Old People and the Things that Pass — Chapter I

CHAPTER I

STEYN’S deep bass voice was heard in the passage:

“Come, Jack, come along, dog! Are you coming
with your master?”

The terrier gave a loud, glad bark and came
rushing madly down the stairs, till he seemed to
be tumbling over his own paws.

“Oh, that voice of Steyn’s!” Ottilie hissed between
her teeth angrily and turned a number of
pages of her novel.

Charles Pauws glanced at her quietly, with his
little smile, his laugh at Mamma’s ways. He was
sitting with his mother after dinner, sipping his cup
of coffee before going on to Elly.

Steyn went out with Jack; the evening silence
settled upon the little house and the gas hummed in
the impersonal and unhomely sitting-room. Charles
Pauws looked down at the tips of his boots and
admired their fit.

“Where has Steyn gone?” asked Mamma; and
her voice grumbled uneasily.

“Gone for a walk with Jack,” said Charles
Pauws.

He was called Lot at home; his voice sounded
soft and soothing.

“He’s gone to his woman!” snarled Ottilie.

Lot made a gesture of weariness:

“Come, Mamma,” he said, “be calm now and
don’t think about that scene. I’m going on to Elly
presently; meantime I want to sit cosily with you
for a bit. Steyn’s your husband, after all. You
mustn’t always be bickering with him and saying and
thinking such things. You were just like a little fury
again. It brings wrinkles, you know, losing your
temper like that.”

“I am an old woman.”

“But you’ve still got a very soft little skin.”

Ottilie smiled; and Lot stood up:

“There,” he said, “give me a kiss…. Won’t
you? Must I give you one? You angry little
Mummy! … And what was it about? About
nothing. At least, I can’t remember what it was all
about. I should never be able to analyse it. And
that’s always the way…. How do I come
to be so unruffled with such a little fury of a
Mamma?”

“If you imagine that your father used to keep
unruffled!”

Lot laughed that little laugh of his and did not
reply. Mrs. Steyn de Weert went on reading more
peacefully; she sat in front of her book like a
child. She was a woman of sixty, but her blue eyes
were like a child’s, full of a soft beauty, gentle
and innocent; and her voice, a little high-toned,
always sounded like a child’s, had just sounded like
the voice of a naughty child. Sitting, small and
upright, in her chair, she read on, attentively, calming
herself because Lot had spoken so calmly and
kissed her so comfortingly. The gas hummed and
Lot drank his coffee and, looking at his boots, wondered
why he was going to be married. He did
not think he was a marrying man. He was young
still: thirty-eight; he really looked much younger;
he made enough money with his articles to risk it,
frugal-fashion, with what Elly would get from
Grandpapa Takma; but all the same he did not think
that he was of the marrying kind. His liberty, his
independence, his selfish power to amuse himself as
he pleased were what he loved best; and marrying
meant giving one’s self over, bound hand and foot,
to a woman. He was not passionately in love with
Elly: he thought her an intelligent, artistic little
thing; and he was really not doing it for what she
would inherit from Grandpapa Takma. Then why
was he doing it, he asked himself, as he had asked
himself day after day, during that week which had
followed on his proposal.

“Mamma, can you tell me? Why did I propose
to Elly?”

Ottilie looked up. She was accustomed to queer
and humorous questions from Lot and she used,
to answer him in the same tone, as far as she was
able; but this question made her feel a prick of
jealousy, a prick that hurt very much, physically, like
a thorn in the flesh.

“Why you proposed to Elly? I don’t know. We
always do things without knowing why.”

Her voice sounded soft and melancholy, a little
sulky after the naughty child’s voice of just now.
Had she not lost everything that she had ever possessed?
Would she not lose Lot, have to part with
him to Elly … as she had had to part with everything
and everybody? …

“How seriously you answered, Mamma! That’s
not like you.”

“Mayn’t I be serious too, once in a way?”

“Why so sad and serious and tempersome lately?
Is it because I am going to be married?”

“Perhaps.”

“But you’re fond of Elly …”

“Yes, she’s very nice.”

“The best thing we can do is to go on living
together; Elly’s fond of you too. I’ve talked to
Steyn about it.”

Lot called his step-father, his second step-father,
Steyn, without anything else, after having called
his first, when he was still a boy, “Mr.” Trevelley.
Ottilie had been married three times.

“The house is too small,” said Mamma,
“especially if you go having a family soon.”

And yet she thought:

“If we remain together, I sha’n’t lose Lot
entirely; but I shall never be able to get on
with my daughter-in-law, especially if there are
children.”

“A family?” he echoed.

“Children.”

“Children?”

“Well, married people have had children before
now!”

“Our family has lasted long enough. I shall be
in no hurry about children.”

“And, when your wife hasn’t you with her, what
has she, if she hasn’t any children? It’s true, you’re
both so clever. I’m only a stupid woman; my children
have often been a comfort to me …”

“When you were able to spoil them.”

“It’s not for you to reproach me with that!”

“I’m not reproaching you.”

“As to living together, Lot,” said Mamma, sadly,
in a child’s coaxing voice, casting up her blue childeyes,
“I should be quite willing, if Elly is and if she
promises to take things as she finds them. I shall
feel very lonely without you. But, if there were any
objections, I might go over to England. I have my
two boys there. And Mary is coming home from
India this year.”

Lot knitted his brows and put his hand up to his
fair hair: it was very neat, with a parting.

“Or else … I might go and look up Ottilie
at Nice.”

“No, Mamma, not that!” said Lot, almost
angrily.

“Why not?” exclaimed Mrs. Steyn de Weert,
raising her voice. “She’s my child, surely?”

“Yes,” Lot admitted, quickly recovering his composure.
“But …”

“But what? Surely, my own child…?”

“But it would be very silly of you to go to
Ottilie.”

“Why, even if we have quarrelled at times …”

“It would never do; you can’t get on with her.
If you go to Ottilie, I won’t get married. Besides,
Steyn has something to say in the matter.”

“I’m so fond of Nice,” said Mrs. Steyn de Weert;
and her child-voice sounded almost plaintive. “The
winters there are so delightful…. But perhaps
it would be difficult for me … to go there …
because Ottilie behaves so funnily. If it could be
managed, I would rather live with you, Lot. If
Elly is willing. Perhaps we could have a little
larger house than this. Do you think we could
afford it? Stay alone with Steyn I will not. That’s
settled. That’s quite settled.”

“Mummy darling …”

Lot’s voice sounded full of pity. After her last
determined words, Mamma had big tears in her blue
child-eyes, tears which did not fall but which gave a
sorrowful gleam to the naughty look in her face.
Then, with a sudden short sigh, she took up her book
and was silent and pretended to read. There was
something resigned about her attitude and, at the
same time, something obstinate, the constant attitude
of a naughty child, a spoilt child that persisted in doing,
quietly and silently, what it wanted to. Lot, with
his coffee-cup in his hand, his laugh about his mouth,
studied Mamma; after his compassion, he just sat
and studied her. Yes, she must have been very
pretty; the uncles always said, a little doll. She was
sixty now and no longer made any pretence to beauty;
but she was still charming in a child-like and doll-like
fashion. She had the wrinkles and the deeper
furrows of an elderly woman; but the skin of her
forehead and cheeks was still white and soft, without
a blemish, tenderly veined at the temples. She
had become very grey; but, as she had been very
fair and her hair was soft and curly, it sometimes
looked as if she had remained fair; and, simply
though that hair appeared to be done, fastened up
with one quick movement and pinned, there were
still some almost childish little locks curling at the
temples and in the neck. Her short, slim figure
was almost that of a young woman; her hands
were small and pretty; in fact, there was a prettiness
about her whole person; and pretty above all
were the young, blue eyes. Lot, who smiled as he
looked at his mother, saw in her a woman over
whom an emotional life, a life of love and hate,
had passed without telling very much upon her.
And yet Mamma had been through a good deal,
with her three husbands, all three of whom she had
loved, all three of whom, without exception, she now
hated. A butterfly she had certainly been, but just
an unthinking butterfly, simply because her nature
was a butterfly’s. She had loved much, but even a
deep passion would not have made her life or her
different; naturally and unconsciously she was in
headstrong opposition to everything. She had never
been economical; and yet her house was never comfortable,
nor had she ever spent much on dress, unconsciously
despising elegance and comfort and feeling
that she attracted through herself and not
through any artistic surroundings. Mamma’s get-up
was like nothing on earth, Lot thought; the only cosy
room in the house was his. Mamma, mad on reading,
read very modern French novels, which she did
not always understand, despite a life of love and
hatred, having remained innocent in many things and
totally ignorant of the darker phases of passion.
Then Lot would see, while she was reading, that she
was surprised and did not understand; a simple,
childish wonder would come into her eyes; she never
dared ask Lot for an explanation….

Lot got up; he was going to Elly that evening.
He kissed his mother, with his constant little laugh
of silent amusement, his little laugh at Mamma.

“You never used to go out every evening,” said
Mamma, reproachfully; and she felt the thorn in
her heart’s flesh.

“I’m in love now,” said Lot, calmly. “And
engaged. And a fellow must go and see his girl,
you know…. Will you think over my question,
why I really proposed to Elly … and will you
manage without me this evening?”

“I shall have to do that many evenings….”

Mamma pretended to be absorbed in her French
novel, but, as soon as Lot had left the room, she
put down the book and looked round, vaguely, with
a look of helplessness in her blue eyes. She did not
move when the maid brought in the tea-tray and
kettle; she sat staring before her, across her book.
The water sang its bubbling song; outside the
windows, after the last summer heat, the first cold
wind blew with its wonted plaint. Ottilie felt herself
abandoned: oh, how little of everything remained!
There she was now, there she was, the
old, grey-haired woman! What was there left of
her life? And yet, strange to say, her three husbands
were all three alive: Lot had been lately to
Brussels with Elly, to see his father; Trevelley was
spending a life of pleasure in London: when all was
said, she had liked him the best. Her three English
children lived in England, felt more English than
Dutch; Ottilie was leading her curious, unconventional
life at Nice: the whole family cried scandal
about it; and Lot she was now about to lose. He
had always stayed with her so nicely, though he
went abroad pretty frequently; and he had hardly
any friends at the Hague and never went to the
Witte. Now he was going to be married; he was
no longer young, for a young man; he must be thirty-eight,
surely? To occupy herself a little now, beside
her lonely tea-tray and bubbling water, she began
to count her children’s ages on her tiny fingers.
Ottilie, Lot’s sister, her eldest, forty-one: heavens,
how old she was growing! The English ones, as
she always called them—”my three English children”—Mary,
thirty-five; John, thirty-two; even her
handsome Hugh was thirty: heavens above, how
old they were growing! And, once she was busy
calculating ages, to amuse herself, she reckoned out
that old Mamma would now soon be—let’s see—yes,
she would be ninety-seven. Old Mr. Takma,
Elly’s grandpapa, was only a year or two younger;
and, when she thought of him, Ottilie reflected that
it was very strange that Mr. Takma had always
been so nice to her, as though it were really true
what people used to whisper, formerly, when people
still interested themselves in the family. So curious,
those two old people: they saw each other almost
every day; for Papa Takma was hale and still went
out often, always walking the short distance from
the Mauritskade to the Nassaulaan and crossing the
razor-back bridge with rare vigour. Yes …
and then Sister Thérèse, in Paris, eight years older
than herself, must be sixty-eight; and the brothers:
Daan, in India, seventy; Harold, seventy-three;
Anton, seventy-five; while Stefanie, the only child of
Mamma’s first marriage and the only De Laders,
was getting on for seventy-seven. She, Ottilie, the
youngest, felt that all those others were very old;
and yet she was old too: she was sixty. It was all
a matter of comparison, growing old, different ages;
but she had always felt it so: that she, the youngest,
was comparatively young and always remained
younger than the others, than all the others. She
had to laugh, secretly, when Stefanie kept on saying:

“At our age …”

Why, Stefanie was seventy-seven! There was
a difference—rather!—between sixty and seventy-seven.
But she shrugged her shoulders: what did it
matter? It was all over and so long ago. There
she sat now, an old, grey-haired woman, and the
aftermath of life dragged on and the loneliness
increased daily, even though Steyn was here still:
there he was, coming in. Where on earth did he
go to every evening? She heard the fox-terrier
barking in the passage and her husband’s deep, bass
voice:

“Hush, Jack! Quiet, Jack!…”

Oh, that voice, how she hated it!

What had she, whom had she left? She had five
children, but only Lot with her; and he went abroad
so often and was now going to be married: oh, how
jealous it made her! Ottilie she never saw nowadays;
Ottilie didn’t care for her mother; she sang
at concerts and had made a name for herself: she
had a glorious voice; but she certainly behaved very
strangely: Stefanie spoke of her as “lost.” Mary
was married, in India, and her two English boys
were in London: oh, how she sometimes longed for
Hugh! Which of her children was any use or
comfort to her, except that dear Lot? And Lot
was going to be married and he was asking her,
his mother, who would miss him so, why he was
going to be married, why! Of course, he was only
joking, really; but perhaps it was also serious in
part. Did people ever know anything? … Did
they know why they did a thing … in their impulsiveness.
She had married three times….
Perhaps Ottilie was right after all? But no, there
was the world, there were people, even though
neither the world nor people had interested themselves
in the family of late years; but still there
they were; and you couldn’t act as Ottilie did, without
making yourself altogether impossible. That
was why she, Mamma, had married, had married
three times. Perhaps she ought never to have married
at all: it would have been better for a heap
of things, a heap of people…. The old life was
all gone. It had vanished, as if it had never existed.
And yet it had existed and, when it passed, had left
much behind it, but nothing except melancholy
ghosts and shadows. Yes, this evening she was in
a serious mood and felt like thinking, a thing which
otherwise she did as seldom as possible: what good
did thinking do? When she had thought, in her
life, she had never thought to any practical purpose.
When she had yielded to impulse, things had
been worse still. What was the good of wanting to
live, when nevertheless your life was mapped out
for you by things stronger than yourself that slumbered
in your blood?

Ottilie gave herself up to her French novel, for
Steyn de Weert had entered the room, with Jack
leaping in front of him. And any one who had
seen Mamma a moment ago and saw her now would
have noticed this phenomenon, that Mamma became
much older as soon as her husband entered. The
plump cheeks contracted nervously and the lines
round the nose and mouth grew deeper. The little
straight nose stuck out more sharply, the forehead
frowned angrily. The fingers, which were tearing
the pages of a novel anyhow with a hairpin,
trembled; and the page was torn awry. The back
became rounder, like that of a cat assuming the
defensive. She said nothing, but poured out the
tea.

“Coosh!” she said to the dog.

And, glad that the dog came to her, she patted
him on the head with a half-caress; and the fox-terrier,
giving a last sharp bark, spun round upon
himself and, very suddenly, nestled down on Ottilie’s
skirt, with a deep sigh. Steyn de Weert, sitting
opposite her, drank his tea. It appeared strange
that they should be man and wife, for Mamma now
certainly looked her age and Steyn seemed almost
young. He was a tall fellow, broad-shouldered, not
more than just fifty, with a handsome, fresh-coloured,
healthy face, the face of a strong out-of-doors man,
calm in glance and movement. The
fact that, years ago, he had thrown away his life,
from a sense of honour, upon a woman much older
than himself had afterwards inspired him with an
indifference that ceased to reckon what might still
be in store for him. What was spoilt was spoilt,
squandered for good, irretrievably. There was the
open air, which was cool and fresh; there was shooting;
there was a drink, when he wanted one; there
were his old friends, dating back to the time when
he was an officer in the dragoons. Beyond these
there were the little house and this old woman: he
accepted them into the bargain, because it couldn’t
be helped. In externals he did, as far as possible,
what she wanted, because she could be so tempersome
and was so obstinate; but his cool stubbornness
was a silent match for hers. Lot was a capital
fellow, a little weak and unexpected and effeminate;
but he was very fond of Lot: he was glad that Lot
lived with them; he had given Lot one of the best
rooms in the house to work in. For the rest …
for the rest, there were other things; but they were
no concern of anybody. Hang it all, he was a
young man still, even though his thick hair was
beginning to turn grey! His marriage had come
about through a point of honour; but his wife was
old, she was very old. The thing was really rather
absurd. He would never^make a hell of his life,
as long as he still felt well and strong. With a good
dose of indifference you can shake off everything.
It was this indifference of his which irritated his
wife, till she felt as nervous as a cat when he did
no more than enter the room. He had not spoken
a word, sat drinking his tea, reading the newspaper
which he had brought with him. In the small living-room,
where the gas hummed and the wind rattled
the panes, the fox-terrier sometimes snorted in
dreams that made him groan and moan on the
trailing edge of his mistress’ dress.

“Coosh!” she said.

And for the rest neither of them spoke, both sat
reading, one her book, the other his evening-paper.
And these two people, whose lives had been welded
together by civil contract, because of the man’s
feelings of conventional honesty and his sense of
not being able to act otherwise as a man of honour,
these two had once, years ago, twenty years ago,
longed passionately, the man for the woman and
the woman for the man. When Steyn de Weert
was a first lieutenant, a good-looking fellow, just
turned thirty, he had met Mrs. Trevelley, without
knowing her age. Besides, what did age matter
when he set eyes upon a woman so ravishingly beautiful
to his quick desire that he had at once, at the
first moment that he saw her, felt the blood flaming
in his veins and thought:

“That woman I must have!…”

At that time, though already forty, she was a
woman so full of blossoming prettiness that she was
still known as the beautiful Lietje. She was small,
but perfect in shape and particularly charming in
feature, charming in the still very young lines of
throat and breast, creamy white, with a few pale-gold
freckles; charming with blue eyes of innocence
and very fair, soft, wavy hair; charmingly half-woman
and half-child, moulded for love, who seemed
to exist only that she might rouse glowing desires.
When Steyn de Weert saw her thus for the first
time, in some ultra-modern Hague drawing-room
of the Dutch-Indian set, she was married to her
second husband, that half-Englishman, Trevelley,
who was supposed to have made money in India;
and Steyn had seen her the mother of three biggish
children: a girl of fifteen and two boys a little
younger; but the enamoured dragoon had refused
to believe that, by her first marriage, with Pauws,
from whom she had been divorced because of
Trevelley, she had a daughter at the Conservatoire
at Liège and a son of eighteen at home! The
beautiful Lietje? She had married very young, in
India, and she was still the beautiful Lietje. Such
big children? Was that woman forty? The young
officer had perhaps hesitated a moment, tried, now
that he knew so much, to view Mrs. Tr’.velley with
other eyes; but, when he looked in hers and saw
that she desired him as he did her, he forgot everything.
Why not cull a moment of happiness? What
was an instant of love with a still seductive and
beautiful woman? A triumph for a week, a month,
a couple of months; and then each would go a
different way.

That was how he had thought at the time; but
now, now he was sitting here, because that bounder
of a Trevelley, who wanted to get rid of Ottilie,
had taken advantage of their relations to create a
scandal and, after a pretence at a duel, to insist on
a divorce; because all the Hague had talked about
Ottilie, when she was left standing alone with a
lover; and because he, Steyn, was an honest chap
after all: that, that was why he was sitting here,
with that old woman opposite him. Not a word
was uttered between them; they drank their tea;
the tray was removed; Jack dreamed and moaned;
the wind howled. The pages followed in quick
succession under Ottilie’s fingers; and Steyn read
the Manchurian war-news and the advertisements,
the advertisements and the war-news. The room
around them, married though they were, looked as
it had always looked, impersonal and unhomely;
the clock ticked on and on, under its glass shade.
It looked like a waiting-room, that drawing-room:
a waiting-room where, after many things that had
passed, two people sat waiting. Sat waiting …
for what? ^or the end that was so slow in coming,
for the final death.

Steyn restrained himself and read through the
advertisements once more. But his wife, suddenly
shutting up her book, said, abruptly:

“Frans!”

“Eh?”

“I was talking to Lot just now.”

“Yes …”

“Would you object if they stayed on with us,
he and Elly?”

“No, on the contrary.”

But it seemed as though Steyn’s calm consent just
irritated his wife, perhaps against her own will, into
contradiction:

“Yes, but it wouldn’t be so easy!” she said.

“Why not?”

“The house is too small.”

“We can move.”

“A bigger house would be more expensive. Have
you the money for it?”

“I think that, with what Lot makes and with
Elly’s allowance …”

“No, a bigger house is too dear.”

“Well, then here….”

“This is too small.”

“Then it can’t be done.”

Ottilie rose, angrily:

“No, of course not: nothing can ever be done.
Because of that wretched money. But I’ll tell you
this: when Lot is married, I can’t … I
c-can’t …”

She stammered when she was angry.

“Well, what can’t you?”

“I c-can’t … stay alone with you! I shall
go to Nice, to Ottilie.”

“All right, go.”

He said it calmly, with great indifference, and
took up his paper again. But it was enough to make
Ottilie, who was highly strung, burst into sobs:
“You don’t care a bit about me any more!”
Steyn shrugged his shoulders and went out of the
room and upstairs; the dog sprang in front of him,
barking.

Ottilie remained alone; and her sobs ceased at
once. She knew it herself—the years had taught
her as much as that—she easily lost her temper
and would always remain a child. But, in that case,
why grow older, in ever-increasing loneliness? There
she sat, there she sat now, an old, grey woman, in
that unhomely room; and everything was past. Oh,
if Lot only remained with her, her Lot, her Chariot,
her boy! And she felt her jealousy of Lot and
Elly, at first restrained, rising more and more
violently. And that other jealousy: her jealousy of
Steyn. He irritated her when he merely entered
the room; but she still remained jealous of him,
as she always had been of every man that loved
her. Oh, to think that he no longer cared about
her, because she had grown old! Oh, to think that
he never uttered a word of affection now, never gave
her a kiss on her forehead! She was jealous of Elly
because of Lot, she was jealous of Lot because of
Steyn, because Steyn really cared more for Lot,
nowadays, than for her! How cruel the years were,
slowly to take everything from her! The years
were past, the dear, laughing love-years, full of
caresses; all that was past! Even the dog had just
gone off with Steyn: no living creature was nice to
her; and why need Lot suddenly go getting married
now? She felt so forlorn that, after the forced
sobs, which she had stopped as soon as they were
no longer necessary, she sank into a chair and wept
softly, really weeping, this time, because no one
loved her and because she was forlorn. Her still
young and beautiful eyes, overflowing with tears,
looked into the vanished past. Then—in the days
when she was the beautiful Lietje—everything about
her had been pleasant, nice, caressing, playful,
jesting, almost adoring and entreating, because she
was so pretty and gay and attractive and had an
irresistible laugh and a temper full of the most
delightful little whims. True, through all this there
was always the sting of jealousy; but in those days
so much of it had come her way: all the caressing
homage which the world, the world of men, expends
on a pretty woman! She laughed at it through her
tears; and the memory meandered around her,
bright as pretty little, distant clouds. Oh, what a
wealth of adulation had surrounded her then! Now,
all those men were old or dead; only her own three
husbands were alive; and Steyn was still young. He
was too young: if he had not been so young, she
would have kept her charm for him longer and they
would still be nice to each other, happy together as
old people can be sometimes, even though the
warmth of youth is past…. She heaved a deep
sigh through her tears and sat in her chair like a
helpless child that has been naughty and now does
not know what to do. What was there for her to
do now? Just to go quietly to bed, in her lonely
room, an old woman’s room, in her lonely bed, and
to wake in the morning and drag one more old day
after the old, old days! Ah, why could she not have
died while she was young?

She rang and told the maid to lock up; and these
little habits had for her the disconsolateness of
everyday repetition, because it all seemed unnecessary.
Then she went upstairs. The little house was
very tiny: a small suite of rooms on the ground-floor,
above that a suite with a little dressing-room
in addition to her room and Lot’s, while Steyn had
hoisted himself up to the attic floor, doubtless so
as not to be too near his wife. And, as she undressed,
she reflected that, if Elly would consent
to make shift, it might just be possible: she would
give up her present big room, with the three
windows, to Lot and Elly; she, oh, she could sleep
in what was now Lot’s little room: what did she
care? If only children did not come too quickly I
Oh, if only she did not lose Lot altogether! He
asked her why he had proposed to Elly! He asked
it in his usual half-jesting way; but it was not nice
of him to ask it: she was glad that she had answered
quietly and not worked herself into a temper. Oh,
the pain, the physical pain which she sometimes
suffered from that thorn in her heart’s flesh, because
of love, affection, caresses even, that went out to
another! And sadly, pitying herself, she got into
bed. The room was empty around her and unhomely:
the bedroom of a woman who does not
care for all the trifles of comfort and the vanities
of the toilet and whose great joy always was to
long for the love and caresses of those whom she
found attractive, because of the once—often secret—wave
of passion that flowed between them and
her. For this she had neglected the whole of the
other life of a wife, of a mother, even of a woman
of the world and even of a smart woman, not caring
for it, despising auxiliaries, feeling sure of her
fascinations and very little of a mother by nature.
Oh, she was old now and alone! And she lay lonely
in her chilly bed; and that evening she had not even
the consolation that Lot would come from the room
next to hers to give her a good-night kiss in bed as he
knew how, pettingly, a long, fond kiss on her forehead.
At such times he would sit for a moment
on the edge of her bed, have a last chat with her;
and then, sometimes, passing his delicate hand over
her cheek, he would say:

“Mamma, what a soft skin you have!”
When he came home now, he would think that
she was asleep and would go to bed. She sighed:
she felt so lonely. Above Lot’s room you could
hear everything in that house she heard Steyn
pounding about. The maid also was going to bed
now; out of her own bed Ottilie listened to all those
sounds: doors opening; shoes put outside; a basin
emptied. It now became very still and she reflected
what a good thing it was that she always chose old
servants. She thought of it with a certain mischievous
joy, glad that Steyn had no chance, with
elderly servants. The house was now quiet for the
night, though it was not yet eleven….

Had she been asleep? Why did she wake suddenly?
What was that creaking on the stairs? Was
it Lot coming home? Or was it Steyn sneaking out
again? Was it Lot? Was it Steyn? Her heart
thumped in her chest. And she got out of bed
quickly and, before she knew what she was doing,
opened the door and saw a match struck flickering
in the hall….

“Is that you, Lot?”

“No, it’s I.”

“You, Frans?”

“Yes, what’s the matter?”

His voice sounded irritated, because she had
heard him.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going out.”

“At this time of night?”

“Yes. I can’t sleep. I’m going for a walk.”

“You’re going for a walk at this hour?”

“Yes.”

“Frans, you’re not faithful to me!”

“Oh, rot! Not faithful to you! Go back to
bed.”

“Frans, I won’t have you go out.”

“Look here!”

“Do stay at home, Frans! Lot isn’t back yet
and I’m frightened, alone. Do, Frans!”

Her voice sounded like that of a pleading child.

“I want some air.”

“You want …”

She did not finish her sentence, suddenly choking
with anger. On the top floor she knew it the
old servant-maid was standing with her door ajar,
laughing and grinning. She knew it. She felt
stifled with rage, with nervous rage; she quivered
all over her body, shivering in her night-dress. The
hall-door had opened and shut. Steyn was outside;
and she … she was still standing on the stairs
above. She clenched her fists, she panted; she could
have run after him, in her night-dress; the big tears
sprang from her child-eyes; but, ashamed because
of the maid, she went back to her room.

She cried, cried very softly, so as not to let the
maid hear, so that the maid should not have that
added enjoyment. Oh, that pain, that sting, here,
in her heart, a physical pain, a physical pain! No
one who did not feel it as she did could know the
physical pain which it gave her, the sort of pain
one describes to a doctor. Where could Steyn be
going? He was still so young, he still looked so
well-set-up. And yet he was her husband, her
husband! Oh, why had he not remained nice to
her, old though she was? She never even felt the
touch of his hand now! And how at one time she
had felt that touch tingle through all her being!
Oh, never again, never even a kiss, a kind kiss, such
as old people still exchange at times!

She did not go to bed; she waited up. Would
Steyn come back soon? Was that … was that
he coming now? No, it was Lot: it was his key
she heard, his lighter footstep.

And she opened the door:

“Lot!”

“Mummy, aren’t you in bed yet?”

“No, dear. Lot, Lot, come here!”

He went into her room.

“Lot, Steyn is out.”

“Out?”

“Yes, he went to his room first … and then
I heard him go quietly down the stairs; then he
went out of the hall-door, quietly.”

“He didn’t want to wake you, Mummy.”

“Ah, but where has he gone to?”

“For a walk. He often does. It’s very hot and
close.”

“Gone for a walk, Lot, gone for a walk? No,
he’s gone …”

She stood in front of him—he could see it by the
candle-light—blazing with passion. Her little figure
in the white night-dress was like that of a fury with
the curly yellow hair, shot with grey, all shining;
everything that was sweet in her seethed up into a
raging temper, as though she were irritated to the
utmost, and she felt an impulse suddenly to raise her
hand and box Lot’s ears with its small, quivering
fingers for daring to defend Steyn. She controlled
herself and controlled her wrath, but words of vulgar
invective and burning reproach came foaming
to her trembling lips.

“Come, Mummy, Mummy! Come!”

Lot tried to calm her. And he took her in his
arms and patted her back, as one does to an excited
child:

“Come, Mummy, come!”

She now burst into sobs. But he remonstrated
with her gently, said that she was exaggerating, that
she had been overwrought lately, that he absolutely
refused to get married if she did not become calmer;
and very prettily he flirted with her in this way and
persuaded her to go to bed, tucked her in, shook up
her pillows:

“Come, Mummy, go to sleep now and don’t be
silly. Let Steyn go for his walk in peace, don’t think
of Steyn, don’t think of anything….”

She acquiesced, under the stroke of his delicate
hand on her hair, her cheek.

“Will you go to sleep now, you silly Mummy?
… I say, Mummy, what a soft skin you
have!”

Nguồn: Wikisource English — Old People and the Things that Pass/Chapter I. Văn bản được nhập và định dạng lại; CC BY-SA 4.0, có thể áp dụng điều khoản bổ sung của tác phẩm.