Old People and the Things that Pass/Chapter XXIX

by Louis Couperus

CHAPTER XXIX

THE room was warmed by a moderate fire; the curtains were half-closed; and Lot had slept calmly, for the first time since the fever had passed its crisis. It was his own old room, in Mamma's house; and, when he woke, his fingers, after a deliciously lazy interval, felt for the letter which Elly had written him from St. Petersburg. He drew the letter from the envelope and read and read it again, glad that she had written so fully and that she seemed charged with courage and enthusiasm. Then his hand dropped, feeling the cold, and hid itself under the blankets. He lay in quiet content, after his first calm sleep, and looked round the room, the room which Steyn had given up to him years ago, so that he might work at his ease, with his books and knick-knacks around him. It was the only comfortable room in the house.... Well, he would not have it long. Steyn was gone; and Mamma intended to pay the final quarter's rent, sell the furniture and go back to England with Hugh....

Lot felt a little light-headed, but easy and with no fever, really a great deal better than he could remember having been for a long time past. He enjoyed the warmth of the bed, while outside—he had just noticed it—the rain came pattering down; but he, lying quietly in bed, did not mind the rain. On the table beside him was some water, a bottle of quinine capsules, a plate of hot-house grapes and his bell. He picked a couple of grapes, sucked them and rang.

Ottilie entered, anxiously:

"Are you awake, Lot?"

"Yes, Mummy."

"Have you had a sleep?"

"Yes, I'm feeling rather well."

"Oh, Lot, you were so bad yesterday and the day before! ... You were delirious and kept calling out ... for your father ... and for Elly.... I didn't know what to do, my boy, and at last ..."

"Well?"

"Nothing. Your cough's bad still, Lot...."

"Yes, I caught cold; we know that; it'll get better ... as soon as I'm out of this confounded country, as soon as I'm in Italy."

"I shouldn't go thinking of Italy just yet."

"As soon as I'm better, I'll first go and take the sun at Nice, with Ottilie and Aldo, and then on to Rome."

"What do you want to do there, all by yourself?"

"I have old friends there, fellows I know. And I shall do some writing.... Is Hugh at home?"

"Yes, he's in his little room."

"Has he got Steyn's room?"

"Well, of course! What other room would you have me give him? Now that Steyn has gone ... abroad, surely I can have my own son with me!"

"I should like to talk to Hugh. Would you ask him to come to me?"

"Won't it tire you, Lot?"

"No, Mummy. I've had a good sleep."

"Do you want to talk to Hugh alone?"

"Yes, please."

"What about?"

"About you."

"And mayn't I be there?"

"No. You mustn't listen outside the door either. Do you promise?"

"What do you want to talk to Hugh about?"

"I've told you: about you. There, ask him to come to me. And then leave us alone for a bit."

"Are you sure there's no fever?"

She felt his forehead.

"Take my temperature, if you like.... "

"It's just over ninety-eight," she said, in a minute or two.

"I told you so. I'm feeling very well."

"Do you like your grapes?"

"Yes...."

She went at last, still hesitating.... She had meant to tell him that, two days ago, he had been so ill and had called out so eagerly for his father and Elly that she had sent Hugh to telegraph to Pauws; that Pauws had come from Brussels; that Pauws had seen him the night before last. Lot had not recognized his father.... But she found all this rather difficult to tell and she went away....

In a few moments Hugh came in, sturdy as usual, with his calves showing under the breeches of his check bicycling-suit, and asked:

"Feeling better, Lot?"

"Yes, a great deal better. I wanted to have a talk with you, Hugh. Will it bore you?"

"Not at all, Lot."

"We've always got on all right, haven't we, you and I?"

"Of course we have."

"It may have been because I was never much in your way; but in any case ..."

"You were always a good chap."

"Thank you."

"Doesn't it tire you, talking?"

"No, old fellow; in fact, I want to talk to you. ... Hugh, there's something I want to ask you."

"What's that, Lot?"

"Mamma is going to London with you."

"Yes, she thought she'd like to come with me this time. You see, John and I never see her; and Mary will soon be home from India."

"Yes, I can understand ... that she sometimes wants to see her other children too. Hugh, all I wanted to ask you is: be kind to her."

"But aren't I?"

"Well, then, remain so. She's a big child, Hugh. She wants a lot of affection, wants it coming her way. You see, I've been with her most: thirty-eight years, with a few intervals. You've lived away from her for over ten years; and even before that you were more with your father than with her. So you don't know Mamma very well."

"Oh, I know her well enough!"

"Perhaps," said Lot, wearily. "Perhaps you know her well enough.... But try to be nice to her, Hugh."

"Of course I will, Lot."

"That's a good chap."

His voice fell, despondently; but his hand grasped his half-brother's hand. Oh, what was the use of insisting? What did that strong, cool lad, with his bold eyes and his laughing, clean-shaven mouth, feel, except that Mamma had money—a hundred thousand guilders—and was going with him to his country? In Hugh's firm hand Lot felt his own fingers as though they were nothing. So thin, so thin: had he wasted away so much in a week?

"Hugh, I wish you'd just give me that hand-glass."

Hugh gave him the mirror.

"Draw the blind a little higher."

Hugh did so; and Lot looked at himself. Yes, he had grown thin, but he also looked very bad because he was unshaved.

"Hugh, if you're going out again, you might look in at Figaro's and tell him to come and shave me."

"Right you are."

Lot put down the looking-glass.

"Have you heard from Elly, Lot?"

"Yes, Hugh."

"That's a fine thing she's doing."

"Yes."

"One'd think she was an Englishwoman!" said Hugh, almost in admiration.

"Yes," said Lot, gently, "just so, an Englishwoman...."

But an unaccustomed voice sounded from below; and Lot, listening, was greatly surprised, because he seemed to recognize the voice of his father, of Pauws, speaking to the servant.

He sat up in bed:

"Hugh!" he cried. "Hugh! Can it be ...... is that my father?"

"I believe so," drawled Hugh, laconically.

"Is that Papa? How does he come to be here, in this house?"

"Ah," said Hugh, "you're no end of a swell today! But two days ago you were delirious, calling out for your governor. So Mother said, 'Wire.' I wired. He stood by your bedside for a moment, but you didn't know him...."

"Have I been as ill as all that?" cried Lot.

He felt things growing misty and unsteady, but yet he distinguished Pauws cautiously entering the room:

"My boy! ..."

"Father! ..."

Pauws stepped briskly to the bed, took Lot's hand; then he remained quite still for at least an hour. Hugh had gone. For at least an hour Pauws sat without speaking. It seemed that Lot had fallen asleep. He woke after that long silence and said:

"Mamma telegraphed to you ..."

"Two days ago. I came at once. You didn't know me.... "

"Did you ... speak to Mamma? "

"No."

"Have you seen her?"

"No. The servant told me the day before yesterday, when I went away, that they would let me know at the hotel if there was any change in you. Yesterday, when I called, you were asleep..... But where's Elly?"

"Don't you know? ..."

"How should I know?"

Lot had closed his eyes again and old Mr. Pauws sat silent, asking no more questions, with Lot's hand in his. Once more there was a long, throbbing silence. Old Pauws looked round the room, casting his quick glance here and there, breathing again because Lot was not going to die.... He had never been inside the house before. He had not seen Ottiiie for years and years. Nor had she shown herself this time. Nevertheless he had heard her voice, hushed immediately, behind a door; and the sound of that voice, that voice of the old days, had moved him violently.... She had grown old, no doubt; but that voice behind the door was the

• ame voice, the voice of Ottilie, his wife! Oh, what

a sweet, pretty creature she was when he married her, a girl just turned twenty, and how happy they had been, in spite of an occasional angry word, in Java, with their two children: little Ottilie first and then Lot! ... Only a few years; and then ... and then she had met that bounder Trevelley, the father of the boy whom he had just seen, with his damned English mug, a mug that was like his father's. And since then ... he had never seen her again! How long was that ago? He reckoned it out: it was thirty-four years! His little Ottilie was a girl of six then, Lot a little chap of four: two such loves of children, such dear, pretty children! ... At the divorce, the custody of the children was awarded to him, not her; but Lot was so fond of his mother and he had consented, after some years, that they should stay on with their mother: she remained their mother, in spite of what she had done.... Little Ottilie had spent a very long time with him sometimes; Lot, on the other hand, would be longer with his mother: it was a constant going to and fro for the poor mites, who had no fixed home in which to live with their parents. Still, he had always gone on seeing his children and keeping in touch with them; and he admired little Ottilie, because she grew into big Ottilie and became very handsome; but he had always doted on Lot, though he was such a frail little fair-haired chap—perhaps for that very reason—and because he was really so ridiculously like his mother.... There the poor fellow lay. Where was his wife? Where was Elly?

He had seen her neither yesterday nor the day before. What had happened? ... He had now been sitting for over an hour by Lot's bed, with Lot's hand in his: the boy had closed his eyes again; yet a pressure of that small, thin, delicate hand told his father that he was not asleep, but only resting.... Pauws let his son lie quite still, wiped the sweat from Lot's forehead with a handkerchief.... Well, he was perspiring nicely, the skin felt relaxed.... Patience now, until Lot felt inclined to talk again; patience now, to find out about Elly! Thank God, the beggar wasn't going to die, as Pauws had feared for a moment; but the flesh he'd lost! And he had never had much to spare. How thin his face had grown! How young he looked for his age, even though his fair hair was beginning to turn grey! ... Pauws had always been very fond of him, because of his calm and gentle character, so very different from his mother's. He had no doubt become so gentle and calm because he wasn't strong: when those violent scenes took place at home, Lot, as a child, used to go and sit quietly in his corner until the scene had ended.... But what could have happened with Elly?

Lot opened his eyes at last, but the old man dared not yet ask after Elly. If it was anything sad, something that he couldn't imagine, then he mustn't ask Lot: it might make the poor boy go quite off his head again. So he merely wiped his son's forehead with some eau-de-Cologne which he saw standing there and asked:

"Are you better, old chap? ..."

"Yes, Father ... a great deal better.... It seems so strange to me, to have you sitting here ... but I'm very glad of it.... Was I so ill that Mamma had to telegraph? I didn't know it myself.... I woke this morning and felt very weak ... but quiet.... It was a fever, you see, and I caught a bad cold into the bargain, in this beastly winter weather, here.... Bronchitis, but not at all serious, you know ... A touch of influenza as well: nothing out of the way. ... I shall soon get right with a little nursing. ... When I'm well, I shall go to the south, to Ottilie: she's still with her Aldo; yes, it can't be helped, they'll never get married.... And perhaps they're right.... And there you are, sitting by my bed.... Well, now that you're here, guv, you're just going to stay at the Hague until I'm better. If you've brought no luggage, you can buy a couple of shirts and a toothbrush...., No, I don't mean to let you go again. Mamma needn't see you, if you don't wish it. But, now that she's been mad enough to wire to you and frighten you out of your wits, she must put up with the worry of it, if it is a worry.... Besides, she won't stay very long herself.... "

"Don't talk too much, my boy...."

"No, it doesn't tire me ... meandering on like this. Mamma won't stay long. You don't know anything: I'll tell you how things stand. Steyn has gone ... abroad; perhaps for good. Mamma has come into money from old Mr. Takma; yes, she came into a hundred thousand guilders.... And she is now going to England, with Hugh. ... And she will stay there, with Hugh, I expect, as long as the hundred thousand lasts...."

"Is that it? Oh, your poor mother!"

"You needn't pity her, Father: not yet, at least. She is very, very happy at the moment. She dotes on her Hugh. I had to fall ill to make her remember that she had a Lot as well. But she was very nice to me: she nursed me, I think.... Really, she is quite happy.... Perhaps in a year or two ... when the hundred thousand is gone ... she will come back to me...."

"But what about you, old chap, what about you?" exclaimed the old man, unable to contain himself any longer.

"I? ... I shall go to Nice first, to take in the sun a bit ... and then to Italy, to write...."

"But ..."

"Oh yes, I remember: I've told you nothing yet!"

He closed his eyes, but pressed his father's hand.

There was a knock at the door; the servant put in her head and said:

"If you please, sir, if you please, Mr. Lot, the barber has come. The mistress asked if it wouldn't be too tiring for you...."

"No," said Lot, "let him come up."

"Aren't you really too tired, Lot?" asked Pauws.

"No. It causes me physical pain to look as I do now."

The barber entered with a hesitating but cheerful step: he had a round, jovial face.

"Come along, Figaro!" said Lot.

"Well, sir, are you pulling round? ... It's over a week since I saw you ... but I heard that you were ill."

Pauws walked about the room impatiently, sat down petulantly by the window.

"Shave me very nicely, won't you, Figaro?" said Lot. "For I look awful with this beard on me. ... Yes, you'll find everything on the wash-hand-stand."

"I've brought your own razor, sir."

"That's right, Figaro.... I'm glad to see your face again. Is there no news? ... Yes, it's a delight to feel your velvety blade gliding down my cheek.... As a matter of fact, it does one's skin a heap of good to go unshaved for a week or so.... But it's heavenly to feel one's face smooth again.... That gentleman, Figaro, sitting over there, is my father.... But he shaves himself, so don't reckon on him as a customer.... I say, Figaro, you might give me a clean suit of pyjamas: there, the second drawer from the top.... Yes, one of the silk ones, with the blue stripes.... I believe in silk pyjamas, when you're ill.... Yes, just valet me, now that you're here, Figaro.... Help me on ... that's right ... and now pitch the dirty ones into the clothes-basket.... Give me a clean handkerchief.... And now brush my hair: you'll find some eau-de-quinine over there.... And a wet towel for my hands, please.... Ah, I feel a king, even after this first, short clean-up! .... Thank you, Figaro."

"Come again to-morrow, sir?"

"Yes, do ... or no, let's say the day after ... to spare my skin, you know. Day after to-morrow. Good-bye, Figaro...."

The barber went away. Pauws said:

"How can you be such a baby, Lot?"

"Father, come and sit here now. Look, I'm a different creature. I feel ever so much revived with my soft skin and my silk pyjamas. Tuck me in at the back, will you? ... Have a grape! ..."

"Lot ..."

"Oh yes, you wanted to know I ... I remember, you don't know anything yet. I'll tell you, Father. Elly is at St. Petersburg."

"At St. Petersburg?"

"Yes, Father."

"What's she doing there?"

"I'll tell you...."

"Have you quarrelled, has she gone away, has Elly gone away? "

"Do have patience. What an impatient old man you are! No, we haven't quarrelled.... Elly is going to the war."

"The war?"

"To Mukden.... She's joining the Red Cross at St. Petersburg."

"Elly?"

"Yes."

"My God!"

"Why, Father? It's her vocation. She feels that she must obey it; and it is fine of her to do so. ... She and I discussed it at length. I did not think it my duty to oppose her. I went with her to the Russian minister. I helped her with all her preparations. She is very strong and very plucky; and she has become even pluckier than she used to be.... She used to nurse the sick poor once, you know.... Father, I saw her at Florence: a little boy of six was run over by a motor-car. She took him up in her arms, put him in a cab and drove with him to a doctor ... whereas I almost fainted! ... Whether she will stay with the Red Cross I can't tell; but I am convinced that, as long as she does, she will devote herself with all her might and main.... You see, she's like that, Father; it's the tendency, the line of her life. ... Each of us has a different line. Getting married and trying to draw two lines into one by a legal foot-rule is all nonsense. Aldo and Ottilie are right.... But, though Elly and I are married according to the legal foot-rule ... she is free. Only, I ..."

He paused and then went on:

"I suffered, when she went away ... for who knows how long.... I am so intensely fond of her ... and I miss her, now that she has been mine."

"The damned baggage!" cried Pauws.

Lot took his father's hand:

"Don't say that, Father...."

"Those damned women!" cried Pauws. "They're all ... they're all ..."

He could not find his words.

"No, Father, they are not 'all.' ... Each of them is different ... and so are we.... Don't talk like that, don't talk of 'men' and "women.' We are all poor, seeking, straying human beings. Let her seek: that is her life. In seeking, she does fine things, good things ... finer and better things than I.... Here, read her letter: she has written to me from St. Petersburg."

"No, Lot, I will not read her letter. Her place is with her husband, especially when he is ill...."

"She doesn't know that I'm ill. Surely you wouldn't telegraph to her to come over from St. Petersburg, as you came from Brussels, because I've had a touch of fever. Father, don't condemn her...."

"Yes, I do condemn her and I condemn you too, for your cowardice in letting her go, for not being a man and compelling her to stay with you."

Lot clasped his hands:

"Father," he said, gently, "don't speak like that. Don't speak like that. You pain me so.... And I have suffered so much pain as it is: not pain, but sorrow, sorrow!"

A great sob shook his body and he burst into tears.

"My boy, my poor, dear boy!"

"Father, I am not plucky, but I will try to be. And calm. And quiet.... Don't leave me just yet. Mamma is going to England with Hugh. Listen: she will never see Steyn again. He has gone away for good.... Now that she has money, now that she has Hugh, the rest means nothing to her, even I am nothing to her... Don't leave me. Come with me to Nice, come with me to Italy. ... Don't abandon me to my sorrow; but don't let us talk about it either; and please don't condemn Elly again ... if you and I are to remain friends. She does as she is bound to do and she can't do otherwise."

His voice sounded manlier; and old Pauws was surprised at the energy with which he uttered the last words.... Yes, he was surprised.... That was certainly another breed than his; and those were ideas, views, conditions which were totally beyond his reach! Not to get married in church; after a few months' marriage, to allow your wife to join the Red Cross; and to feel sorrow at her leaving you, but to consider that it couldn't be different and that she was doing what she had to: those, you know, were conditions, views, ideas so far removed from his own that, in his swelling indignation at what Elly had done, they all whirled before his eyes; and he felt that he belonged to another breed, to another period. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, but did not wish to express any more of his utterly different and doubtless old-fashioned feelings; and, when Lot repeated his request that he should stay with him, he merely answered:

"Yes, my boy, I'll stay with you! ... "

And the emphasis which he laid upon the words was the only comment that he allowed himself. Lot gave a deep sigh and left his hand in his father's. A few seconds later, the old man noticed that Lot had fallen asleep. He released his hand from his son's slack fingers and stole from the room on tip-toe, unperceived by Lot.

Pauws remained standing on the landing.... Yes, it was all whirling before his eyes. That was not the way in which he had loved, with so much self-control and philosophy and understanding of another's soul: he had loved differently, more ardently, more passionately, with simple, fierce virility.... Now, after many years, he was in his wife's house and he felt that, though she was old, he still loved her ... that he had always loved her and that, gradually, his love for her, no longer fierce, passionate or ardent—for the old years were growing cold—had become abiding and fond....

He remained standing, irresolutely.... What should he do? ... Something hesitated within him: whether to stay here, in the house, or rush out into the rain! He could not have stayed another minute in Lot's sick-room: the air oppressed him; and, active old man that he was, he felt a need, after what he had heard, to move about, to shake himself, to shake himself free of the whirl of those views and ideas which were so strange to him.... And yet! ...

Slowly he went down the stairs; and his heart thumped like a young man's.... Where would she be? There! ... He heard her voice in the drawing-room, the voice which he had not heard for years, talking English with her son, with her son Hugh! They were laughing, they were laughing together: Hugh's voice sounded coaxing, roughly caressing; her voice sounded ... oh, it sounded as it had always sounded: so intensely sweet ... and bewitching! ... Had she really grown older? ... A fierce, rebellious jealousy boiled up within him because of that son who was not his son, that son whom he had seen for two seconds in Lot's room, that son who was like his father ... Trevelley! He clenched his fists. He felt inclined to dash open the door with those fists and to rush into the room and say furious words, do furious things....

But no ... no ... it was all past. Only think: years had gone by.... She was sixty: he could not imagine her that.... She was happy, so Lot had said; she would be happy, as long as her money lasted.... She was sixty years of age, but she remained a child; and not till later, when she was a very old woman—who could tell: perhaps ill and broken and miserable?—after that fellow had run through her money ...

He pulled the latch of the front-door, went out into the street, into the rain. Very softly he closed the door after him. Oh, he could not, could not come back again and hear her voice once more behind that drawing-room door! ... He would write to Lot from the hotel ... that he would certainly not leave him, that he would go abroad with him, but that he could not come back to Ottilie's house, now that Lot was mending, and that he would wait for him in Brussels ... to go south together....