She heard the servant go down-stairs, she heard the tinkling of plates and glasses on the tray. Eline gave another glance at the rôle of Xaïma, and she lifted her head proudly and made an heroic motion with her hand, as she began to sing in a weak voice, interrupted by coughing.
At half-past five Sophie brought the dinner and laid the little [[309]]round table with much care. But Eline scarcely touched any of the food, and she was glad when Sophie took it back again. She took up a few cards which Sophie had brought with her, cards from Madame Verstraeten and from Lili.
“Old Madame van Raat has also been here, and she went away.”
Eline remained alone. The evening was falling, the sun was slowly sinking in the west, but the light long remained. From her cupboard Eline took a little bottle and carefully counted out some drops, which she let fall in a glass of water. Slowly she drank it. Ah, if they would only bring her some relief! It had so often been in vain lately.
She was tired after her long day of idleness and half-insane ravings, and she wanted to retire to her rest at an early hour. No, she would not light the gas, she would stay a little longer in the twilight, and then—then she would try to sleep. But it all began to boil, to seethe, to throb in her head. She gasped for breath, and regardless of the evening air which began to blow into the room, she let the gray peignoir glide down from her shoulders. Her arms were thin, her chest was hollow, and she looked at herself with a sad smile as her fingers passed through her thin hair. And because it was growing dark, because in spite of her drops she would not sleep, because she was very pale and white in the lace and the embroidery of her dress, because she grew terrified at the increasing gloom, the madness once more returned—
“Ah, perfido! Spergiuro!”
she began as in a rage to hum to herself, as she lifted up her arm. It was the scene of Beethoven in which Vincent used to smell the odour of vervain. In her song she reproached a faithless lover with his broken troth, and her face expressed the most tragic grief, a wounded love which would avenge itself. She told the lover to go, but the gods above would crush him under their chastisement. Suddenly she snatched from her bed a sheet, and she wrapped herself in the long white material, which in the faint evening light fell about her like a cloak of marble.
“Oh no! Fermate, vindici Dei!”
she sang hoarsely, and her voice broke into coughs, with melting eyes this time, for in another mood she now invoked the mercy of the gods for the faithless one; however he may have changed she [[310]]remained the same, she wanted no revenge, she had lived and now she would die for him. And slowly she murmured the Adagio slowly, very slowly, while the white folds of her drapery, with the imploring motions which she made with her arms, rose and fell continually. Thus she sang on, on, until a plaint forced itself from her throat, and in that plaint all at once she began to act, as with the noble art of a prima donna. It seemed to her as though the lover had already fled, and as though she turned to the chorus which surrounded her pityingly—
“Se in tanto affa—a—a—anno!”