Ecstasy (8 page)

But the magic was gone: her admiration of his lofty thoughts tumbled away into an abyss; then suddenly, by a lightning flash through the night of that inken sky, she saw clearly that his exalted intellect was a supreme sorrow to her.

It had become quite dark in the room. Cecile, afraid of the lightning which revealed her to herself, fell back upon the cushions of the settee.

She hid her face in her hands, pressing her eyes, as though she wished, after this moment of self-revelation, to be blind for ever.

But demoniacally it raged through her, a hurricane of hell, a storm of passion, which blew up out of the darkness of the landscape, lashing up the tossed waves of the foul stream towards the sky of ink.

“Oh!” she moaned. “I am unworthy of him … unworthy …”

Q
uaerts lived on the Plein, above a tailor, where he occupied two small rooms, furnished in the most ordinary style. He might have lived far better, but he was indifferent to comfort; he never gave it a thought in his own place; when he came across it elswhere it did not attract him. But it troubled Jules that Quaerts should live in this fashion, and the boy had long wished to embellish his rooms. He was busy at this moment hanging some trophies on an armourrack, standing on a pair of steps, humming a tune he remembered from an opera. Quaerts gave no heed to what Jules was doing; he lay immobile on the sofa, at full length, in his flannels, unshorn, his eyes fixed upon the florid decoration of the Palace of Justice, tracing a background of architecture behind the withered trees of the Plein.

“Look, Taco, will this do?” asked Jules, after hanging an Algerian sabre between two creeses, and draping the folds of a Javanese sarong between.

“Beautifully,” answered Quaerts. But he did not look at the trophies, and continued gazing at the Palace. He lay motionless. There was no thought in him; only listless dissatisfaction with himself, and consequent sadness. For three weeks he had led a life of debauch, to deaden consciousness, or perhaps he did not know precisely what: something that was in him, something that was fine, but tiresome in ordinary life. He had begun with shooting, in North Brabant, over a friend’s land. It lasted a week; there were eight of them; sport in the open air, followed by sporting dinners, with not only a great deal of wine, certainly the best, but still more genever, also very fine, like a liqueur. Turbulent excursions on horseback in the neighbourhood; madnesses perpetrated at a farm – the peasant-woman carried round in a barrel, and locked up in the cowhouse – mischievous exploits worthy only of unruly boys and savages; at the end of it all, in a police-court, a summons, with a fine and damages. Wound up to a pitch of excitement with too much sport, too much oxygen, and too much wine, five of the pack, among whom was Quaerts, had gone on to Brussels. There they had stayed almost a fortnight, leading a life of continual excess – champagne and larking; a wild joy of living, which, naturally enough at first, has in the end to be screwed up and screwed up higher still, to make it last a couple of days longer; the last nights spent weariedly over
écarté
, with none but the fixed idea of winning, the exhaustion of all their violence already
pulsing through their bodies, like nervous relaxation, their eyes gazing without expression upon the cards of the game.

During that time Quaerts had only once thought of Cecile; and he had not followed up the thought. She had no doubt arisen three or four times in his brain, a vague image, white and transparent; an apparition which had vanished again immediately, leaving no trace of its passage. All this time too he had not written to her, and it had only once struck him that a silence of three weeks, after their last conversation, must at least seem strange to her. There it had remained. He was back now; he had lain three days long at home on his bed, on his sofa, tired, feverish, dissatisfied, disgusted with everything, everything; then one morning, remembering that it was Wednesday, he had thought of Jules and his riding-lesson.

He sent for Jules, but too lazy to shave or dress, he remained lying where he was. And he still lay there, realising nothing. There before him was the Palace. Next to it the Privy Council. At the side he could see the White Club, and William the Silent standing on his
pedestal
in the middle of the Plein: that was all exceedingly interesting. And Jules was hanging up trophies: also interesting. And the most interesting of all was the stupid life he had been leading. What tension to give the lie to his ennui! Had he really amused himself during that time? No; he had made a pretence of being amused:
the peasant-woman episode and the
écarté
; the sport had been bad; the wine good, but he had drunk too much of it. And then that particularly filthy champagne … at Brussels … And what then? He had absolute need of it, of a life like that, of sport and wild enjoyment; it served to balance the other thing that was in him, that was tiresome for him in ordinary life.

But why was it not possible to preserve some mean, in one as well as in the other? He was well equipped for ordinary life, and with that he possessed something in addition; why could he not remain balanced between those two spheres of disposition? Why was he always tossed from one to the other, as a thing belonging to neither? How fine he could have made his life with only the least tact, the least self-restraint! How he might have lived in a healthy joy of purified animal existence, tempered by a higher joyousness of soul! But tact,
self-restraint
– he had none of these; he lived according to his impulses, always in extremes; he was incapable of half indulgences. And in this lay his pride as well as his regret; his pride that he felt “wholly” whatever he felt, that he was unable to make terms with his emotions; and his regret, that he could not make terms and bring into harmony the elements which warred forever within him.

When he had met Cecile, and had seen her again, and yet once more, he had felt himself carried wholly to the one extremity, the summit of exaltation, of pure crystal
sympathy, in which the circle of his atmosphere – as he had said – glided over hers, a caress of pure chastity and spirituality, as two stars, spinning closer together, might mingle their atmospheres for a moment, like breaths. What smiling happiness had been within his reach, as a grace from Heaven!

Then, then, he had felt himself toppling down, as if he had rocked over the balancing-point; and he had longed for the earthly, for great simplicity of emotion, for primitive enjoyment of life, for flesh and blood. He remembered now how, two days after his last conversation with Cecile, he had seen Emilie Hijdrecht, here in his rooms, where at length, stung by his neglect, she had ventured to come to see him one evening, heedless of all caution. With a line of cruelty round his mouth he recalled how she had wept at his knees, how in her jealousy she had complained against Cecile, how he had bidden her be silent, and not pronounce Cecile’s name. Then, their mad embrace, an embrace of cruelty: cruelty on her part against the man whom time after time she lost when she thought him secured for good and all, whom she could not understand, to whom she clung with all the violence of her brutal passion, a purely animal passion of primitive times; cruelty on his part against the woman he despised, while in his passion he almost stifled her in his embrace.

And what then? How to find the mean between the two poles of his nature. He shrugged his shoulders. He knew he could never find it. He lacked some quality, or a certain power, necessary to find it. He could do nothing but allow himself to swing to and fro. Very well then: he would let himself swing. There was nothing else to do. For now, in the lassitude following his outburst of savagery, he began to experience again an ardent longing, like someone who, after a long evening passed in a ball-room, heavy with foul air of gaslight and a stifling crush and oppression of human breath, craves a high heaven and width of atmosphere; a passionate longing towards Cecile. And he smiled, glad that he knew her, that he was able to go to her, that it was his privilege to enter into the chaste enclosure of her sanctity, as into a temple; he smiled, glad that he felt this longing, and proud, exalting himself above all other men. Already he tasted the pleasure of confessing to her how he had lived during the last three weeks; and already he heard her voice, although he could not distinguish the words …

Jules descended from the ladder. He was disappointed that Quaerts had not followed his arrangement of the weapons upon the rack, and his drapery of the stuff around them. But he had quietly continued his
work, and now that it was finished, he came down and went quietly to sit upon the floor, with his head against the foot of the sofa where his friend lay thinking. Jules never said a word; he looked straight before him, a little sulkily, knowing that Quaerts was looking at him.

“Jules!” said Quaerts.

But Jules did not answer, still staring.

“Tell me, Jules! Why do you like me so much?”

“How should I know?” answered Jules, with thin lips.

“Don’t you know?”

“No. How can you know why you are fond of anyone?”

“You ought not to be so fond of me, Jules. It’s not good.”

“Very well, I will be less so in the future.”

Jules rose suddenly, and took his hat. He held out his hand, but, laughing, Quaerts held him.

“You see, scarcely anyone is fond of me, save … you and your father. Now, I know why your father is fond of me, but not why you are.”

“You are always wanting to know something.”

“Is that so very wrong?”

“Certainly. You will never be satisfied. Mamma always says that no one knows anything.”

“And you?”

“I … nothing …”

“What do you mean … nothing?”

“I know nothing at all … Let me go.”

“Are you cross, Jules?”

“No; but I have an engagement.”

“Can’t you wait until I have dressed, then we can go together? I am going to Aunt Cecile’s.”

Jules objected.

“Very well, only hurry.”

Quaerts rose up. He now saw the arrangement of the weapons, about which he had quite forgotten: “You have done it very prettily, Jules,” he said, admiringly. “Thank you very much.”

Jules did not answer, and Quaerts went through into his dressing-room. The lad sat down on the sofa, bolt upright, looking out upon the Palace, across the bareness of the withered trees. His eyes filled with great round tears, which fell down. Stiff and motionless, he wept.

Cecile had passed those same three weeks in a state of ignorance which had filled her with pain. Through Dolf she had indeed heard that Quaerts was away shooting, but beyond that nothing. A thrill of joy electrified her when the door behind the screen opened, and she saw him enter the room. He stood before her before she could recover herself, and as she was trembling she did not rise up, but still sitting, reached out her hand to him, her fingers quivering imperceptibly.

“I have been out of town,” he began.

“So I heard …”

“Have you been well all this time?”

“Quite well, thank you.”

He noticed she was somewhat pale, that she had a light blue shadow under her eyes, and that there was lassitude in all her movements. But he thought there was nothing extraordinary in that, or that perhaps she seemed pale in the cream colour of her soft white dress, like silken wool, even as her form was yet slighter in the constraint of the scarf about her waist, with its long white fringe falling to her feet. She sat alone with Christie, the child upon his footstool with his head in her lap, a picture-book upon his knees.

“You two are a perfect Madonna and Child,” said Quaerts.

“Little Dolf is gone out to walk with his godfather,” she said, looking fondly upon her child, and gently motioning to him.

At which bidding the little boy stood up and shyly approached Quaerts, offering him a tiny hand. Quaerts took him up and set him upon his knee.

“How light he is!”

“He is not strong,” said Cecile.

“You coddle him too much.”

She laughed.

“Pedagogue!” she said, bantering. “How do I coddle him?”

“I always find him nestling against your skirts. He must come with me one of these days. You should let him try some gymnastics.”

“Jules horse-riding and Christie gymnastics!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, sport in fact,” he replied, with a look of malice.

She looked back at him, and sympathy smiled from the depths of her gold-grey eyes. He felt thoroughly happy, and with the child still upon his knees he said:

“I come to confess to you … Lady!”

Then, as though startled, he put the child away from him.

“To confess?”

“Yes … Christie, go back to Mamma; I must not keep you by me any longer.”

“Very well,” said Christie, with great wondering eyes.

“The child would forgive too easily,” said Quaerts.

“And I, have I anything to forgive you?” she asked.

“I shall be only too happy if you will see it in that light.”

“Begin then.”

“
Le petit Jésus
…” he hesitated.

Cecile stood up; she took the child, kissed him, and sat him on a stool by the window with his picture-book. Then she came back to the
chaise-longue
.

“He will not hear …”

And Quaerts began the story, choosing his words; he spoke of the shooting, the escapades, the
peasant-woman,
and of Brussels. She listened attentively, with dread in her eyes at the violence of such a life, the echo of which reverberated in his words, even though the echo was softened by his reverence.

“And is all this a sinfulness needing absolution?” she asked, when it was finished.

“Is it not?”

“I am no madonna, but … a woman whose ideas have been somewhat emancipated. If you were happy in what you did it was no sin, for happiness is good … Were you happy then, I ask you? For in that case what you did was … good.”

“Happy?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“No … therefore I have sinned, sinned against myself, have I not? Forgive me … Lady.”

She was troubled at the sound of his voice, which, caressively broken, wrapped her about in a charm; she was troubled to see him sitting there, filling with his personality a place in her room beside her. In one second she lived whole hours, feeling her calm love heavy within her, a not oppressive weight, feeling a longing to throw her arms about him and tell him that she worshipped him; feeling also fervent sorrow at what he had confessed: that again he had been unhappy. Hardly able to control herself in her compassion, she stood up, stepped towards him, and laid her hand upon his shoulder:

“Tell me, do you mean all this? Is it all true? Is it true that you have lived as you say, and yet have not been happy?”

“Perfectly true, on my soul.”