"Father, stop it now! Stop shaking about like that!"
Van der Welcke closed his eyes blissfully. The scent of the steaming pines floated on the summery air; the needles glistened and gave off their fragrance. And Van der Welcke fell asleep, with his head in his son's lap.
"Dear old Father!" thought Addie; and he stroked his father's round, curly head.
He looked down at him and, so as not to disturb his father's sleep, sat motionless, with his back against a tree. He looked down at him: dear old Father!... But he was not old, his father: he was young.... And, all at once, it seemed to Addie that he saw it for the first time: his father was young. And he thought to himself how strange it was that, when you are young yourself, you call everybody old: Granny van Lowe and Grandpapa and Grandmamma van der Welcke were old; and Uncle Ruyvenaer and Auntie were old; and the two old aunts, Auntie Rine and Auntie Tine, were very old, regular old mummies. But Papa, Papa was young. Why, he was only a year or two older than Uncle Paul, who was always the young man, the dandy, with his exquisite coats and beautiful ties. And Papa looked younger than Uncle Paul, Papa certainly looked younger.... Addie bent over him, while he slept. He lay quietly sleeping, with his face three-quarters turned on Addie's lap. And Addie, seeing for the first time that Papa was young, studied his face. Oh, how young Papa was: he was younger than Mamma! He looked much younger; he looked almost like an elder brother of Addie's. His hair, thinning ever so little over the temples, was still quite brown: soft, short, curly brown hair, almost close-cropped, but curling just a little, like his own. His forehead was white, like that of a statue, without a wrinkle, had kept white under the peak of his cycling-cap; and his cheeks, a little blue from shaving, were healthily bronzed. His eyelids were young, his lids now closed in sleep; his straight nose was young and his mouth, with the short, thick, curly moustache above it. His frame was young; and on Addie's knees lay his young hands, small, broad and dainty, with carefully-tended nails: Addie looked at his own finger-nails, boy's nails, which were torn rather than cut.... How strange that Papa should be so young! He noticed it for the first time. And for the first time he felt himself to have grown older, no longer quite a child, a boy still, but grown into a young man, even though he was only fourteen.... Yes, when you were a child, a real child, you looked upon anybody older than yourself as just old. Now, he was astounded: how young Papa was; and how much older Mamma was! True, her face was young still, but she had grey hair, she was forty-three.... He could imagine Papa with a very young wife, a girl almost, like one of the cousins, Louise or Emilie, or Floortje: Papa and a wife like that would make a good pair.... How young he was, how young he was!... He was now sleeping like a child, on Addie's stomach, peacefully breathing.... Dear old Father!... No, not a bit old: as young as a brother, as a friend, as a chum. So jolly too and so mad sometimes.... And then suddenly he would try to be the stern parent! Dear Father!—Addie laughed—That didn't come off at all! He loved him like that: so young, such a friend, such a chum, such a brother.... Mamma was his mother, always, even though he did sometimes flirt with her; but Papa was not a Papa, Papa was his friend and his brother. But, young though Papa was, Addie nevertheless thought it strange that he had said to him so often:
"My life is shattered, my career is done for."
Why was that? Was it only because Papa had had to leave the diplomatic service when he was still quite young and had married Mamma? But Addie was a sensible and prematurely intelligent child; and his bright, young intelligence could not admit that; and, suddenly, Addie thought, if things really were as Papa declared—his life shattered, his career done for—then Addie thought it wrong, disapproved of it, thought it weak of Papa, weak, morbid almost, yes, morbid. How was it possible that Papa, since the day when he had sent in his resignation, had never done anything but complain of that ruined career, reproaching Mamma with it, silently or out loud, and only picking up a trifle at Brussels with commissions on wine and insurances, whereas there was so much else: life, the world, the whole world open before him! And to him, to the boy himself, it was as though wide prospects stretched out before him, which as yet he only divined as a dream of the future, which as yet he only felt to be there, to exist for any one who is young and strong and healthy and has brains. But, while he thus wondered and disapproved within himself—so weak: why so weak?—he felt a sort of fond and gentle pity amidst his wonder and disapproval, combined with a sort of need to grow still fonder of that father, who was so young, so strong and ... so weak. His boyish hand rested gently on his father's curly hair, stroked it gently while his father lay sleeping; and, with a sort of tenderness, the boy thought:
"Why are you like that? How can you be like that? Why have you never overcome that weakness, become manlier, firmer? Poor, poor Father!..."
And it was strange, but, while he disapproved, he felt his love increase, as the love of the stronger goes out to the weaker and lesser: the stronger the one feels, the weaker the other appears to him; and thus the instinct is developed to protect and care for that other. And now he remained stock-still, thinking that he had really tired his father out, for they had ridden like mad that morning, intoxicated with the smooth length of the roads, giddied with excessive speed.
He remained stock-still, as though he himself were a father who was letting his tired child sleep in his arms. And, while he sat gazing at that young face of his father's, that white forehead divided with a sharp stripe from the blue, bronzed cheeks, there fluttered through his vision those new thoughts, like birds that were learning to fly, those dreams of wide prospects stretching away to dim futures at which he only guessed as yet, because the world was so wide and life so big. And, though these fledgling thoughts were all ignorant of the world and of life, they fluttered to and fro, fluttered away and then back to the nest, where they, the new-born thoughts, settled upon that greatest and strongest and most conscious feeling, that of love for the father who was so young that he was like a brother and so weak that he was as a child....