[18] Broth, pap.
CHAPTER XVII
The furniture arrived from Brussels; and Constance found it delightful to arrange her house near the Woods. She had never expected to be so happy, just because she was back in her own country and among her family-circle. It was April, but it was still winter: a chill, damp winter, which seemed never to have done raining; above the Woods and the Kerkhoflaan, the heavy clouds were for ever gathering, sailing up as though from a mysterious cloud-realm, spreading the sorrowful tints of the lowland skies over the atmosphere, hanging everlastingly like a beautiful, leaden-hued melancholy of lilac grey, sometimes with the coppery glow of a light that always gleamed very faintly and never conquered, but just shone like copper in between the grey; and the endless rain clattered down, the endless wind howled through the bare trees, the endless clouds pushed and drove along, borne on the stormy squalls, as though there were an endless combat overhead, a cloud-life of which men below knew nothing. It was a melancholy of day after day; and yet, strangely enough, it stirred Constance gratefully: she smiled at the clouds, the clouds of lilac streaked with glowing copper as though a distant conflagration were shining through a watery mist; and very soon her house grew dear to her and she was glad that she lived in it. Addie was not going to school yet, but was working hard to pass his examination in July for the second class in the grammar-school. He was having a few private lessons and, for the rest, studied zealously in his room, which, built out, with a bow-window and a little leaden, peaked roof, he grandiloquently called his turret-room. He had helped Constance to get settled: he had helped Van der Welcke with his room; and now he worked and slept between the rooms of his parents and separated them and, whenever it became necessary, united them.... Strange, this family-life in the little house, where the parents, through grudges and grievances heaped up for years, could hardly exchange the least word, could hardly even be silent, without a tension in both their faces and in both their souls; where every detail of domestic life—a piece of furniture displaced, a door opened or shut—at once led to a discord which turned the tension into an offence. The very least thing provoked a bitter word; a reproach flashed out on the instant; resentment was constantly boiling over. And amid it all was the boy, adored by both with a mutual jealousy that made their adoration almost morbid, each hoping simultaneously that the boy would now speak to him or her and award his caress to her or him; and, if this hope were disappointed, at once an averted glance, uncontrolled envy, a nervous discomfort that was almost a physical illness.... And, by a miracle that had become a forbearing and compassionate grace, the boy, who was still the child of their love, was only a little older, for all this everlasting discord, than his actual years; had only grown a little more serious, feeling himself, at a very early age, to be the mediator; and, now that he was a couple of years older, now that he was thirteen, accepted this mediation, almost unconsciously, as an appointed task and a bounden duty, with only very deep in his childish heart the ache of it all, that things were so, because he loved both his parents. At table, at both meals, the child talked and the two parents smiled, though they avoided each other's glances, though, to each other, their words were cruel and pitilessly cold. After lunch, it was always:
"Addie, what are you doing this afternoon?"
"I have to work, Mamma."
"Aren't you going out with me?"
"Well, then, at three o'clock, Mamma."
After dinner it was:
"Addie, my boy, what are you doing this evening?"