He had cursed her, asked why she didn't go after a young, rich fellow rather than him, who was neither young nor rich; but her golden eyes had gleamed and she had merely repeated:
"Oh, men are all beasts, Gerrit ... beasts, beasts ... every one of them!"
And—perhaps that was the stupidest thing of all—he had believed her, believed that he was the only one whom she did not think a beast; and, when a woman got hold of him by his crazy side and his sentimental side as well, then he did not find it easy to wrench himself away: oh, he knew himself well enough for that!
Not one of them knew it, you see, while he sat talking so quietly with them, while he sipped his grog with enjoyment, his legs stretched out wide in front of him, and while he heard the raging wind outside come howling up from the distance.... And now Paul came in, rubbing his hands: he had driven up in a cab, declaring that he was too old to walk from the Houtstraat to the Kerkhoflaan in that weather and through such dirty streets. Why didn't he take the tram? Thank you for nothing: was there ever such a filthy conveyance as a tram, in wind and rain too? And a volley of sparkling witticisms flashed out for a moment: tirades against his dirty country, where it was always, always raining; against people, against the whole world, all dirty alike.... When he sat down, he looked round, with a glance that had become a second habit, to see that there were no bits of fluff on his chair. And he at once ceased talking, the battery of his words exhausted, sat still, not thinking it worth while to talk, because nobody appreciated what he said. Gerrit heard Constance chide him, in her gentle voice, in a sisterly but serious fashion, because he was growing so elderly, shutting himself up, giving way to his mania for cleanliness and for thinking everything dirty. He answered with a couple of whimsical sallies....
Then Constance said that she had asked Dorine also, but that Dorine did not seem to be coming; and that Aunt Ruyvenaer was too tired, because she was fixing up the new small house with the girls. And Gerrit felt—now that Mamma was getting old, very old—how Constance was trying to keep the elements of the family together in her place. Not in such a wide and comprehensive manner as Mamma used to do—and still did—but with some measure of sympathy. Ah, she wouldn't succeed, thought Gerrit! The circles were not moving closer together: each was just himself; he was no different from the rest. Was he not thinking of Pauline? Had he not his silent secret? Had not each of them perhaps his silent secret, while they sat talking together with such apparent sympathy?...
Addie came in, after finishing his school-work upstairs; and Gerrit noticed the conciliatory smile with which he at once went up to his father, who had been sulking of late because his boy had made a choice of which he altogether disapproved. But for weeks and weeks he had seemed unable to resist the conciliatory smile; and Gerrit had noticed that it was Van der Welcke himself who suffered most from his sulking, which went on because he did not know how to manage a gradual change of attitude, while the boy's calm smile meant:
"Daddie will have to give in, for what I want is only reasonable...."
And Gerrit enjoyed looking at Addie, hoping that his own boys would grow up like that; but Paul, as soon as he saw his nephew, flashed forth into chaff, a chaff which had a speculative interest underlying it and which the boy took quietly, looking at Paul with his serious, blue eyes, which gazed so steadily out of his fresh, boyish face.
"Well, learned professor in ovo, my dear doctor in spe, how are the patients? Are they keeping you busy just now? Has mankind increased in vitality and primordial vigour since you entered the therapeutic arena? O great healer, on whom are you going to try your powers first, Æsculapius? On members of your family, I suppose? Are you going to make us live for ever, Addie? Well, you needn't trouble about me.... Can't you manage to make the human body work a little more cleanly in future? That's the thing before which we're expected to kneel in admiration: the Creator's masterpiece, the human body; and what is dirtier than the human body? A nasty house of flesh, with our poor small soul pining away inside it.... Addie, when you grow very clever later on, just remove all that: entrails, intestines, the whole bag of tricks; and put in its place a little silver machine which a fellow can polish at least ... if there must be a machine of some sort!"
The boy never got annoyed, but stood in front of his uncle and put his hand on Paul's shoulder and looked at him and said: