Dr. Adriaan/Chapter XIX
When Mathilde returned next morning, she seemed to perceive a certain displeasure, a coldness in her husband, in her mother-in-law and in all of them; but she decided that perhaps she was mistaken: she was tired, she was unstrung; and, after she had been to see the children, she kept to her own room, where she knew that no one would disturb her, now that Addie had gone out to his patients. And it was not the surmised displeasure, the unwonted fatigue after the ball that made her nervous, as though she was infected by a nervous thrill from all who surrounded her: it was particularly because of Johan Erzeele that she was now walking restlessly round her room, sitting down at the window, getting up again, going in to the children, coming back again, sitting down to the piano, looking over her ball-programme and suddenly tearing it up. . . . Now, suddenly, she reproached herself with all sorts of things that had happened the night before: for dancing with Johan so often, even though she had known him all her life as a young girl at the Hague, where he was a subaltern in the grenadiers, while his people lived at Utrecht; for flirting with him in so marked a way at supper; for allowing him to speak like that, with his brazen, sensual fashion of making love to her; for knowing and deliberately encouraging his brazenness; lastly, for scarcely preventing him from escorting her on foot—because it was so near—to the hotel, where she had reserved a room.
She had lost her temper, refused, asked for a carriage, and ridden alone to the hotel where she had spent the night; but his offer and the words in which he had couched it had shocked her, had frightened her all through that night, that short night, so that she had not had a moment's sleep. And now she was angry with herself for not summoning up her usual sound sense, so that he had seen how frightened and shocked she was and had laughed at it, with the caressing laugh of his well-shaped mouth. And, because she was angry with herself, all sorts of nervous excuses went whirling through, all her grievances, great and small, came surging up, as though to defend her against herself, against her own self-reproach. Why couldn't Addie have gone too? Why must he leave her to her own devices like that? Why was she only good for the one thing? Why did he hold such long conversations, full of strange intensity, with that ailing Marietje? Why did she sometimes, through his kisses, feel a strange chill come out of him and freeze her, so that the spontaneous word grew still and lifeless on her lips and she no longer knew what to say: she only knew that she was losing him, again and again and again, while all the others, down below, were winning him, winning him for themselves! Oh, how the grievances whirled up, fighting against her self-reproach, until at last she burst into tears, sheer nervous tears, such as she had never shed before! And, as though the grievances were winning, she suddenly laid the blame on Addie, on all of them, on her husband's whole family, on Driebergen, on the house full of lunatics and invalids, on the eerie, haunted house where she could not breathe, while they all, down below, found living there so delightful. She blamed them all, blamed the whole house for it, that she was losing her sound sense and had allowed Johan to say all sorts of things to her which otherwise she would never have allowed. And, in her tears, while still blaming him—because she did not see that there was no blame, that no one was to blame for anything, while she was casting about to whom to impute the blame—she longed for her husband, felt that she was still very much in love with him, that she would have liked to embrace him, to clasp him close to her, to weep out her sorrows on his heart, to hear his deep, young, earnest voice, to look into his deep, young earnest eyes, so that she might grow calm again and happy, far away, with him and her children! Now she longed for him to come back; now she looked out down the road; and, when she saw him—the bell was ringing for lunch, because Truitje downstairs had also seen him coming up the road—she ran down and was just in time to kiss him in the morning-room and to whisper:
"Addie, Addie, you do love me?"
"Why, of course, darling!" he answered, gravely and, she thought, almost sadly.
And now, sitting silent at table, feeling all sorts of reproaches around her, she asked herself, was it not his fault, was it not his fault? What she really imagined to be his fault she did not clearly see, for it was all whirling through her mind; she kept on thinking of Johan Erzeele, kept on feeling her self-reproach; and the grievances surged up, like lances, more numerous than before, to defend her against that self-reproach.
Gerdy had not come down to lunch: she was tired, Adeline said. The tone of the conversation was forced; and Mathilde reflected that it was always so when she was there, when they would look at one another askance, in a silent understanding against her, against her. . . .
Lunch finished, the children, Jetje and Constant, went out, after Addie had first played with them. Yes, he was fond of the children, but was he fond of her, of his wife? . . .
"Addie, Addie, you do love me, don't you?"
She had found another opportunity of asking him; and he answered: "Why, of course, dear."
"Stay with me to-day."
"Very well. What would you like to do? Shall we go for a walk? It's fine."
"Yes, Addie, I'd like to."
And they went out together and roamed along deserted paths; she took his arm:
"I am so glad to be with you. . . . You ought to have come yesterday. . . ."
"I don't care for dancing . . . but, if you had asked me . . . "
"You would have refused."
"Perhaps not."
"Yes, you would. . . . I sha'n't go again, without you. I want to dance with you, with you."
"I like skating better."
"There, you see, you're refusing already!"
"No, I won't refuse: I shall come with you, next time."
"I'm happy when I'm with you. . . . Addie, couldn't we go and live alone, with our children?"
"Whenever you like, darling."
"Yes, but you're attached to the house."
"Yes, I'm attached to it."
"It would be a sacrifice for you."
He made a vague gesture:
"Only you'd have to be economical at the Hague."
"You would soon have a fine practice there."
"But I'm not aiming at . . . a fine practice."
"Ah, that's just it!"
He yielded to a slight sense of impatience:
"It's a pity, Tilly, that you find it so difficult to adapt yourself here. . . . Very well, we'll go to the Hague."
"But, if you're obstinate . . . and refuse to earn an income," she said, impetuously.
"We shall have enough."
"How much?"
He made a brief calculation:
"Say, five thousand guilders, no more."
"But I can't live on that . . . with two children."
"It ought to be enough, Tilly."
"But it's nonsense, trying to live at the Hague on five thousand guilders a year . . . with two children."
"Then what do you want?" he asked, bluntly.
"I want you to get a practice. . . . You have only to wish it: you would become the fashion at once."
He was silent.
"Why don't you answer?"
"Because we don't understand each other, Tilly," he said, sadly. "I can't give up the practice which I have in order to become a fashionable doctor."
"Why not, if it pays?"
"Because it conflicts with all . . . with everything inside me."
"I don't understand."
"I know you don't."
"Then explain it to me."
"It can't be explained, Tilly. It can only be felt."
"So I have no feeling?"
"Not for that . . . no fellow-feeling . . . with me. . . ."
"Why did you marry me?" she asked, curtly.
"Because I love you."
"Because you love me!" she echoed, curtly. "Because I'm good enough . . . for that!"
Her eyes flashed.
"Tilly!" he implored.
It was as though a sudden terror blinded him, as though a spectre of guilt suddenly loomed up out of all the black self-insufficiency of the last few years, his years of married life.
"Because I'm good enough . . . to bear you children. Because you want to have children by me, healthy children, children different from your family, your mother's family."
"Tilly!"
"Addie!" she entreated. "Love me! Love me!"
"I do love you, Tilly!" he cried, in despair.
"Love me altogether!"
"I do love you altogether!" he lied, in anguish for her sake.
"No, you love me . . . half!"
"That's not so!"
"Yes, it is, you know it is! . . . I want to be loved by you altogether and not only . . ."
"Hush, Tilly," he entreated, in dismay. "Tilly, don't let us spoil our happiness!"
"Our happiness!" she laughed, scornfully.
"Aren't we happy then?"
And he tried to force her to say yes, but she was suffering too much and exclaimed:
"No, I am not happy! When I embrace you . . ." she clutched her fingers. "When I have embraced you," she went on, "it's over, it's over, it's over at once; I feel that you are far away from me again; that you don't love me."
"I do love you, I do love you!"
"Then talk to me."
"I do."
"No, talk to me as you talk to Mary."
"But, Tilly, I talk to her . . . to calm her."
"That's a lie!"
"Tilly!"
"It's a lie! . . . You talk to her . . . you talk to her because you're in love with her!"
"Tilly, stop that!"
"Not as you are with me . . . but differently. . . ."
Suddenly he grasped her wrist. She knew his sudden bursts of anger. They were very rare; but she knew them. And, because he was dazzled by the sudden light that shone from her, because from all the gloom of his self-insufficiency a consciousness of guilt came looming up to frighten him:
"And now, silence!" he cried, shaking her arm. "Silence! I command it!"
He no longer knew things. Life whirled dizzily before him, deep as a black abyss.
He stood in front of her on the lonely road; and it was as though his grey eyes flashed lightning, shooting blue spark after blue spark of rage and pain. His whole face quivered, his body quivered, his voice quivered with rage and pain. She felt a furious resistance rise within her . . . together with black despair. She felt an impulse to rush into his arms, to sob out her sorrow on his heart. But she did not want his caresses: she wanted the thing that escaped her. It was escaping her now; and, when she said it, when she said it straight out, he commanded her to be silent, not to say it. Wasn't it his fault, wasn't it his fault? Wasn't she right?
She released her hand:
"You don't love me," she said, curtly.
"No. When you speak to me like that, I don't. I'm not in love with Marietje. I'm sorry for her."
His voice was very calm and full of feeling; and she, also grown calmer, answered:
"You feel for her."
"I do."
"Well, then . . ."
"But you have no right to bring that up against me. I don't grant you that right . . . because, Tilly . . ."
"Right, right? What rights have I? I have no rights! . . . I live in your house on sufferance. . . ."
"Tilly, be careful!"
"Why should I?"
"You're destroying our happiness."
"It doesn't exist."
"Yes, it does . . . if . . ."
He passed his hand over his head. There was a cold wind blowing; and the beads of perspiration stood on his forehead.
"If you would be reasonable."
"And share you?"
"Share me? . . . With whom?" he roared.
"Not with her, perhaps," she resumed, frightened, "but with . . . with . . ."
"With whom?"
"With them all."
"All whom?"
"Your family . . . all of them . . . whom you love more than me."
"I don't love them more."
"No, but you feel with them . . . and not with me."
"Then feel with me!" he implored, as though to save both her and himself. "Feel, Tilly, that I can't be a fashionable doctor, but that I have a large practice, a number of patients to whom I am of use."
"They don't pay you."
His mouth involuntarily gave a twist of contempt.
"They don't pay you," she repeated. "You are wearing yourself out . . . for nothing."
"Try and feel, Tilly, that I am not wearing myself out for nothing . . . just because I am not making money."
"Then teach me to feel it."
He looked at her in despair.
"Teach me!" she entreated. "For your sake, because I love you, I will try to learn, try to feel . . . I love you, I love you, Addie!"
"Dear," he said, gently, "I'll do my best . . . to teach you to feel it. Come with me."
"Where?"
"There . . . to those little cottages."
"Who lives in them?"
"Poor people . . . sick people . . . whom I attend."
"Addie . . . no, no . . . no! . . ."
"Why not?"
"I'm not prepared for it. . . . You know I can't stand that. . . ."
"You're a healthy woman; your nerves are strong: come with me."
She went with him, not daring to refuse.
"Tilly," he said, gently, as they walked on and approached the cottages, "I will try to have understanding for both of us. . . . If you are to be happy in yourself . . . with me . . . happy the two of us . . . then . . ."
"Well?"
"Then you must learn to understand me . . . to understand me very deep down, as I am. Then you must try to understand . . . all of us; to love us all: my father, my mother. . . . Tilly, Tilly, can you? . . ."
She did not answer, trembling, frightened, looking deeper into things, after all that he had said. Her fine eyes gazed at him despairingly, like those of a wounded animal in its pain. She could have embraced him now, just ordinarily, clasping him warmly and firmly to herself. But he led her on as he might lead a child. He knocked, opened the little door and led her in. A sultry heat of mean poverty struck her in the face like a blow; and it was nothing but misery, wherever he took her. It seemed to her as if she herself carried that misery with her, in her soul, which had never yet thrilled as it did now.