“Yes, you are different. I have seen it for some time; there’s something, I know....”
It was no longer the joyous, playful, almost mischievous voice in which she had said this before. It now sounded rather like a cry of fear, because it, “that,” seemed so obvious that every one was bound to see it, that Aunt Constance herself must needs see it ... and be angry.
“Really, Marianne, I am not angry. But I wanted to speak to you alone....”
“Oh, then you are angry!” she said, passionately, almost hiding herself in Constance’ arms. “Don’t be angry!” she said, almost entreatingly. “Do tell me that you will try ... not to be angry with me!”
She betrayed herself almost entirely, incapable of keeping back that which had once shone from her and which now nearly threatened to sob itself from her. Constance could find no words.
“We shall soon be going away, Auntie!” said Marianne, her features wrung with grief. “And then you will not see me any more ... and then ... then perhaps you will never have any reason to be angry with me again....”
And then, all at once, she gave a sob, an irresistible sob, jarring every nerve with a shock that seemed to leave her rigid. She shut her eyes, buried her face in Constance’ shoulder and remained lying like this, after that one convulsive sob, motionless, pale, as though she were dying, as though devastated with sorrow. Bertha, opposite her, stared at her vaguely, with her hands lying helplessly on her black dress.
And Constance could find no words. Time after time she thought of mentioning Van Vreeswijck’s name, time after time the name died away on her lips. She gently urged Marianne to control herself, assuring her that she was not angry, had never been angry. And for a moment, thinking of herself, she felt afraid.
If love could be now gladness and now mourning, as it had been and was in this suffering, love-stricken child, should it not be the same with her—that gladness and oh, perhaps later, O God, that mourning!—with her, the middle-aged woman, who felt herself growing younger and a new life coursing through her: at first, in the soft spring flush of a girl’s dreams; now in the summer glory of a woman’s—a young woman’s—love? But there was a mirror opposite her; and she saw Marianne grief-smitten, shaken with sobs ... and in herself she saw nothing! She seemed to have the power to hide her happiness in her secret self: her agony—O God!—she would also hide later in her secret self. She saw nothing in herself. And she knew that nobody saw it in her. It remained secretly, mysteriously hidden. Adolphine, Cateau, the Ruyvenaers, all of them talked about her husband and Marianne: she knew it; but she also knew that they never talked about herself and Brauws ... though she had now known him for months, though he was the friend of the house and came to their house almost daily. He was a friend of Van der Welcke’s, he was a friend of the house and a very well-known man; and that was all. It was not visible to anybody, to anybody....
Oh, was it not strange? That this same feeling, which she bore in her innermost self, unseen by any, should shine within her as a sun, while with Marianne it had shone out, for all the world to see, as an illicit joy ... and was now streaming forth from her, in a convulsive sob, as an illicit sorrow. What she, the woman, hid within her the child could not hide within her, as though her soul were too slight for it, so slight that it had glowed through her soul as through alabaster and now flowed from it as from alabaster.... Oh, was it not strange, was it not strange? After all, she did not hide it intentionally, for she, the middle-aged woman had never, in her new young life, thought of the people outside ... in connection with her reviving youth! But it was so, it was so, beyond a doubt.... And it made her feel strong: it seemed to her a grace that had been accorded her, this power to live and go on living a new life deep in her secret self, invisible to the people outside, this power to live and love....