CHAPTER III
THE old gentleman went out at about three o’clock,
alone: he did not like to be accompanied when he
went, though he was glad to be brought back home;
but he would never ask for this service. Aunt
Adèle looked out of the window and followed him
with her eyes as he turned by the barracks and
crossed the razor-back bridge. He was not going
farther than just down the Nassaulaan, to Mrs.
Dercksz’; and he managed the distance with a
delicate, erect figure and straight legs: he did not
even look so very old a man, in his overcoat buttoned
up to the throat, even though each step was
carefully considered and supported by his heavy,
ivory-knobbed stick. In order above all not to let
it be perceived that this short walk was his exercise
and his relaxation, a great deal of exercise and
relaxation for his now merely nervous strength, he
had needs to consider every step; but he succeeded
in walking as though without difficulty, stiff and
upright, and he studied his reflection in the plateglass
of the ground-floor windows. In the street,
he did not strike a passer-by as so very old. When
he rang, old Anna hurried and the cat slipped crosswise
through her petticoats, cat and maid making for
the front-door at one run:
“The old gentleman, I expect.”
Then she drove the cat back to the kitchen, afraid
lest the old gentleman should stumble, and drew
him in with little remarks about the weather and
questions about his health; and to Takma it called
for rare art to let his overcoat, which he took off
in the hall, slip from his shoulders and arms into
the maid’s hands. He did it slowly and gradually,
a little tired with the walk, but in the meanwhile he
recovered breath sufficiently to go upstairs, one
flight only, with the aid of the stick—”We may as
well keep the stick, Anna,” he would say—for Mrs.
Dercksz nowadays never came down to the ground-floor
rooms.
She was expecting him.
He came almost every day; and, when he was
not coming, Aunt Adèle or Elly would call round
to say so. So she sat, in her high-backed chair,
waiting for him. She sat at the window, looking
out at the gardens of the villas in the Sofialaan.
He murmured heartily, though his salutation was
indistinct:
“Well, Ottilie? … It’s blowing out of
doors…. Yes, you’ve been coughing a bit
lately…. You must take care of yourself,
you know…. I’m all right, I’m all right,
as you see….”
With a few more words of genial heartiness, he
sat down straight upright in the arm-chair at the
other window, while Anna now for the first time
relieved him of his hat, and rested his hands, still
clad in the wide, creased gloves of glace kid, on his
stick.
“I haven’t seen you since the great news,” said
Mrs. Dercksz.
“The children are coming presently to pay their
visit of inspection….”
They were both silent, their eyes looking into
each other’s eyes, chary of words. And quietly for
a while they sat opposite each other, each at a
window of the narrow drawing-room. The old, old
woman sat in a twilight of crimson-rep curtains and
cream-coloured lace-and-canvas blinds, in addition to
a crimson-plush valance, which kept out the draught
and hung with a bend along the window-frame. She
had only moved just to raise her thin hand, in its
black mitten, for Takma to press. Now they both
sat as though waiting for something and yet pleased
to be waiting together…. The old lady was
ninety-seven and she knew that what she was waiting
for must come before her hundredth year had
dawned…. In the twilight of that curtained
corner, against the sombre wall-paper, her face
seemed almost like a piece of white porcelain, with
wrinkles for the crackle, in that shadow into which
she still withdrew, continuing a former prudent
habit of not showing too much of her impaired
complexion; and her wig was glossy-black, surmounted
with the little black-lace cap; the loose
black dress fell in easy, thin lines around her almost
brittle, lean figure, but hid her so entirely in those
never-varying folds of supple cashmere that she could
never be really seen or known, but only suggested
in that dark drapery. Besides the face, nothing
else seemed alive but the frail fingers trembling in
her lap, like so many tapering, luminous wands
in their black mittens; the wrists were encircled in
close-fitting woollen cuffs. She sat upright on her
high-backed chair, as on a throne, supported by a
stiff, hard cushion; another cushion was under her
feet, which she never showed, as they were slightly
deformed by gout. Beside her, on a little table,
was some crochet-work, untouched for years, and the
newspapers, which were read to her by a companion,
an elderly lady who withdrew as soon as
Mr. Takma arrived. The room was neat and
simple, with a few framed photographs here and
there as the only ornament amid the highly-polished,
black, shiny furniture, the crimson sofa
and chairs, with a few pieces of china gleaming
in a glass cabinet. The closed folding-doors led
to the bedroom: these were the only two rooms
inhabited by the old woman, who took her light
meal in her chair.
Golden-sunny was the late summer day; and the
wind blew gaily, in a whirl of early yellow leaves,
through the garden of the Sofialaan.
“A nice view, that,” said Mrs. Dercksz, as she
had said so often before, with her mittened hand
just hinting at an angular pointing gesture.
The voice, long cracked, sounded softer than
pure Dutch and was mellower, with its Creole accent;
and, now that she looked out of the window, the
eyes also took on an eastern softness in the porcelain
features and became darker. She did not
clearly distinguish things outside; but yet the
knowledge that there were flowers and trees over
the way was dear to her dim eyes.
“Fine asters in the garden opposite,” said Takma.
“Yes,” Mrs. Dercksz assented, unable to see
them, but now knowing about the asters.
She understood him quite well; her general deafness
she concealed by never asking what was said
and by replying with a smile of her thin, closed lips
or a movement of her head.
After a pause, as each sat looking out of his own
window, she said:
“I saw Ottilie yesterday.”
The old gentleman felt bewildered for a moment:
“Ottilie?” he asked.
“Lietje … my daughter….”
“Oh, yes! … You saw Lietje yesterday….
I thought you were speaking of yourself….”
“She was crying.”
“Why?”
“Because Lot is going to be married.”
“She’ll be very lonely, poor Lietje; yet Steyn is
a decent fellow….. It’s a pity…. I like
Steyn….”
“We are all of us lonely,” said Mrs. Dercksz;
and the cracked voice sounded sad, as though she
were regretting a past full of vanished shades.
“Not all of us, Ottilie,” said Takma. “You and
I have each other. We have always had each other….
Our child, when Lot is married, will have
no one, not even her own husband.”
“Ssh!” said the old woman; and the straight,
lean figure gave a shiver of terror in the twilight.
“There’s no one here; we can speak at our ease.”
“No, there’s no one….”
“Did you think there was some one?”
“No, not now…. Sometimes …”
“Yes?”
“Sometimes … you know … I think
there is.”
“There’s no one.”
“No, there’s no one.”
“Why are you afraid?”
“Afraid? Am I afraid? What should I be
afraid of? I am too old … much too old
… to be afraid now…. Even though he
may stand over there.”
“Ottilie!”
“Ssh!”
“There’s no one.”
“No.”
“Have you … have you seen him lately?”
“No…. No…. Not for months, perhaps
not … for years, for years…. But
I did see him for many, many years…. You
never saw him?”
“No.”
“But … you used to hear him?…”
“Yes, I … I used to hear him … My
hearing was very good and always keen…. It
was hallucinations…. I often heard his voice.
… Don’t let us talk about it … We are
both so old, so old, Ottilie…. He must have
forgiven us by now. Else we should never have
grown so old. Our life has passed peacefully for
years: long, long, old years; nothing has ever disturbed us:
he must have forgiven us…. Now
we are both standing on the brink of our graves.”
( Yes, it will soon come. I feel it.”
But Takma brought his geniality into play:
“You, Ottilie? You’ll live to be a hundred!”
His voice made an effort at bluff braggadocio and
then broke into a shrill high note.
“I shall never see a hundred,” said the old
woman. “No. I shall die this winter.”
“This winter?”
“Yes. I foresee it. I am waiting. But I am
frightened.”
“Of death?”
“Not of death. But … of him!”
“Do you believe … that you will see him
again?”
“Yes. I believe in God, in the communion of
souls, In a life hereafter. In atonement.”
“I don’t believe in an atonement hereafter, because
we have both of us suffered so much in our
lives, Ottilie!”
The old man’s tone was almost one of entreaty.
“But there has been no punishment,” said she.
“Our suffering was a punishment.”
“Not enough. I believe that, when I am dead,
he, he will accuse me.”
“Ottilie, we have become so old, quietly, quietly.
We have only had to suffer inwardly. But that has
been enough, God will consider that punishment
enough. Don’t be afraid of death.”
“I should not be afraid if I had seen his face
wearing a gentler expression, with something of forgiveness.
He always stared at me…. Oh,
those eyes!…”
“Hush, Ottilie!…”
“When I sat here, he would stand there, in the
corner by the cabinet, and look at me. When I
was in bed, he appeared in my mirror and gazed
at me. For years and years…. Perhaps it
was an hallucination…. But I grew old like
that. I have no tears left. I no longer wring my
hands. I never move except between this chair and
my bed. I have had no uneasiness … or terror
… for years: nobody knows. Of the
baboe …”
“Ma-Boeten?”
“Yes … I have had no news for years. She
was the only one who knew. She’s dead, I
expect.”
“Roelofsz knows,” said the old gentleman, very
softly.
“Yes … he knows … but …”
“Oh, he has always kept silent I …”
“He is … almost … an accomplice….”
“Ottilie, you must think about it calmly….
We have grown so very old … You must think
about it calmly, as I think about it…. You have
always been too fanciful …”
His voice sounded in entreaty, very different from
its usual airy geniality.
“It was after that in particular that I became full
of fancies. No, I have never been able to think
about it calmly! At first I was afraid of people,
then of myself: I thought I should go mad I …
Now, now that it is approaching … I am afraid
of God!”
“Ottilie!”
“It has been a long, long, long martyrdom….
O God, can it be that this life is not enough?”
“Ottilie, we should not have grown so very
old—you … and I … and Roelofsz—if
God … and he also had not forgiven us.”
“Then why did he so often … come and
stand there! Oh, he stood there so often! He just
stared, pale, with dark, sunken eyes, eyes like two
fiery daggers: like that!…”
And she pointed the two slender, wand-like forefingers
straight in front of her.
“I … I am calm, Ottilie. And, if we are
punished afterwards, after our death, we must endure
it. And, if we endure it … we shall
receive mercy.”
“I wish I were a Catholic. I thought for a long
time of becoming a Catholic. Thérèse was quite
right to become a Catholic…. Oh, why do I
never see her now? Shall I ever see her again? I
hope so. I hope so…. If I had been a
Catholic, I should have confessed …”
“There is no absolution among Catholics for
that.”
“Isn’t there? I thought … I thought that
a priest could forgive anything … and cleanse
the soul before you died. The priest at any rate
could have consoled me, could have given me hope!
Our religion is so cold. I have never been able to
speak of it to a clergyman….”
“No, no, of course not!”
“I could have spoken of it to a priest. He would
have made me do penance all my life long; and it
would have relieved me. Now, that is always here,
on my breast. And I am so old. I sit with it. I
lie in bed with it. I cannot even walk about with it,
roam about with it, forget myself in movement….”
“Ottilie, why are you talking about it so much
to-day? Sometimes we do not mention it for
months, for years at a time. Then the months and
years pass quietly…. Why are you suddenly
talking so very much about it to-day?”
“I began thinking, because Lot and Elly are getting
married.”
“They will be happy.”
“But isn’t it a crime, a crime against nature?”
“No, Ottilie, do reflect …”
“They are …”
“They are cousins. They don’t know it, but that
isn’t a crime against nature!”
“True.”
“They are cousins.”
“Yes, they’re cousins.”
“Ottilie is my daughter; her son is my grandson.
Elly’s father …”
“Well?”
“Do reflect, Otillie: Elly’s father, my son,
was Lietje’s brother. Their children are first
cousins.”
“Yes.”
“That’s all they are.”
“But they don’t know that they are cousins.
Lietje has never been told that she is your daughter.
She has never been told that she was your son’s
sister.”
“What difference does that make? Cousins are
free to marry.”
“Yes, but it’s not advisable…. It’s not
advisable because of the children that may come,
because of the blood and because … because of
everything.”
“Of what, Ottilie?”
“They inherit our past. They inherit that terror.
They inherit our sin. They inherit the punishment
for our offence.”
“You exaggerate, Ottilie. No, they don’t inherit
as much as that.”
“They inherit everything. One day perhaps they
will see him standing, perhaps they will hear him,
in the new houses where they will live…. It
would have been better if Elly and Lot had found
their happiness apart from each other … in other
blood, in other souls…. They will never be able
to find the ordinary happiness. Who knows, perhaps
their children will be …”
“Hush, Ottilie, hush!”
“Criminals….”
“Ottilie, please be quiet! Oh, be quiet! Why do
you speak like that? For years, it has been so
peaceful. You see, Ottilie, we are too old. We
have been allowed to grow so old. We have had
our punishment. Oh, don’t let us speak about it
again, never again! Let us wait calmly, calmly, and
suffer the things that come after us, for we cannot
alter them.”
“Yes, let us wait calmly.”
“Let us wait. It will come soon. It will come
soon, for you and me.”
His voice had sounded imploringly; his eyes shone
wet with terror. She sat stiff and upright in her
chair; her fingers trembled violently in the deep,
black folds of her lap. But a -lethargy descended
upon both of them; the strange lucidity and the
anxious tension of their unaccustomed words seemed
but for a moment to be able to galvanize their old
souls, as though by a suggestion from without. Now
they both grew lethargic and became very old indeed.
For a long time they stared, each at his
window, without words.
Then there was a ring at the front-door.
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