CHAPTER XXX
THE sunny days had come, at the end of April,
in Naples; and Lot, from his room, across the
green-lacquered palms of the Villa Nazionale, saw
the sea stretch blue, a calm, straight, azure expanse,
hazing away, farther towards the horizon, in a
pearly mist, from which, in dreamy unreality,
Castellamare stood out with brighter, square white
patches….
He looked out of his high window, feeling a little
tired after his walk with Steyn, who had just gone,
after sitting with him for a long time. He had been
glad to see Steyn, feeling lonely at the departure
of old Mr. Pauws, who had gone back to Brussels
after spending two months with Lot. Yes, the old
gentleman had been unable to stand it: the scorching
April heat in Naples was too much for him, whereas
it sent Lot into the seventh heaven. Lot was quite
well again. That had been a pleasant time with
Papa: they had gone for long excursions in the
Campaigna and latterly in the environs of Naples;
and this constant living in the open air, without
fatiguing himself, had done Lot a world of good:
he felt himself growing stronger daily. Then
old Pauws left him: Lot himself had insisted upon
Papa’s going, dreading that the sun-swept, southern
spring, in Naples of all places, would affect the old
gentleman’s health, hale and hearty though he might
be. And so old Pauws went back, regretting that he
had to leave Lot by himself, but pleased with the
time which they had spent together and with the
harmony that existed between him and his son, who
was so very different from him.
This was all because of Lot’s character; he gave
Lot full credit for it, for he himself was a brusque,
somewhat rough, masterful man, but Lot, with his
yielding gentleness and his not so very cynical laugh,
smoothed away, with native ease, anything that
might provoke a conflict or want of harmony between
an old father and a son who was still young.
Yes, Lot was glad that Steyn had broken his
journey and put in a day or two at Naples. Though
Lot had acquaintances at Naples and he saw them
regularly, he had found in Steyn something to remind
him of home and his country and his family.
It happened fortunately that Steyn arrived after
Lot’s father had left, so that there was no possibility
of a painful meeting between these two husbands of
his mother. And yet they had nothing to reproach
each other with: “Mr.” Trevelley came in between
them! …
But Lot was very tired after his talk with Steyn.
It all whirled before his mind, it swam before his
eyes, which gazed out at the white fairy-city, at
Castellamare in the pearly distance…. Steyn
had said so much to him, revealed to him so much
that he did not know, so much that Lot would
probably never have known but for Steyn, things to
which he was a stranger, which were strange to him,
but which nevertheless made him seize and grasp
and understand all sorts of things, suddenly, suddenly:
sensations experienced as a child, in the little
house in the Nassaulaan, Grandmamma’s house.
… Yes, Steyn, in the confidence arising from
their association, after first lunching together, had
told him of the letter which he had read, in the act
of tearing it up, with Adèle Takma in the old
gentleman’s study; and Lot, in utter stupefaction,
had heard everything: Lot now knew … and
thought that he alone knew, together with Steyn
and Aunt Adèle…. How terrible, those passions
of former days, of hatred, of love, of murder!
He now saw, in that narrow drawing-room, each at
a window, those two very old people sitting and
waiting … waiting … waiting….
Now, now it had come, what they had so long waited
for…. Now, now they were both dead….
Oh, to grow so old, under so heavy a life’s secret:
he could never do it, he thought it too terrible!
… And, gazing wearily into the pearly evening
distance, which began to turn pink and purple in
the reflection of the setting sun, he felt—he, the
grandchild of those two murderers—felt dread
descending upon him, gigantic, as a still invisible but
already palpable, wide-winged shadow: the dread
of old age. O God, O God, to grow so old, to wait
so patiently, to see things pass so slowly! … It
took away his breath; and he shivered, closed the
window, looked out through the closed window.
… Oh, he had not the passion that had filled
those old people; his neutral-tinted soul would never
let itself be tempted to any sort of passion; his
disillusioned, nerveless, dilettante nature contemplated
the violent things of this life with a slightly
bitter little smile, thought them superfluous, asked itself,
why? … So heavy a life’s secret he would
never have to bear, no; but there was so much else—so
much melancholy, so much silent suffering and
loneliness—that, feeling the shadowy dread sink
down upon him, he asked:
“O God, O my God, can I ever grow so old? So
old as those two old people were? … Is it
possible that I shall slowly wither and fade, gradually
dying and dragging myself along, always with
that same gnawing at my heart, always with that
same sorrow, a sorrow which I cannot yet utter to
anybody, to anybody … not even to Steyn
… because I will not judge, because I can not
judge … because Elly is right from her point
of view … because she lives in what she is now
doing and would pine if she always remained with
me, by whose side she feels herself to be useless
… aimless … aimless? …”
O God, no, let him not grow old, let him die
young, die young and not, year after year, feel the
dread pressing more and more heavily on his small,
vain soul, his soul so childishly terrified of what
was to come! … Let him not, year after year,
feel that dread gnawing more and more at his heart,
like an animal eating his heart away, and let him
not, for years and years on end, feel that silent sorrow
weeping within him, never uttered or shown,
not even to Elly, if she ever came back, because he
would want to assure her with a smile that he understood
her aspirations and respected them and approved
and admired them!
Loneliness was all around him now: his father
was gone, Steyn was gone; Elly was so far from
him, in a sphere to which, despite her letters, he was
so little able to follow her in thought, a sphere of
terror and horror so great that he kept on asking
himself:
“Can she do that? … Has she the strength
to keep it up? … Those hospitals … the
din of the battlefield thundering in her ears …
the sufferings of the wounded … their cries
… their blood: could she hear and see all that
… and devote herself … and act? …”
When he saw it looming up out of her hurried letters,
it was so terrible a vision that he did not see
Elly in it: she faded and passed into somebody else,
he did not know her, hardly knew her even in the
photograph which she had sent him and in which he
vacantly looked for his wife among a number of
other Red Cross nurses…. No, in this photograph
she looked neither like him nor Mamma:
she was herself this time, another, some one quite
different…. The energy of her undreaming,
harder eyes startled him: in this portrait he saw,
in a sort of bewildered ecstasy, a willing, a striving
perhaps to transcend the bounds which she already
saw before her! … Oh, was it possible that
she might soon return, worn out, and fall asleep in
his arms? Had he the right to wish it, for himself
… and for her? Ought he not rather to hope
that she would persevere and live according to the
career which she herself had chosen? Perhaps so
… but to him it was such an unspeakable grief
that she was not there, that she was not by his
side, she whom he had come to love as he never
thought that he could love! …
And this made everything so lonely around him.
What were a few pleasant, intelligent, artistic
friends at Naples, with whom he chatted and dined
now and again at a restaurant? And beyond that
there was nothing, nothing; and that … that
perhaps was how he would have to grow old:
ninety-three, ninety-seven years old! Oh, how that
dread shuddered, that shadowing dread, which
would always grow colder and colder still, as he
grew older! O God, no, no, let him die young,
while still in the flower of his youth, though his
life was morbid; let him die young! …
Even Mamma was not with him now! She was
in London: there lay her last letter; and in her
angry written words she complained that Hugh was
such a man for girls, always out with girls, leaving
her alone! … She saw John now and again,
saw Mary now and again; but she suffered agonies
because Hugh neglected her, though he always knew
how to come to her when he wanted money! It was
the first letter in which she expressed herself so
angrily, unable to restrain herself, because she suffered
so from the sting of jealousy in the flesh of
her heart: jealousy because Hugh amused himself
with other women, with girls, more than with his
mother! And Lot pictured her, alone, spending a
long, dreary evening in her room at the hotel, while
Hugh was out, with his girls…. Poor Mamma!
… Was it beginning so early? But, now that
she had Hugh, whom she worshipped, it would last
as long as she had any money left … and only
then, when it was all finished, would she come back
to him, to Lot … and, if Elly had returned by
that time, then she would be jealous of Elly!…
Yes, that would be the future, without a doubt
… Beyond a doubt, he had not seen Elly for
the last time; beyond a doubt she would come back,
wearied, and sleep, sleep off her weariness in his
arms…. And he would see his mother again
also: older, an older woman, worn out, penniless;
and she would cry out her grief, cry out her grief in
his arms…. And he, with a little laugh of disillusionment,
would find a chaffing word of consolation …
and the days would drag by, the things
would pass … pass very, very slowly ….
not full of red remorse and hatred, passion and
murder, as they had passed for those two very old
people … but full of an inner canker, inner
grief and inner, painful suffering, which he would
never express and which would be his secret, his,
his secret: an innocent secret, free from all crime
and other scarlet things, but as torturing as a hidden,
gnawing disease….
It was evening now. Well, he would not go out
to look for his friends. He would stay indoors,
sup off a couple of eggs…. It was late; and
the best way to forget was to light the lamp cosily
… and to work, to work quietly, in his loneliness.
… Come! He had made the room look homely;
there were green plants and white plaster casts
and warm-coloured pieces of drapery; there were
fine brown photographs on the walls; and he had a
big table to write at and the lamp was burning
nicely now, after spluttering a little at first….
Come, to work: his dilettante work, the work which
he could do best…. To recast and rewrite
those articles on the Medicis—O sweet memories
of Florence!—that was his work for this evening.
… Come, every one must be the best judge of
his destiny: Elly of hers, he of his; and that this
was so was really not worth distressing yourself
for all your life long. There were beautiful and
interesting things left, especially in Italy; and
spring in the south was such an undiluted joy…..
Come, let him soak himself in it now, quietly and in
solitude … and work, work hard and forget.
… There was nothing like work: it took your
thoughts off yourself and all those dreadful things;
and, though you withered and faded in working,
still you withered and faded with no time for repining….
And yet it was terrible, terrible; … that
one could become as old as Grandmamma
had become … as Mr. Takma had
become! … Well, suppose he wrote a novel: a
novel about two old people like that … and
about the murder in Java?
He smiled and shook his head:
“No,” he thought, almost speaking aloud, “it
would be too romantic for me…. And then
there are so many novels nowadays: I’ll keep to
my two…. That is enough, more than enough.
Better by far rewrite the Medici series….”
And, as the chill of sunset was over and the
starry night outside was growing sultry, he flung
open the windows again, drew a deep breath and sat
down to his big table, by his bright lamp….
His fair and delicate face bent low over his papers;
and, so close to the lamp, it could be seen that he
was growing very grey at the temples.
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