Old People and the Things That Pass

by Louis Couperus

No, Steyn knew nothing and was surprised at her question, thinking that Daan must have had business to discuss with Harold, as usual. And he went away, hurried off to Stefanie, to Anton, to Daan and Floor, to the Van Welys; and he impressed upon all of them that the old man's death must be kept from Mamma. They all promised, feeling one and the same need, as children, to keep from their mother the death of the man to whom she had remained so long attached, whom she had seen sitting opposite her, almost every day, on a chair by the window. And Steyn arranged with all of them merely to say that Mr. Takma was unwell and not allowed out ... and to keep it up, however difficult it might be in the long run.

Then Steyn went to Aunt Adèle; and she asked:

"Couldn't we tidy up those papers in the old gentleman's study, Steyn? It's such a litter. They're all lying just as he left them."

"I'd rather wait till Lot and Elly are back," said Steyn. "All you have to do is to lock the door of the room. There's no need to seal anything up. I've spoken to the solicitor."

He went away; and Aunt Adèle was left alone in the house of death, behind the closed shutters. The old lady, over in the Nassaulaan, so close by, never saw any one except her children and grandchildren: she would not be told. Monday was the funeral. Lot and Elly could not be expected home before Wednesday. It was hard on them, poor children, to be disturbed like that in Italy, in the midst of their work. But still Elly was—to the outside world—the old man's only relation; and she was his heiress....

Aunt Adèle was not grasping. The old man was sure to have left her a handsome legacy: she felt certain of that. What would upset her was to have to leave the big house: she had lived there so long, had looked after it so very long for the old gentleman. She was fond of it, was fond of every piece of furniture in it.... Or would Elly keep the house on? She thought not: Elly considered it gloomy; and it would be too big, thought Aunt Adèle, for Elly was no doubt sharing the money with Ottilie Steyn.... Of course, people would talk, though perhaps not so very much; the old gentleman had, so to speak, become dead to the outside world, with the exception of the Dercksz family; and, except Dr. Roelofsz, all his contemporaries were dead. The only survivors of his period were the old lady and the doctor.... Yes, she, Aunt Adèle, would certainly have to leave the house; and the thought brought tears to her eyes. How beautifully it was kept, for such an old place! What she regretted was that Steyn had not consented to tidy up the papers in the study. He had locked the door and given her the key. That was the only room, in all the tidy house, with litter and dust in it. Next to the study, in his bedroom, lay the old gentleman: he was to be put into his coffin that evening; Steyn and Dr. Thielens would be there then. The whole house was quiet and tidy around the dead man, except for the dust and litter in the study. The thought irritated Aunt Adèle. And, that afternoon, she took the key and went in. The room had remained as it was when they lifted the old gentleman out of his chair—so light, oh, so light!—and laid him on his bed and undressed him....

Aunt Adèle opened the windows: the cold wintry air entered and she drew her woollen cape closer over her shoulders. She stood at a loss for a moment, with her duster in her hand, not knowing where to begin. One of the drawers of the writing-table had been left open; there were papers on the table; a waste-paper-basket stood close by; papers lay on the ground. No, she couldn't leave things like that; instead of a crime, it was a kindness to the old man who lay waiting in the next room, lifeless, to put a little order into it all. She collected what she found on the table and tucked it into a letter-wallet. She dusted the desk, arranged everything neatly, pushed the open drawer to and locked it. She picked up what lay on the floor; and she gave a start, for she saw that it was a letter torn across the middle, a letter torn in two. The old gentleman had been tearing up letters: she could see that from the paper-basket, in which the little, torn pieces made white patches. This letter had evidently dropped from his hand at the last moment of all, when death came and tapped him on the heart and head. He had not had the strength to tear up into smaller pieces the letter already torn in two; the two halves had slipped from his fingers and he himself had slid out of life. It touched Aunt Adèle very much; tears came to her eyes. She remained staring irresolutely, with the two pieces in her hand. Should she tear them up? Should she put them away, in the wallet, for Steyn? Better tear them up: the old gentleman had intended to tear them up. And she tore the two pieces in four....

At that moment, an irresistible impulse forced her to glance at the uppermost piece. It was hardly curiosity, for she did not even think that she was holding in her hand anything more than a very innocent letter—the old gentleman kept so many—a letter, among a hundred others, which he had gradually come to the conclusion that he would do well to destroy. It was hardly curiosity: it was a pressure from without, an impulse from outside herself, a force compelling her against her honest conviction. She did not resist it: she read; and, as she read, the idea rose clearly within her to finish tearing up the letter and drop the pieces in the basket.

Yet she did not do so: she read on. She turned pale. She was a simple-minded, placid woman, who had reached years of maturity calmly, with healthy, unstirred blood, foreign to all violent passion. Reading had left her soul untouched; and burning sentences, she thought, were invented by the authors for the sake of fine writing. The fact that words could be written down such as she now read, on paper yellow with age, in ink pale-red with age, struck her with consternation, as though a red flame had burst forth from smouldering ashes which she was raking. She never knew that such a thing could be. She did not know that those violent glowing words could be uttered just like that. They hypnotized her. She had sunk into the old man's chair and she read, unable to do anything but read. She read of burning things, of passion which she had never suspected, of a melting together of body and soul, a fusion of souls, a fusion of bodies, only to forget, at all costs to forget. She read, in a frenzy of words, of a purple madness exciting itself in order to plunge and annihilate two people in each other's soul and, with undiscovered kisses, to burn away and melt away in oblivion, in oblivion....

To melt into each other and never to be apart again.... To be together for ever.... To be inseparable for ever in unquenchable passion.... To remain so and to forget.... Especially to forget, O God, to forget ... that one night, that night!... And through the first passionate purple words there now began to flow the purple of blood.... Through the words of passionate love there now flowed words of passionate hatred.... The frenzied joy that this hatred had cooled after all.... The jubilant assurance that, if that night could ever recur, the hatred would cool a second time! The mad words deceived themselves, for, immediately after, they again writhed in despair and declared that nevertheless, in spite of satisfied passion, the memory was as a spectre, a bloody spectre, that never left you.... Oh, the hatred would always cool like that, for a third time, for a fourth time ... but yet the bloody spectre remained horrible!... It was maddening.... It was maddening.... And the letter ended with an entreaty that he would come, come speedily, to blend with her in soul and body and, in the rapture of it, to forget and no longer to behold the spectre. At the bottom of the letter were the words, "Tear this up at once," and the name: