The room was once more in darkness, and it was quiet, very quiet, and Marie lay with her head on her pillow, her wide-open eyes fixed on the dark ceiling.
CHAPTER XXII.
Vincent felt very ill and weak, and his condition became so serious that Dr. Reyer forbade him to leave his room.
He followed the doctor’s advice, drinking little, abstaining from smoking, and giving himself over completely to the soothing influence of the restful atmosphere that surrounded him.
His days he passed in Eline’s boudoir, as Betsy could not spare him a sitting-room to himself. There he would lie down on the Persian divan, an Eastern dressing-gown snugly wrapped about him—a memento of his days of luxury in Smyrna—his bloodless fingers clasping a book in which he did not read a line. It seemed to him [[210]]as though all ideas had vanished from his brain, as if, in fact, his whole being was fading away in a languid calm, in a sense of weariness like that induced by prolonged and severe bodily exertion. His mind was filled with petty, childish thoughts, rising up like bubbles, to burst asunder the next moment. His pleasures were as petty as his thoughts, and he felt gratified when Dr. Reyer praised him for his obedience, while he suffered acutely whenever he had to wait a few moments for Eline to bring him his breakfast. And beyond that he felt nothing; he simply lay down, gazing round Eline’s room, and counting the pictures, the ferns, and all the smaller objects of luxury that were scattered about.
In the morning Eline sat down beside him and read to him or sang a snatch or two from a favourite opera; and Vincent would lie and listen as in a dream, lost in a strange vision full of faint odours and subdued tints, all wreathed and entwined one with another as in a kaleidoscope of colour and perfume. He did not speak, and Eline too said little, penetrated as she was with a feeling of romantic joyfulness, a joyfulness such as she had known when keeping her nightly vigil at Aunt Vere’s bedside—the pleasure of devoting herself to the care of an invalid. She became more and more interested in Vincent, and the loving care with which she tended him gradually had the effect of deeply endearing him to her.
In the afternoon she usually stayed at home until after four, when Otto came to fetch her for a walk; and then, when he gently rebuked her for not taking sufficient care of her own health, and for sacrificing herself too much for Vincent, she would look at him almost tearfully and ask how he could possibly fail to feel the deepest sympathy for Vincent, who was so forsaken, so unhappy, and so weak. The busy negotiations about her trousseau with Betsy were somewhat interrupted by these cares, and on one occasion even she remarked to her sister that she thought it a terrible thing to have to marry in November, when Vincent would perhaps be dying. She could not help fancying that Vincent’s illness was caused by a secret passion for her, a passion the secret of which he had until now most jealously kept. For he had never before made such a long stay in the Hague; he had now been in the city for nearly a year, whilst he never used to remain longer than a week or two. Poor Vincent—for the present her watchful care of him brought him solace and comfort—only, would not all that careful solicitude, those constant attentions on her part towards [[211]]him, feed the flame of that passion that was for ever destined to be so helpless, as it was only her Otto she might care for, no one else? She would have been glad could she have confessed those thoughts to another; but to whom could she do so? To speak to Otto about it, that seemed to her scarcely proper; whilst if she made Betsy her confidante, she was certain to ask her why she must always fill her head with such nonsense. How about Madame van Raat though?
Yes, she was the person to consult; she would call on Madame van Raat one morning alone, without Otto. But when she did see the old lady, she found it such a difficult matter to shape her suspicions about Vincent in words, that when her visit came to an end she had not uttered a syllable of her confession. And she comforted herself with the sad reflection that Vincent would probably die before they were married, and that in that case her ministering care would have somewhat sweetened his last days.
The days passed by, and in the meantime the suspicion that Vincent cherished a secret passion for her grew more and more into a certainty, until she began as it were, involuntarily, to yield herself up to an absorbing pity for her poor ailing cousin. Her happiness, that had seemed so placid that it could not be broken, glided more and more from the vain grasp of her fingers, and a sense of nervousness and unrest became daily more diffused over her being, while in the meantime she lacked the courage to unbosom herself to Otto; for when she thought of Vincent, a mist appeared to come between herself and Otto, a mist that grew denser and denser and threatened to part them from each other. She shuddered at the thought, and after having passed half the day in her nervous unrest by Vincent’s side, she would long to be again with Otto, in whose placid temperament she hoped to find a healing balm for her perturbed spirit. Soon after four he came, they went for a walk together, he returned with her to dinner, in the evening they often stayed at home, they were much alone together, and when at night he was gone and she had retired to her room, she had to do her utmost to restrain herself from bursting into tears, for she found that she no longer drew from his presence that restfulness and peace which once it had brought her. On the contrary, now and then his calmness even irritated her, as something indifferent and phlegmatic, which, in her present mood, brimming over as it was with unrest, repelled her, especially when she contrasted him with Vincent, in whom she suspected a [[212]]world of still, agonizing grief was hidden. Even Otto’s simple ease, beneath which only so recently she had seen such a wealth of love, irritated her now.