Old People and the Things that Pass/Chapter XII

by Louis Couperus

CHAPTER XII

OLD Mr. Pauws came to meet them at the station, in the evening, at Brussels:

"My dear boy, my dear boy, how are you? And so this is your little wife! My dear child, I wish you joy with all my heart!"

His arms, thrown wide, embraced first Lot and then Elly.

"And I've taken a room for you at the Metropole, but I reckoned on it that you'd first come and have supper at my place. Then I shall have been at your wedding too. I don't expect you're tired, are you? No, it's nothing of a journey. Better send your trunks straight to the hotel. I've got a carriage: shall we go home at once? Do you think there's room for the three of us? Yes, yes, we'll fit in nicely."

It was the second time that Elly had seen the old gentleman, a pink-and-white, well-preserved man of seventy: she had been with Lot to look him up during their engagement. There was something decided and authoritative about him, together with a cheerful gaiety, especially now, because he was seeing Lot again. He would receive them at his own place, at his rooms, for he lived in bachelor quarters. He opened the door with his latch-key; he had paid the cabman quickly, before Lot could; and he now hustled the young couple up the stairs. He himself lit a gas-jet in the passage:

"I have no one to wait on me in the evening, as you see. A femme-de-menage comes in the morning. I take my meals at a restaurant. I thought of treating the two of you to supper at a restaurant; but I think this is pleasanter.... There!"

And he now lit the gas in the sitting-room, with a quick movement, like a young man's. Elly smiled at him. The table was laid and there were flowers on it and a few pints of Heidsieck in a wine-cooler.

"Welcome, my dear child!" said the old man, kissing Elly.

He helped her take off her hat and cloak and carried them into his bedroom:

"You'd better bring your coat in here too, Lot."

"Your father is wonderful!" said Elly.

The little sitting-room was cosy and comfortable; it was his own furniture. There were books about; photographs on the walls and prints of horses and dogs; arms on a rack; and, underneath—it impressed Elly, just as it had impressed her the first time—a portrait of Ottilie at twenty, in an old-fashioned bonnet which made her look exquisitely pretty, like a little heroine in a novel. Strange, thought Elly to herself, Steyn also had pictures of dogs and horses in his room; Steyn also was a hunting man, a man of out-door pursuits; Steyn also was good-looking. She smiled at her reflection that it was always the same sort of manliness that had attracted Ottilie; she smiled just as Lot sometimes smiled at his mother.

"You two are very like each other," said Pauws, as they sat down to table. "Look, children, here's what I've got for you. Everything's ready, you see. Hors d'ceuvres. Do you like caviare, with these toasted rolls?"

"I'm mad on caviare," said Lot.

"I remembered that! After the hors d'oeuvres, a mayonnaise of fish: perhaps that's rather too much fish, but I had to think out a cold menu, for I've no cook and no kitchen. Then there's cold chicken and compote: a Dutch dish for you; they never eat the two together here or in France. Next, there's a paté-de-foie-gras. And tartlets for you, Elly."

"I'm fond of tartlets too," said Lot, attentively examining the dish.

"All the better. A decent claret, Chateau-Yquem and Heidsieck. I got you some good fruit. Coffee, liqueurs, a cigar, a cigarette for you, Elly, and that's all. It's the best I could do."

"But, Papa, it's delightful!"

The old gentleman was uncorking the champagne, quickly and handily, with a twist of the wires:

"Here goes, children!"

The wine frothed up high.

"Wait, Elly, wait, let me fill up your glass.... There, here's to you, children, and may you be happy!"

"You take after Lot," said Elly.

"I? In that case, Lot takes after me."

"Yes, I meant that of course."

"Ah, but it's quite a different thing!"

"Yes, but Lot ... Lot is also like his mother."

"Yes, I'm like Mamma," said Lot.

He was short, slender, almost frail of build and fair; the old gentleman was solid in flesh and figure, with a fresh complexion and very thick grey hair, which still showed a few streaks of black.

"Yes, but I think Lot also has that flippancy of yours, though he is like his mother."

"Oh, so I'm flippant, am I?" said old Pauws, laughing.

His hands, moving in sweeping gestures, were busy across the table, with the hors d'oeuvres, which he was now handing.

"Would you ever believe that Papa was seventy?" said Lot. "Papa, I'm amazed every time I see you! What keeps you so young?"

"I don't know, my boy; I'm built that way."

"Were you never afraid of getting old?"

"No, my dear fellow, I've never been afraid ... of getting old or of anything else."

"Then whom do I get it from? Mamma hasn't that fear, not as I have it, although ..."

"You're an artist; they have those queer ideas. I'm just ordinary."

"Yes, I wish I were like you, tall and broad-shouldered. I'm always jealous when I look at you."

"Come, Lot, you're very well as you are!" said Elly, defending him against himself.

"If you were like me, you wouldn't have attracted your wife, what do you say, Elly?"

"Well, there's no telling, Papa!"

"How are things at home, my boy?"

"Same as usual, just the same."

"Is Mamma well?"

"Physically, yes. Morally, she's depressed ...., because I'm married."

"How do she and Steyn get on?"

"They quarrel."

"Ah, that mother of yours!" said Pauws. "Elly, will you help the mayonnaise? No, Lot, give me the Yquem: I'll open it.... That mother of yours has always quarrelled. Pity she had that in her. Temper, violent words ... all about nothing: it was always like that in my time. And she was so nice otherwise ... and so sweetly pretty!"

"Yes," said Lot, "and I'm like Mamma, an ugly edition."

"He doesn't mean a word of it," said Elly.

"No," said the old gentleman, "not a word of it, the conceited fellow!"

"All the same, I'd rather be like you, Papa."

"Lot, you're talking nonsense.... Some more mayonnaise, Elly? Sure? Then we'll see what the cold chicken's made of. No, give it here, Lot, I'll carve.... And your wedding was very quiet? No religious ceremony?"

"No."

"No reception?"

"No, Elly has so few friends and I have so few, in Holland. We lead such a life of our own, at the Hague. I know more people in Italy than I do at the Hague. The whole family rather lives a life of its own. Except the D'Herbourgs there's really nobody."

"That's true."

"Those very old, old people are out of the question, of course."

"Yes, Grandpapa, Grandmamma...... And the old doctor...."

"Uncle Anton lives his own life."

"H'm, h'm ... yes...."

"Uncle Harold is old also."

"Two years older than I."

"But he's poorly."

"Yes ... and queer. Always has been. Quiet and melancholy. Still, a very good sort."

"We at home, with Steyn and Mamma: what's the use of our entertaining people?"

"You forget Aunt Stefanie: she's an aunt with money to leave, just as Uncle Anton is an uncle with money to leave; but your aunt has plenty."

"Oh, Lot is quite indifferent to what money he inherits!" said Elly.

"Besides, you two won't be badly off," said old Pauws. "You're right: what's the use of wedding-festivities? As for acquaintances ..."

"We none of us have many."

"It's a funny thing. As a rule, there's such a lot of movement around Indian families. 'Swirl' we used to call it."

"Oh, I don't know: there's no 'swirl' of acquaintances round us!"

"No, we've had 'swirl' enough among ourselves: Mamma saw to that at least!"

"It made Mamma lose her friends too."

"Of course it did. Mamma's life has really been hardly decent ... with her three husbands!"

"Well, of course.... I don't allow it to upset me.... But the family isn't thought much of."

"No. Grandmamma was the first to begin it. She also did just what she pleased...."

"I've heard a lot of vague rumours...."

"Well, I've heard a lot of rumours too, but they weren't vague. Grandmamma was a grande coquette in her day and inspired more than her share of the great passions in Java."

"They say that Mamma ..."

"I don't know, but it's quite possible. At least, you two are so like each other that you might be brother and sister."

"Well, at the worst, we're cousins," said Elly.

"Yes, Grandmamma began it.... There was a lot of talk.... Oh, those people are so old now! Their contemporaries are dead. And things pass. Who is there now to think and talk about things that are so long past?"

"Grandmamma's lovers?"

"Innumerable!"

"The doctor?"

"So they say. And Elly's grandpapa."

"Those old people!" said Elly.

"They were young once."

"And we shall be old one day," said Lot. "We're growing old as it is."

"Shut up, boy! There's time enough for that when you're seventy.... Yes, Grandmamma de Laders, Grandmamma Dercksz: I can remember her in India fifty years ago."

"O my God, what a time to remember things!" said Lot, shuddering.

"Take some more champagne, if it makes your flesh creep.... Fifty years ago, I was little more than a boy, I was twenty. Grandmamma was still a fine woman, well over forty. She became a widow quite young, on the death of her first husband. Well, let's see: when Dercksz was drowned, she was ... about ... thirty-six.... Then Mamma was born."

"What a long, long time ago that was!" said Lot. "It makes one giddy to look back upon."

"That's sixty, yes, sixty years ago now," said Pauws, dreamily. "I was a child then, ten years old. I still remember the incident. I was at Semarang; my father was in the paymaster's department. My people knew the Derckszes. The thing was talked about. I was a child, but it made an impression on me. It was very much talked about, it was talked about for years and years after. There was a question of exhuming the body. They decided that it was too late. At that time, he had been buried for months. They said that ..."

"That a native ... with a kris ... because of a woman...?"

"Yes; and they said more than that. They said that Takma had been to the pasangrahan that evening and that Grandmamma.... But what's the use of talking about it? What can it matter to you? Elly's as white as a sheet—child, how pale you look!—and Lot is shivering all over his body, though it happened so long ago."

"Should you say that those old people ... are hiding something?"

"Probably," said Pauws. "Come, let's have some champagne and not talk about it any more. They themselves have forgotten it all by this time. When you get as old as that ..."

"You become dulled," said Lot.

"So you're going on to Paris to-morrow?"

"Yes."

"Shall you look up Aunt Thérèse?"

"Yes, I expect so," said Elly. "We mustn't behave quite like savages."

"And then?"

"We shall go to Nice."

"Oh, really? ... And ...... and will you see Ottilie there?"

"Of course we shall," said Lot. "That's right, that's right.... Yes, how can you expect a family like ours to keep up a circle of decent acquaintances? ... Ottilie writes to me now and again.... She's living with an Italian. ... Why they don't get married is more than I can make out."

"And why should they get married?" asked Lot.

"But, Lot," said Elly, "you and I did!"

"We are more conventional than Ottilie. I am more conventional than Ottilie ever was. I should never have dared to suggest to you not to get married. Ottilie is more thorough than I."

"She's a thorough fine girl ... and a devilish handsome woman," said Pauws.

"Now she's like you."

"But a good-looking edition!" said the old gentleman, chaffingly. "Here, Elly, have some more pate. But why they don't want to get married I can't and never shall make out. After all, we have all of us got married."

"But how?" said Lot.

"I must say you're not defending marriage very vigorously on your wedding-day!"

"Ottilie has seen so many unhappy marriages all around her."

"That's what she writes. But I don't consider that a reason. Hang it all, when a man falls in love, he goes and gets married! He gets married by the mayor and by the parson.... Yes, to tell you the truth, I think it was rather feeble of you two not to get married in church."

"But, Papa, you surely don't attach importance to having your marriage blessed by a parson!"

"No more I do, but still one does it. It's one of the things one does. We're not quite a law unto ourselves."

"No, but all social laws are being changed."

"Well, you can say what you please: I stick to it that you have to get married. By the mayor and by the parson. You two have been married by the mayor; but Ottilie refuses to be married at all. And I'm expected to think it natural and enlightened and I don't know what. I can't do it. I'm sorry for her sake. It's all very well: she's a great artist and can behave differently from an ordinary woman; but, if one fine day she returns to our ordinary circles, she'll find that she's made herself impossible.... How would you have friends and acquaintances gather round such a family?"

"They don't gather; and I'm glad of it. I have the most charming acquaintances in Italy, friends who ..."

"Children, you may be right. Ottilie may be right not to get married at all; and you may be right to have been married only by the mayor."

"At any rate," said Elly, "I never thought that, though there was no reception, we should have such a cosy little supper."

"And such a nice one," said Lot. "Elly, these tarts are heavenly!"

"Only we oughtn't to have sat rooting up past things," said the old gentleman. "It makes Lot's flesh creep. Look at the fellow eating tarts! It's just what your mother used to do. A baby, a regular baby!"

"Yes, I'm a baby sometimes too, but not so much as Mamma."

"And is she going to England now?"

"She promised me not to. But her promise doesn't mean much. We shall be so long away; we shall be in Italy all through the winter. There's one thing makes me feel easier: Mamma has no money; and I went to the bank before I left and asked them, if Mamma came for money, to make up a story and persuade her that it couldn't be done, that there was no money...."

"But she draws ... she always did."

"The manager told me that he would help me, that he wouldn't let her have any money."

"Then she'll get it just the same."

"From whom?"

"I don't know, but she'll get it. She always gets it, I don't know how...."

"But, Papa!"

"Yes, my boy, you can be as indignant as you please: I am speaking from experience. How often haven't I had questions about money with Mamma ! First there was none; and then, all of a sudden, there it was! ..."

"Mamma is bad at figures and she is untidy. Then she finds some money in her cupboard."

"Yes, I know all about it: in the old days she was always finding something in her cupboard. A good thing, that she goes on finding it. Still, we should never have parted because of money. If it hadn't been for that damned Trevelley, we might still ... But, when Mamma had once set her heart on anybody, then ... Don't let's talk about it.... Look here, you know this old photograph. It's charming, isn't it, Elly? Yes, that's how she used to look. I've never been able to forget her. I've never loved any one else. I'm an old fellow now, children, but ... but I believe that I'm still fond of her.... I sometimes think that it's past, that it's all past and done with; and yet, sometimes, old as I am, I still suffer from it and feel rotten.... I believe I'm still fond of her.... And, if Mamma had had a different character and a different temper and if she hadn't met Trevelley ..... But there are so very many 'ifs' in the case. ... And, if she hadn't met Trevelley, she would have met Steyn just the same.... She would always have met somebody.... Come, Elly, pour out the coffee. Will you have chartreuse or benedictine? And stay on and talk a bit, cosily. Not about old things: about young things, young things; about yourselves, your plans, Italy.... It's not late yet; it's barely half-past ten.... But, of course, you're only this moment married.... Well, I'll see you to your hotel.... Shall we walk? It's no distance.... Let your old father see you to your hotel and give you a good-night kiss at the door and wish you happiness, every happiness dear children!"