CHAPTER VII
HAROLD DERCKSZ, the second son, was seventy-three,
two years younger than Anton. He was a
widower and lived with his only daughter, Ina, who
had married Jonkheer d’Herbourg and had three
children: Lily, a young, flaxen-haired little woman,
married to Van Wely, an officer in the artillery,
and two boys, Pol and Gus, who were at the university
and the grammar-school respectively.
It was sometimes very unpleasant for Ina
d’Herbourg that her father’s family, taken all
round, did not display a correct respectability more
in keeping with the set in which she moved. She
was quite at one with Aunt Stefanie—with whom
she curried favour for other reasons too—and she
agreed with Aunt that Grandmamma had been ill-advised,
after having married a De Laders, to get
married again to one of the much less distinguished
Derckszes: this though Ina herself was a Dercksz
and though her very existence would have been
problematical if Grandmamma had not remarried.
Ina, however, did not think so far as this: she was
merely sorry not to be a De Laders; and the best
thing was to mention Papa’s family as little as
possible. For this reason she denied Uncle Anton,
as far as her acquaintances were concerned, he being
a discreditable old reprobate, about whom the queerest
stories were rumoured. At the same time, he
was a moneyed uncle; and so she caused him to be
kept in view, especially by the young Van Wely
couple, for Ina, in her very small soul, was both a
good daughter to her father and a good mother
to her children and would like to see Uncle Anton
leave his money—how much would he have?—to
her children. Then there was the Indian family of
Uncle Daniel, who was Papa’s partner in business
in Java and who came over to Holland at regular
intervals: well, Ina was glad when business went
well—for that meant money in the home—and
when Uncle Daniel and fat, Indian Aunt Floor
were safe on board the outward mail again, for
really they were both quite unpresentable, Uncle
with his East-Indian ways and Aunt such a nonna
that Ina was positively ashamed of her! Well,
then, in Paris you had Aunt Thérèse van der
Staff, who, after leading a pretty loose life, had
turned Catholic: there you were, that again
was so eccentric! The De Laders had always been
Walloons and the D’Herbourgs also were always
Walloons: really, Walloonism was more distinguished
than Catholicism, at the Hague. The best
thing was … just never to mention Aunt
Thérèse. Last but not least, there was Aunt
Ottilie Steyn de Weert, living at the Hague, alas,
three times married and twice divorced! And she
had a daughter who was a singer and had gone to
the bad and a son who had written two immoral
novels: oh, that was a terrible thing for Ina
d’Herbourg, you know; it was such bad form and
so incorrect; and all their acquaintances knew about
it, though she never mentioned Aunt Ottilie or her
three husbands, who were all three alive! And,
when Ina d’Herbourg thought of Aunt Steyn de
Weert, she would cast up her weary, well-bred eyes
with a helpless air and heave a deep sigh; and, with
that glance and her despair, she looked an entire
IJsselmonde. For she herself, she thought, inherited
more of the aristocratic blood of her mother,
a Freule IJsselmonde, than of her father’s
Dercksz blood. An only daughter, she had been
able, through the Aunts IJsselmonde, to mix in
rather better circles than the all too East-Indian
circle of her father’s family, in so far as that circle
existed, for the family was little known in society:
an isolation seemed to reign around the Derckszes,
who knew very few people; and even her mother,
when she was still alive, had never been able to push
Papa forward as something of a specialist in East-Indian
affairs and make him aim at the colonial
secretaryship, hard though she had tried to do so.
No, Father was not to be dragged out of his
innate, silent timidity; and, though he was quite
gentle and amenable, though he joined in paying all
the visits that were deemed essential, though he
gave dinners and went out to dinner, he remained
the man he was, a quiet, peaceful man of business,
ailing in health and silently broken in soul, with
pain and suffering in his eyes and around his mouth,
but never complaining and always reticent. Harold
Dercksz was now a tall, thin old man; and that
intermittent suffering and eternal silence seemed to
grow worse with the years of sorrow and pain,
seemed no longer capable of concealment; yet he
spoke of it to nobody but his doctor and not much
to him. For the rest, he was silent, never talked
about himself, not even to his brother Daan, who
came at regular intervals to Holland on the business
matters in which they were both interested.
Ina d’Herbourg was a good daughter: when her
father was ill, she looked after him as she looked
after everything in the house, correctly and not
without affection. But she did sometimes ask herself
whether her mother had not been disappointed
in her marriage, for Papa had not much money,
in spite of all the Indian business. Yes, Mamma
had been disappointed financially; and financial
disappointment was always facing Ina too. But,
when Ina’s husband, Leopold d’Herbourg—who,
after taking his degree in law, had first thought of
entering the diplomatic service, but who, in spite
of his self-importance, had not felt himself
sufficiently gifted for that career and was now a
briefless barrister—when Ina’s husband was also
disappointed with the Indian money, then Ina, after
a few domestic scenes, began to think that it would
be her fate always to long for money and never to
have any. Now, it was true, they lived in a big
house and Papa was very generous and bore the
whole expense of keeping Pol at Leiden; but yet
things didn’t go easily with Ina, the money trickled
through her fingers and she would very much have
liked to see more money about, a great deal more
money. That was why she was pleasant to Aunt
Stefanie de Laders and pleasant, furtively, to Uncle
Anton.
Her fate continued to persecute her: instead of
Lily’s waiting a little and making a good match,
she had fallen so deeply in love, when hardly twenty,
with Frits van Wely, a penniless subaltern, that
Ina could do nothing, especially when Papa said:
“Do let the children be happy!…”
And he had given them an allowance, but it meant
sheer poverty; and yet Frits and Lily were married
and in less than no time there was a boy. Then the
only thing that Ina could induce them to do was
to call the baby after Aunt Stefanie.
“Stefanus?” Lily exclaimed, in dismay.
Well, anything for a quiet life! They would call
the boy Stef, which sounded rather nice, for Aunt
would never hear of Etienne. Ina would have
liked Stef anus Anton best; but to this Frits and Lily
would not consent.
It was a principle of Ina d’Herbourg’s never to
talk about money and never about the family; but,
because principles are very difficult to maintain,
there was always talk about money in the D’Herbourgs’
house and a great deal of talk about the
family. Both were grateful subjects of conversation
between Ina and her husband; and, now that Lot
Pauws was engaged to Elly Takma, the talk flowed
on of its own accord, one evening after dinner, while
Harold Dercksz sat looking silently in front of him.
“How much do you think they’ll have, Papa?”
asked Ina.
The old gentleman made a vague gesture and went
on staring.
“Lot, of course, has nothing,” said D’Herbourg.
“His parents are both alive. I daresay he makes
something by those articles of his, but it can’t amount
to much.”
“What does he get for an article?” asked Ina,
eager to know at all costs.
“I don’t know, I haven’t the remotest notion!”
cried D’Herbourg.
“Do you think he’ll get anything from old Pauws?
He lives in Brussels, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, but old Pauws has nothing either!”
“Or from Aunt Ottilie? She has the money her
father left her, you know. Steyn has nothing, has
he, Father? Besides, why should Steyn give Lot
anything?”
“No,” said D’Herbourg. “But old Mr. Takma
has plenty: Elly’s sure to get something from him.”
“I can’t understand how they are going to live,”
said Ina.
“They won’t have less than Lily and Frits.”
“But I can’t understand how those two are going
to live either!” Ina retorted.
“Then you should have found your daughter a
rich husband!”
“Please,” said Ina, wearily closing the well-bred
eyes, with the glance of the IJsselmondes, “don’t
let us talk about money. I’m sick and tired of it.
And other people’s money … is le moindre de
mes soucis. I don’t care in the least how another
person lives…. Still … I believe that
Grandmamma is better off than we think.”
“I know roughly how much she ought to have,”
said D’Herbourg. “Deelhof the solicitor was saying
the other day …”
“How much?” asked Ina, eagerly; and the weary
eyes brightened up.
But, because he saw an expression of pain come
over his father-in-law’s face and wrinkle it and
because he did not know whether the pain was
physical or moral, arising from gastritis or from
nerves, D’Herbourg evaded the question. It was
difficult, however, to stop at once, even though Papa
did look pained, and so he said:
“Aunt Stefanie must be comfortably off.”
“Yes, but I should think,” said Ina, “considering
how Uncle Anton used to hoard while he was a resident,
that he’s much better off than Aunt Stefanie.
As an unmarried man, he never entertained during
his term of office: that I know for a fact. The
resident’s house was tumbling to pieces when he left
it after eight years….”
“But Uncle Anton is an old reprobate,” said
D’Herbourg, forcibly, “and that cost him money.”
“No!” said Harold Dercksz.
He said it as though in pain, waving his hand in
a gesture of denial; but he had no sooner uttered
this single word in defence of his brother than he
regretted it, for Ina asked, eagerly:
“No, Papa? But surely Uncle Anton’s life won’t
bear investigation …”
And D’Herbourg asked:
“Then how was he able to be such a beast, without
paying for his pleasures?…”
Harold Dercksz cast about for a word in palliation; he said:
“The women were fond of Anton …”
“Women? Flappers, you mean!”
“No, no!” Harold Dercksz protested, repudiating
the suggestion with his lean old hand.
“Ssh!” said Ina, looking round.
The boys entered.
“Why, Uncle Anton was had up thirty years
ago!” D’Herbourg continued.
“No, no,” Harold Dercksz protested.
Pol, the student, and Gus, the younger boy,
entered; and there was no more talk about money
and the family that evening; and, because of the boys,
the after-dinner tea went off pleasantly. Truly, Ina
was a good mother and had brought her boys up
well: because of old Grandfather, they were gay
without being noisy, which always gave Harold
Dercksz an agreeable, homely feeling; and they were
both very polite, to the great contentment of Ina,
who was able to say that Pol and Gus did not get
that from the Derckszes: when Grandfather rose to
go to his study upstairs, Gus flew to the door and
held it open, with very great deference. The old
man nodded kindly to his grandson, tapped him on
the shoulder and went up the stairs, reflecting that
Ina was a good daughter, though she had her faults.
He liked living in her house. He would have felt
very lonely by himself. He was fond of those two
boys. They represented something young, something
that was still on its way to maturity, merrily
and gaily, those two young-boyish lives: they were
not, like all the rest, something that passed, things
that passed, slowly and threateningly, for years and
years and years….
On reaching his study, Harold Dercksz turned up
the gas and dropped into his chair and stared. Life
sometimes veiled things, veiled them silently, those
terrible, life-long things, and then they did not
threaten so greatly and, until death came and wiped
them away, they passed, passed always, however
slowly they might pass. But they passed away
very slowly, the things. He was an old man now,
a man of seventy-three, and an infirm old man,
dragging his old age to the grave for which he was
yearning. How many sufferings had he not endured !
He could not understand why he need grow so old,
while the things passed so slowly, went silently by,
but with such a trailing action, as though they, the
things of the past, were ghosts trailing very long
veils over very long paths and as though the veils
rustled over the whirling leaves that fluttered upon
the paths. All his long aftermath of life he had
seen the things go past and he had often failed to
understand how seeing them go past like that was
not too much for a man’s brain. But the things had
dragged their veils and the leaves had just rustled:
never had the threat been realized; no one had
stepped from behind a tree; the path had remained
desolate under his eyes; and the path wound on and
on and the ghostly things went past…. Sometimes
they looked round, with ghostly eyes; sometimes
they went on again, with dragging slowness:
they were never brought to a standstill. He had
seen them pass silently through his childhood,
through his boyhood, when he was the age of Pol
and Gus; he had seen them pass through his very
commonplace life as a coffee-planter in Java and a
manufacturer afterwards and through his married
life with a woman whose existence he had come to
share by mistake, even as she had come by mistake
to share his: he, doubtless, because he did nothing
but see those things, the things that passed….
He now coughed, a hard, dry cough, which hurt his
chest and stomach and sent jolts shooting through
his shrunken legs….
Oh, how much longer would it last, his seeing the
things? … They went past, they went past and
loitered and loitered…. Oh, why did they not
go faster? … From the time when he was a
little fellow of thirteen, a merry, sportive little fellow
playing barefoot in the river before the assistant-resident’s
house, rejoicing in the fruit, the birds, the
animals, rejoicing in all the glad child-life of a boy
in Java who can play in big grounds, beside running
waters, and climb up tall, red-blossoming trees; from
the moment—a sultry night, the dark sky first
threatening and then shedding heavy, clattering
torrents of rain—from the moment when he saw
the things, the first things, the first terrible Thing:
from that moment a confusion had crept over his
tender brain like a monster which had not exactly
crushed the child, but which had ever since possessed
it, held it in its claws…. All the years of his
life, he had seen the Thing rise up again, like a vision,
the terrible Thing begotten and born in that night
when, being no doubt a little feverish, he had been
unable to sleep under the heavy, leaden night, which
still held up the rain in powerful sails that could not
burst and allowed no air through for him to breathe.
The vision? No, the Thing, the actual Thing …
A lonely pasangrahan in the mountains: he is
there alone with his two parents, he the darling of
his father, who is taking his sick-leave. The other
brothers and the sisters have been left behind in the
town, in the assistant-resident’s house.
He cannot sleep and he calls:
“Baboe, come here!…”
She does not answer. Where is she? As a rule,
she lies outside his door, on her little mat, and wakes
at once.
“Baboe, baboe, come here!”
He becomes impatient; he is a big boy, but he is
frightened, because he has a touch of fever too, like
Papa, and because the night is so sultry, as though
an earthquake were at hand.
“Baboe!…”
She is not there.
He struggles up and gets entangled in the
klamboe, which he is unable to open in his feverish
terror…. He now releases himself from the
muslin folds and is again about to call out for his
baboe … but he hears voices, whispering, in
the back verandah…. The blood curdles in
the boy’s body: he thinks of thieves, of ketjoes, and
is horribly frightened…. No, they are not
speaking Javanese: they are not ketjoes. They are
speaking Dutch, with Malay in between; and he next
recognizes Baboe’s voice. And he tries to utter a
scream of fright, but his fright prevents him….
What are they doing, what is happening? The boy
is clammy, cold…. He has heard his mother’s
voice: he now recognizes the voice of Mr. Emile,
Mr. Takma, the secretary, who is so often at the
house in the town…. Oh, what are they doing
out there in the dark? … He was frightened
at first, but now he is cold rather and shivers and
does not know why…. What can be happening?
What are Mamma and Mr. Takma and Ma-Boeten
doing out there in the night? … His curiosity
overcomes his terrors. He keeps very quiet, only
his teeth chatter; he opens the door of his room,
very gently, to prevent its creaking. The middle
verandah is dark, the back verandah is dark….
“Hush, baboe, hush, O my God, hushl …
Quietly, quietly…. If the sinjo should
hear! …”
“He’s asleep, kandjeng….”
“If the oppas should hear! …..”
“He’s asleep, kandjeng….”
“O my God, O my God, if he should wake! …
Oh, baboe, baboe, what are we to do?…”
“Be quiet, Ottilie, be quiet I …”
“Nothing else for it, kandjeng: in the river, in
the river!…”
“O my God, O my God, no, no, not in the river!”
“Do keep quiet, Ottilie!”
“O my God, no, not in the river!”
“It’s the only way, Ottilie! Be quiet, be quiet !
Hold your tongue, I say! Do you want to get us
both taken up … for murder?”
“I? Did I murder him?”
“I couldn’t help it! I acted in self-defence! You
hated him, I didn’t, Ottilie. But you did it with
me.”
“Oh, my God, no, no!”
“Don’t try to avoid your share of the blame!”
“No, no, no!”
“You hung on to him …”
“Yes, no …”
“When I snatched his kris from him!”
“Yes … yes …”
“Hush, kandjeng, hush!”
“O my God, O my God, it’s lightening! …
Oh, what a clap, what a clap!”
The mountains echo the rolling thunder, again
and again and yet again. The torrent pours down,
as though the rain-sails were tearing….
The boy hears his mother’s scream.
“Quiet, Ottilie, quiet!”
“I can bear it no longer, I shall faint!”
“Be quiet! Hold his leg. Baboe, you take the
other leg!”
“There’s blood, on the floor….”
“Wipe it up.”
“Presently, kandjeng, oh, presently! … First
to the river….”
“O my God, O my God!”
The boy’s teeth chatter and his eyes start from
his head and his heart thumps, in his fever. He is
mortally frightened, but he wants to see, too. He
does not understand and, above all, he wants to see.
His childish curiosity wants to see the terrible Thing
which he does not yet understand. Silently, on his
bare feet, he steals through the dark verandah. And,
in the dim light of the night outside … he sees !
He sees the Thing! A flash of lightning, terrible;
a clap of thunder, as if the mountains were falling
… and he has seen! He is now looking only
at vagueness, the vague progress of something which
they are carrying … of somebody whom they
are carrying, Mamma, Mr. Emile and Ma-Boeten.
In his innocence, he does not realize whom. In his
innocence, he thinks only of terrible things and
people, of robbers and treasures, of creepy incidents
in his story-books…. Whom are they carrying
through the garden? Can’t Papa hear them? Won’t
he wake? Is he so fast asleep?
Now he no longer hears their voices…. Now
they have disappeared in the garden…. Doesn’t
the oppas hear? … No, everything remains
quiet; everything has disappeared in the darkness
and the rain; he sees nothing but the rain pouring
in torrents, pelting, pelting, furiously. The furious
pelting prevents Father and Oppas from hearing.
… The sky has burst and all the rain in the sky
is pelting down…. He is shivering with cold
and fever. And suddenly he feels his little bare foot
stepping on something warm and soft …. It is
blood, clotted blood….
He no longer dares to move forwards or backwards.
He stands with his teeth chattering and all
the clatter of the rain around him…. But he
must wake his father, take refuge with him, hide himself
in his arms and sob and sob with fright! …
He gropes his way back to the middle verandah; he
sees the door of Mamma’s room standing open: a
little lamp is flickering faintly. Again his foot feels
the soft warmth and he shudders at the terrible mire,
which is blood, clotted blood, and lies everywhere,
on the matting. But he wants to get to the little
lamp, to take it with him to Papa’s room, so far
away, near the front verandah. He goes to the
lamp and takes it and sees Mamma’s bed all tumbled,
with the pillows on the floor…. And he now
sees the red on the floor, already almost black, and
he is terrified and feels icy cold and steps aside with
the lamp, so as not to tread on a kris, a handsome
presentation weapon, which Papa received from the
Regent yesterday! There it lies … and the
blade is red! Now everything is misty-red before
his childish eyes, oh, terribly red in the verandah,
with its dancing shadows, through which he, so small,
goes with his little lamp, in his terror and fever:
perhaps he is dreaming! … To Papa’s room:
“Papa, oh, Papa, oh, Papa!”
He is stammering with fright, at his wits’ end
without Papa’s protection.
He opens Papa’s door:
“Papa, oh, Papa, oh, Papa!”
He goes up to the bed with his little lamp in his
hand. Papa has slept in the bed, but is not there
now…. Where is Papa? … And of a
sudden it stands revealed to his childish mind. He
sees the terrible Thing, sees it as a dreadful, awful,
blood-red haunting vision. What they carried away
through the garden, through the pouring rain, to the
river … was Papa, was Papa! What Mamma
and Mr. Emile and Ma-Boeten are carrying away
outside … is Papa! … He is all alone in
the house … Papa is dead and they are carrying
him to the river…. He has seen the Thing.
… He goes on seeing the Thing…. He
will always see it…. He does not know why—he
has suddenly grown years older—but he shuts
Papa’s door, goes back, puts Mamma’s lamp where
he found it and goes back to his own room. He
trembles in the dark and his teeth chatter and his
eyes start and stare out of his head. But he washes
his feet, in the dark, and at once flings the towel into
the linen-basket. He creeps into bed, pulls the
klamboe to, pulls the coverlet over his ears. And
he lies shaking with fever. The iron bedstead
underneath him trembles in unison. He is alone in
the pasangrahan and he has seen the terrible Thing:
first the actual progress of it and then the revealing
vision, in the glare of the lightning-flashes, under the
roar of the mountain-cleaving thunder. He lies and
shakes…. How long does it last? How long
does it last? … Half an hour, three-quarters
of an hour…. He hears Baboe coming back
and Mamma moaning, sobbing, groaning and
Ma-Boeten muttering:
“Hush, kadjeng, hush!…”
“They’re sure to have seen us!…”
“No, there was no one there…. Think of
Sinjo Harold, kandjeng!…”
Everything becomes still….
Deathly still….
The boy lies shaking with fever; and all night
long his starting eyes stare and he sees the
Thing….
He has seen it ever since; and he has grown to
be an old man….
Next day, Papa’s body is discovered among the
great boulders in the river. There are suggestions
of a perkara with a woman, in the kampong, of
jealousy. But Dr. Roelofsz finds that the wound
was caused by nothing more than a sharp rock, to
which Dercksz tried to cling, when drowning….
No need to credit natives’ gossip…. No
question of a murder…. The controller draws
up the report: Assistant-resident Dercksz—staying
temporarily in the pasangrahan, unable to sleep
because of his fever and the sultry weather—went
out during the night, for the sake of air…. The
oppasser heard him … and was rather surprised,
for it was raining in torrents…. But
it was not the first time that the kandjeng had gone
out into the jungle at night, because of his sleeplessness….
He missed his way; and the river was
swollen…. It was impossible for him to swim,
among the great rocks…. He was drowned
in the stormy night…. His body was found
by natives some distance below the pasangrahan,
while Mrs. Dercksz, on walking in the morning, was
very uneasy at not finding her husband in his
room.
Harold Dercksz sat and stared.
In his silent, gloomy business-man’s study, he saw
the Thing pass, but with such a trailing movement
and so slowly…. And he did not notice the
door open and his daughter Ina enter.
“Father …”
He did not answer.
“Father! Father …”
He started.
“I have come to say good-night…. What
were you thinking of so hard, Father?”
Harold Dercksz drew his hand over his forehead:
“Nothing, dear … things … old
things….”
He saw them: there they went, trailing long
spectral veils over rustling leaves … and …
and was anything threatening behind the trees in
that endless path?…
“Old things? … Oh, Father, they are past
by now I … I never think of old things: the
life of to-day is difficult enough for people without
money….”
She kissed him good-night….
No, the old things … are not yet the things
of the past…. They are passing, they are
passing … but so slowly!
Nguồn: Wikisource English — Old People and the Things that Pass/Chapter VII. Văn bản được nhập và định dạng lại; CC BY-SA 4.0, có thể áp dụng điều khoản bổ sung của tác phẩm.