He stormed up the stairs, again nearly stumbling. The noise shook the whole house; the door of his bedroom slammed. He feverishly felt in his pocket for matches, couldn't find them; his trembling hands groped all round the room, knocking things over, almost breaking things; at last he found the box, lit the gas, looked at himself in the glass. He saw his face red with fierce, raging blood, which glowed under his cheeks and beat up towards his temples. His eyes started from their sockets and contracted to pin-points. He looked at his mouth, to see if the kiss was visible that still burnt on his lips like a hot seal of purple wax. His uniform felt too tight for him and he undressed himself, savagely. He washed his head in a basin full of water; he rubbed his mouth with a handkerchief till his lips glowed, went on rubbing them, as if they were dirty. He crunched the handkerchief into a ball and flung it on the ground. Then he quickly put on his indoor-jacket and then ... then he went downstairs....
"How late you are!" Adeline said again, very gently.
He did not answer, made no jokes with the children. He now, deliberately, let Gerdy kiss him, with cool lips; and it was as a cool flower, pressed flat on his glowing cheek. It calmed him; and he suddenly felt safe, in that small room, under the circle of light from the hanging lamp, with in front of him the great piece of beef, which he began to carve, with great art, and advised Alex to watch how Papa carved, so that he could do it too when he was older. He now gave all his mind to the beef, carved it in clean, regular slices, while Adeline and the children looked on.
He ate heartily and, after dinner, fell into a heavy sleep.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] Malay: forward!
CHAPTER XIII
No, nobody saw it in him. He could admit that now without hesitation. Around him there appeared to be—he became more and more conscious of it—an opaque sphere, like a materialized phantasm, through which no one could see him, through which no one could penetrate and know him as he knew himself. This evening, as he sat with Constance, Constance did not see that he had met Pauline yesterday and gone back with her to her room. His wife did not notice it; Van der Welcke did not notice it. There was nothing around him but the everyday circumstances of an after-dinner chat in Constance' drawing-room, in the soft, cosy light of the lace-shaded lamps, while the wind outside blew from a great distance and howled moaning round the little house.... In his easy-chair, with the glass of grog mixed by Constance at his side, he was just a big, burly, light-haired fellow in his mufti; and his movements were brisk, his parade-voice sounded loud.... His wife was sitting there, gentle and placid, the quiet, resigned little mother; the children were asleep at home. Oh, his children, how he loved them!... Certainly, all of that existed, it was no phantasm, it was most certainly the truth; but behind that truth lay hidden another truth; and that was why it seemed a phantasm, his outward life as an officer, a husband, a father, while the real truth was what he always kept to himself: his strange gloom; the great worm that gnawed at him; his hot, racing blood; his sentimental and melancholy soul; that wriggling horror in his marrow; that recrudescence of sensuality in his blood.... The quiet, kindly words fell softly round the room, like small, sweet things between a brother and a sister who still have sympathy and affection for each other amid the inevitable slow moving apart of the family-spheres; but he—though he talked, though he was lively, though he cracked joke—he saw Pauline before him, as he had held her in his arms the day before.... Heavens, he couldn't help it: why was he built like that? A handsome woman, standing before his eyes, drove him crazy! Well, for years, all the years of his marriage, he had remained sober and sedate, but he had gradually begun to feel that this sedateness did not really suit him. It was no good his thinking it rotten; it was no good his telling himself that he was a husband and a father—the father of such jolly children too—and that he oughtn't to think of those things, that all that sort of thing belonged to his youth, to which he had said good-bye. It had been all very well to say it. But a thousand memories had gone curling into the air before his eyes, like swarming spirals; and, when he met Pauline again—by accident?—he had made an appointment with her for the next evening, in her room, cursing himself as he did so and swearing at her, with a torrent of rough words.... No, nobody had kissed him like that for years! Besides, he was sentimental. Didn't he himself know, damn it, what a sentimental ass he was? Didn't he know that sometimes, when he read a book or saw a play, when Mamma told him her troubles, as she had now got into the habit of doing, when he saw Dorine and felt sorry for her: didn't he himself know, damn it, that he was a sentimental ass and that he must pull himself together and not let the tears come to his eyes.... And Pauline, whether she did or did not know how sentimental he was: he couldn't see as far as that—not only kissed him as no one else did and knew how to drive him crazy, but she also worked upon his sentimentality. Was she making a fool of him, or did she mean all she said? He had never been able to trust those eyes of hers: they always retained a glint of mockery; but, when she said to him, "Men ... men are all beasts, every one of them, Gerrit ... except you.... You're not ... you're so nice and gentle ... however rough you may be," then she had him by his sentimental side and he did not know how to shake her off....
"I tell you, Gerrit, that's why I was so glad to see you again ... oh, I was so glad, Gerrit!"