she felt peacefully happy. Dolf and Christie were coming down the stairs. They came in, it was dinner-time.

“Jules was naughty just now, really, was he not, Mamma?” asked Christie again, with a doubtful face.

She drew the frail little fellow softly to her, took him tightly in her arms, and gently kissed his moist, pale mouth.

“No, really not, my darling!” she said. “He was not naughty, really …”

C
ecile passed through the long hall, which was almost a gallery: servants stood by the doorway, a hum of voices came from behind it. The train of her dress rustled against the leaves of a palm fern, and this sound gave a sudden jar to the strung cords of her sensitiveness. She was a little nervous; her eyelids quivered slightly, and her mouth had a very earnest fold.

She walked in; there was much light, but very subdued, the light of candles. Two officers stepped aside for her as she hesitated. Her eyes glanced quickly round in search of Mrs Hoze. She observed her standing with two or three of her guests, with her grey hair, her kindly and yet haughty expression, rosy and smooth, with scarcely a wrinkle. Mrs Hoze advanced towards her.

“How charming of you not to have disappointed me!” she said, pressing Cecile’s hand, effuse in the urbane amiability of her hospitality.

She introduced Cecile here and there; Cecile heard names, which immediately afterwards escaped her.

“General, allow me … Mrs Van Even,” Mrs Hoze whispered, and left her, to speak to someone else. Cecile answered the general cursorily. She was very pale, and her eyelids quivered more and more. She ventured to throw a glance round the room.

She stood next to the general, forcing herself to listen, so as not to give strikingly silly replies; she was tall, slender and straight, her shoulders, blonde as marble in sunlight, blossoming out of a sombre vase of black: fine black trailing tulle, sprinkled over with small jet spangles: glittering black upon dull, transparent black. A girdle with tassels of jet, hanging low, was wound about her waist. So she stood, blonde; blonde and black, a little sombre amid the warmth and light of other toilettes; and, for unique relief, two diamonds in her ears, like dewdrops.

Her thin suede-covered fingers trembled as she manipulated her fan, a black tulle transparency, on which the same jet spangles glittered with black lustre. Her breath came short behind the strokes of the translucent fan as she talked with the general, a spare, bald, distinguished man, not in uniform, but wearing his decorations.

Mrs Hoze’s guests walked about, greeting one another here and there, a continuous humming of voices. Cecile saw Taco Quaerts come up to her; he bowed before her; she bowed coldly in return, not offering him her hand. He lingered a moment by her, exchanged a single word, then passed on, greeting other acquaintances.

Mrs Hoze had taken the arm of an old gentleman; a procession formed itself slowly. The servants threw back the doors; a table glittered beyond. The general offered Cecile his arm, and she looked behind her with a slow movement of her neck. She closed her eyelids a moment, to prevent the quivering which oppressed them. Her eyebrows contracted slightly with a disappointment, but smilingly she laid the tips of her fingers on the general’s arm, and with her closed fan smoothed away a crease from the tulle of her train.

When Cecile was seated she found Quaerts sitting on her right. Her disappointment vanished, the disappointment she had felt at not being taken in to dinner by him; but when she addressed him her look remained cold, as usual. She had what she wished; the expectation with which she had accepted this invitation was now fulfilled. Mrs Hoze had seen Cecile at the Van Attemas, and had gladly undertaken to restore the young widow to society. Cecile knew that Quaerts was one of Mrs Hoze’s visitors; she had heard from Amélie that he was among the invited, and she had accepted. That Mrs Hoze, remembering Cecile had met Quaerts before, had placed him next to her, was easy to understand.

Cecile was very inquisitive about herself. How would she feel? At least interested; she could not disguise that from herself. She was certainly interested in him, remembering what Jules had said, what Amélie had said. She now felt that behind the mere sportsman there lurked another, whom she longed to know. Why? What concern was it of hers? She did not know; but in any case, as a matter of simple curiosity, it awoke her interest. At the same time she remained on her guard; she did not think his visit had been strictly in order, and there were stories in which the name of a married woman was coupled with his.

She succeeded in freeing herself from her conversation with the general, who seemed to feel himself called upon to entertain her, and it was she who first spoke to Taco Quaerts.

“Have you begun to give Jules his riding-lessons?” she asked with a smile.

He looked at her, evidently a little surprised at her voice and her smile, which were both new to him. He returned a bare answer:

“Yes, Mevrouw, we were at the riding school only yesterday …”

She thought him clumsy to let the conversation drop like that, but he inquired with that slight shyness which became a charm in him who was so manly:

“So you are going out again, Mevrouw?”

She thought – she had thought so before also – that his questions were such as were never asked. There was always something strange about them.

“Yes.” she replied simply, not knowing indeed what else to say.

“Pardon me …” he said seeing that his words embarrassed her, “I asked, because …”

“Because?” she repeated, surprised.

He took courage, and explained: “When Dolf spoke of you he always used to say that you lived quietly … Now I could never picture you to myself returned among society; I had formed an idea of you, and now it seems to me that idea was a mistaken one.”

“An idea?” she asked. “What idea?”

“Perhaps you will not be pleased when I tell you. Perhaps even as it is you are displeased with me”, he said nervously.

“I have not the slightest reason to be either pleased or displeased with you. But please tell me what was your idea …”

“You are interested in it?”

“If you will tell me candidly, yes. But you must be candid!” and she threatened him with her finger.

“Then …” he began, “I thought of you as a woman of culture, desirable as an acquaintance – I still think all that –
and
as a woman who cared nothing for the world beyond her own sphere; – and that … I can now think no longer. I should like to say, and risk your thinking me very strange, that I am sorry no longer to be able to think of you in that way. I would almost have preferred not to meet you here …”

He laughed, perhaps to soften what was strange in his words. She looked at him with amazement, her lips half-opened, and suddenly it struck her that for the first time she was looking into his eyes. She looked into his eyes, and saw that they were a dark, dark grey around the black of the pupil. There was something in his eyes, she could not say what, but something magnetic, as if she could never again take away her own from them.

“How strange you can be sometimes!” she said, the words coming intuitively.

“Oh, I beg you, please do not be angry,” he almost implored her. “I was so glad when you spoke kindly to me. You were a little distant to me when last I saw you, and I should be so sorry if I angered you. Perhaps I am strange, but how could I possibly be commonplace with you? How could I possibly, even if you were to take offence? …
Have
you taken offence?”

“I ought to, but I suppose I must forgive you, if only for your candour!” she said, laughing. “Otherwise your remarks are anything but gallant.”

“And yet I intended no unmannerliness.”

“I suppose not.”

She remembered that she was at a big dinner-party. The guests ranged before and around her; the footmen waiting behind; the light of the candles sparkling on the silver and touching the glass with all the hues of the rainbow; on the table prone mirrors like sheets of water, surrounded by flowers, little lakes amidst moss-roses and lilies of the valley.

She sat silent a moment, still smiling, looking at her hand, a pretty hand, like a white precious thing upon the tulle of her gown; one of the fingers bore several rings, scintillating sparks of blue and white.

The general turned to her again; they exchanged a few words; the general was delighted that Mrs Van Even’s right-hand neighbour kept her entertained, and so enabled him to get on with his dinner. Quaerts turned to the lady on his right.

Both were pleased when they were able to resume their conversation.

“What were we talking about just now?” she asked.

“I know!” he replied mischievously.

“The general interrupted us …”

“You were not angry with me!”

“Oh yes,” she replied, laughing softly. “It was about your idea of me, was it not? Why could you no longer conceive me returned to society?”

“I thought you had grown a person apart.”

“But why?”

“From what Dolf said, from what I thought myself, when I saw you.”

“And why are you sorry now that I am not ‘a person apart’?” she asked, still laughing.

“From vanity: because I have made a mistake. And yet, perhaps I have not made a mistake …”

They looked at one another, and both, whatever else they might have been thinking, now thought the same thing: namely, that they must be careful with their words, because they were speaking of something very delicate and tender, something as frail as a soap-bubble, which could easily break if they spoke of it too loudly, the mere breath of their words might be sufficient. Yet she ventured to ask:

“And why do you believe that you are not mistaken?”

“I don’t quite know. Perhaps because I wish it so. Perhaps, too, because it is so true as to leave no room
for doubt. Ah, yes, I am almost sure that I had judged rightly. Do you know why? Because otherwise I should have hidden myself and been matter-of-fact, and I find this impossible with you. I have given you more of my very self in this short moment than I have given people whom I have known for years in the course of all those years. Therefore, surely you must be a person apart.”

“What do you mean by ‘a person apart’?”

He smiled, he opened his eyes, she looked into them again, deeply into them.

“You understand quite well what I mean,” he said.

Fear for the delicate thing that might break came between them again. They understood one another as with a freemasonry of comprehension. Her eyes were magnetically held upon his.

“You are very strange!” she said again, automatically.

“No,” he said calmly, shaking his head, his eyes upon hers. “I am certain that I am not strange to you, although at this moment you may think so.”

She was silent.

“I am so glad to be able to talk to you like this!” he whispered. “It makes me very happy. And see, no one knows anything of it. We are at a big dinner: the people next to us catch our words: yet there is no one among them understands us, or grasps the subject of our conversation. Do you know the reason for this?”

“No,” she murmured.

“I will tell you; at least I think it is this: perhaps you
know better, for you must know things better than I, you being so much subtler. I personally believe that each person has an environment about him, an atmosphere, and that he meets other people who have environments or atmospheres about them, sympathetic or antipathetic to his own.”

“That is pure mysticism!” she said.

“No,” Quaerts replied; “it is all very simple. When the two circles are antipathetic, each repels the other; but when they are sympathetic, then they glide one over the other with smaller or larger folds of sympathy. In rarer cases the circles almost coincide, but they always remain separate … Do you really think this so mystical?”

“One might call it the mysticism of sentiment. But I thought something of the sort myself …”

“Yes, yes, I can understand that,” he continued, calmly, as if he expected it. “I believe those around us could not understand what we are saying, because we two alone have sympathetic environments. But my atmosphere is of grosser texture than your own, which is very delicate.”

She was silent again, remembering her aversion to him – did she still feel that?

“What do you think of my theory?” he asked.

She looked up; her white fingers trembled in the tulle of her gown. She made a poor effort to smile.

“I think you go too far!” she stammered.

“You think I rush into hyperbole?”

She would have liked to say yes, but could not.

“No,” she said; “not that.”

“Am I wearying you? …”

She looked at him; deep into his eyes. She made a gesture to say no. She would have liked to say that he was too unconventional; but she could not find words. A drowsiness oppressed her whole being. The table, the people, the whole dinner seemed to her as through a haze of light. When she recovered she saw that a pretty woman sitting opposite, who now looked another way out of politeness, was gazing at her steadfastly. She did not know why this interested her, but she asked Quaerts: “Who is that lady over there, in pale blue, with dark hair?”

She saw that he started.

“That is young Mrs Hijdrecht,” he said calmly, his voice a little raised.

She turned pale; her fan flapped nervously to and fro. He had named the woman rumour said to be his mistress.

It seemed to Cecile as though that delicate, frail thing, that soap-bubble, had burst. She wondered if he had spoken to that dark-haired woman also of circles of sympathy. So soon as she was able, Cecile observed Mrs Hijdrecht. She had a warm, dull-gold complexion, fiery dark eyes, a mouth as of fresh blood. Her dress was cut very low; her throat and the slope of her breast came out insolently handsome, brutally luscious. A row of diamonds encircled her neck with a narrow line of white brilliancy. Cecile felt ill at ease. She looked away from the young woman, and turned to Quaerts, drawn magnetically towards him. She saw a cloud of melancholy stealing over the upper half of his face; over his forehead and his eyes, in which appeared a slight look of age. And she heard him say:

“What do you care about that lady’s name; we were just in the middle of such a charming conversation …”

She too felt sad now; sad for the soap-bubble that had burst. She did not know why, but she felt pity for him; sudden, deep, spontaneous pity.

“We can resume our conversation,” she said softly.