“You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“Henceforth I shall go and hide the aspirations of my genius in law cases,” he answered with a laugh, as he rose from his seat. “But now I must be off to the Princesse-gracht, to the Verstraetens’. So don’t expect me this afternoon; we have several details to arrange yet before Losch comes. Adieu, Eline; bye-bye, Ben.”
“Bon jour; I hope you’ll soon get over your hoarseness.”
Paul went, and Eline once more sat down at the piano. For a while she sat thinking what a pity it was Paul had so little energy, and from him her thoughts reverted again to Henk. But she felt altogether too light-hearted this morning to do much philosophizing, and, full of exuberant spirits demanding an outlet, she continued [[26]]her singing, until the mid-day gong summoned her and Ben down-stairs.
Paul had told his mother that he would not be home that afternoon for coffee, as he would be at the Verstraetens’. He lodged at Madame van Raat’s, in the Laan van Meerdervoort. Madame van Raat, an elder sister of Madame Verstraeten, was a stately dame, with pensive, light-blue eyes, and hair of silver gray, dressed in old-fashioned style, whilst over her whole being there was suffused, as it were, a calmness, a placid resignation, that unmistakably spoke of former days free from troubles and disappointments. As walking exercise was becoming irksome to her, she was mostly to be found seated in her high-backed arm-chair, the dull-gray head drooping on her bosom, the blue-veined hands folded in her lap. Thus she continued to lead a quiet, monotonous existence, the aftermath of a placid, all but cloudless life, by the side of her husband, on whose portrait she frequently allowed her eyes to dwell, as it hung before her yonder, in its smart general’s uniform; a good-looking, frank, manly face, with a pair of truthful, intelligent eyes, and an engaging expression about the firm, closed mouth. To her, life had brought but few great sorrows, and for that, in the simplicity of her faith, she felt piously grateful. But now, now she was tired, oh! so tired, her spirit quite broken by the death of that husband to whom, to the last, she had clung with an affection constant and calm as the bosom of a limpid stream, into the placid waters of which the impetuous waves of her youthful love had flowed away. After his death, she began to worry over every trifling circumstance, petty vexations with servants and tradespeople. All these she connected, until to her mind they formed an unbroken chain of irksome burdens. Yes, she felt she was growing old; time had little more to give her, and so, in silent egoism, she mused her life away in the long-vanished poesy of the past. She had had three children: her youngest, a girl, was dead.
Of her two sons, her favourite was Henk, who, strong and big, reminded her the most of his father, whilst in her eyes his sleepy good-nature had more of open, frank manliness, than Paul’s finer-strung fickleness and airy geniality. Paul she had always found too unsettled and nervous: formerly, in his constantly interrupted studies at Leyden—at last, thanks to a little moral pressure on the part of Uncle Verstraeten, crowned with promotion—as well as [[27]]now with his staying out late at night, his rage for painting, tableaux-vivants and duets, or his fits of indolence, when he would lounge away a whole afternoon on the sofa, over a book he did not read.
Before his marriage, Henk, being of a more staid and homely character than Paul, felt himself better at ease in his mother’s house; although he was quiet, his silence never irritated her; it was like the silence of a faithful dog, watching with half-closed eyes over his mistress. She felt so at her ease with Henk. She disliked being alone, for it was in solitude that the memories of the past contrasted in their rosy brightness too sharply with the leaden-gray that was the prevailing hue of her present life, and Paul she saw but rarely, except when hastily swallowing his dinner, in order to keep an appointment. She seldom went out, unaccustomed as she had grown to the noisy traffic of the streets, and the hum of many voices.
Henk was her pet, and with her mental vision unimpaired, wherever at least her son was concerned, she regretted his marriage with Betsy Vere. No; she was not a fit wife for her child, and knowing that, she could not bring herself to give him her hearty approval or her parental blessing, when he told her of his engagement. Still, she refrained from opposing her beloved son in his choice, fearing lest she should be the cause of unhappiness; it was therefore under a false assumption of frankness, at which she was surprised herself, that she had concealed her ill-feeling against the intruder, and welcomed her as her daughter. All the same, she felt deeply concerned about Henk. Madame Vere she had known slightly; passionate and domineering, she never found anything attractive in such a personality, and this daughter reminded her too much of that mother. Although, in her eyes, Henk was possessed of much more firmness of character than Vere, of whom she could not think but as a pallid, ailing sufferer, only too glad to allow his wife to think and act for him; although Henk, as she thought, had all the frank manliness of character of his father, and would not allow himself to be domineered over; still, happy as she had been with van Raat, it would never be his lot to be. And at that thought she would sigh and her eyes would grow moist; her mother’s love, despite her blindness to his failings, was the instinct which gave her an inkling of the truth, and if she could have taken his place, she would gladly have given up her own former happiness to her son, and have suffered for him. [[28]]
Her thoughts ran away with her as she saw Leentje, the servant, laying the cloth for lunch for herself alone, and with a weary resignation at the hateful loneliness of her days, she sat down. To-morrow would be to her as to-day; what remained of her life was but an aftermath of summer, and though autumn and winter might be free from storms, yet the only promise they held out was that of a barren, soulless lethargy. To what end did she live?
And so weary did she feel under the leaden pressure of this soul-killing loneliness, that she could not even muster up the energy to scold Leentje for her clumsiness, although she could not help noticing the damage that was done to one of her old china dishes.