Ecstasy

CHAPTER V

She knew, the next day, when she sat alone in reflection, that the sphere of happiness, the highest and brightest, may not be trod; that it may only beam upon us as a sun, and that we may not enter into it, into the holy sun-centre. They had done that …

Listless she sat, her children by her side, Christie looking pale and languid. Yes, she spoiled them, but how could she change herself?

Weeks passed, and Cecile heard nothing from Quaerts. It was always so: after he had been with her, weeks would drag by without her ever seeing him. He was much too happy with her, it was too much for him. He looked upon her society as a rare pleasure to be very jealously indulged in. And she, she loved him simply, with the devoutest essence of her soul, loved him frankly, as a woman loves a man … She always wanted him, every day, every hour, at every pulse of her life.

Then she met him by chance at Scheveningen, one evening when she went down there with Amélie and Suzette. Then once again at a reception at Mrs Hoze’s. He seemed shy with her, and a certain pride in her forbade her asking him to call. Yes, some change had come over what had been woven between them. But she suffered sorely, because of that foolish pride, because she had not humbly begged him to come to her. But was he not her idol? What he did was good.

So she did not see him for weeks, weeks. Life went on; each day she had her little occupations, in her household, with her children; Mrs Hoze reproached her for her sequestration from society, and she began to think more about her friends, to please Mrs Hoze. There were vistas in her memory; in those vistas she saw the dinner-party, their conversations and walks, all their love, all his aspiration to her he called madonna; their last evening of light and ecstasy. Then she smiled, and the smile itself beamed over her anguish; her anguish that she no longer saw him, that she felt proud and had bitterness within her. Yet all things must be well, as he wished them.

Oh, the evenings, the summer evenings, cooling after the warm days, the evenings when she sat alone, peering out from her room, where the onyx lamp burnt with a half flame, peering out of the open windows at the trams which, tinkling their bells, came and went to Scheveningen, full, full of people. Waiting, the endless, long waiting, evening after evening in solitude, after the children had gone to bed. Waiting, when she simply sat still, staring fixedly before her, looking at the trams, the tedious, everlasting trams. Where was her former evenness of dreaming happiness? And where, where was her supreme happiness? Where was her struggle within herself between what she was and what he thought she was? This struggle no longer existed; this had been overcome; she no longer felt the force of passion; she only longed for him as he had always come, as he now no longer came. Why did he not come? Happiness palled, people spoke about them … It was not right that they should see so much of one another – he had said so the evening before that highest happiness – not good for him and not good for her.

So she sat and thought, and great, quiet tears fell from her eyes, for she knew that although he remained away partly on his own account, it was above all on hers that he did not come to her. What had she not said to him that evening on the bench in the woods, when her arms were about his neck? Oh! she should have been silent, she knew that now. She should not have uttered her rapture, but have enjoyed it secretly within herself; she should have let him utter himself; she herself should have remained his madonna. But she had been too full, too happy, and in that overbrimming of happiness she had been unable to be other than true and clear as a bright mirror. He had glanced into her and comprehended her entirely: she knew that, she was certain of that.

He knew now in what manner she loved him; she herself had revealed it to him. But, at the same time, she had made known to him all that was past, that now she was what he wished her to be. And this had been true at that moment, clear at that moment, and true. But now? Does ecstasy endure only for one moment then, and did he know it? Did he know that her soul’s flight had reached its limit, and must now descend again to a commoner sphere? Did he know that she loved him again now, quite ordinarily, with all her being, wholly and entirely, no longer as widely as the heavens, only as widely as her arms could stretch out and embrace? And could he not return her this love, so petty, and was that why he did not come to her?

II

Then she received his letter:

“Forgive me that I put off from day to day coming to see you; forgive me that even today I cannot decide to do so, and that I write to you instead. Forgive me if I even venture to ask you whether it may not be necessary that we see each other no more. If I hurt you and offend you, if I – God spare me – cause you to suffer, forgive me, forgive me. Perhaps I procrastinated a little from indecision, but much more because I thought I had no other choice.

“There has been between our two lives, between our two souls, a rare moment of happiness which was a special blessedness, a special grace. Do you not think so too? Oh, if only I had words to tell you how thankful I am in my innermost soul for that happiness. If later I ever look back upon my life, I shall always continue to see that happiness gleaming in between the ugliness and the blackness – a star of light. We received it as such – a gift of light. And I venture to ask you if that gift is not a thing to be kept sacred?

“Shall we be able to do so if I continue to see you? You, yes, I have no doubt of you; you will be strong to keep it sacred, our blessed happiness, especially as you have already done battle, as you confided to me, that holy evening. But I, shall I too be able to be strong, especially now that I know that you have gone through the struggle? I doubt myself, I doubt my own force; I am afraid of myself. There is cruelty in me, the love of destruction, something of the savage. As a boy I took pleasure in destroying beautiful things, in breaking and soiling them.

“The other day Jules brought me some roses to my room; in the evening, as I sat alone, thinking upon you and upon our happiness – yes, at that very moment – my fingers began to fumble with a rose whose petals were loose, and when I saw that one rose dis-petalled there came a rage within me to tear and destroy them all, and I rumpled every one of them. I only give you small instances, I do not wish to give a larger instance, from vanity, lest you should know how bad I am. I am afraid of myself. If I saw you again, and again, and again, what should I begin to feel and think and wish, unconsciously? Which would be the stronger within me, my soul or the beast that is in me?

“Forgive me that I lay bare my dread before you, and do not despise me for it. Up to now I have not done battle in the blessed world of our happiness. I saw you, I saw you often before I knew you; I imagined you as you were; I was allowed to speak to you; it was given me to love you with my soul alone: I beseech you let it remain so. Let me continue to guard my happiness like this, to keep it sacred, a thousand times sacred. I think it worth while to have lived now that I have known that: happiness, the highest. I am afraid of the battle which would probably come and pollute that sacred thing.

“Will you believe me when I swear to you that I have reflected deeply on all this? Will you believe me when I swear to you that I suffer at the thought of never being permitted to see you again? Above all, will you forgive me when I swear to you that I am acting in this way because I think I am doing right? Oh! I am thankful to you, and I love you as a soul of light alone, only light!

“Perhaps I do wrong to send you this letter. I do not know. Perhaps I will presently destroy what I have written …”

Yet he had sent the letter.

There was bitterness within her. She had done battle once, had conquered herself, and in a sacred moment had confessed both battle and conquest; she knew that fate had compelled her to do so; she now knew that through this confession she would lose him. For a short moment, a single evening perhaps, she had been worthy of her god, and his equal. Now she was so no longer; for that reason too she felt bitter; and bitterest of all because the thought dared to rise within her:

“A god! Is he a god? Is a god afraid of battle?”

Then her threefold bitterness changed to despair, black despair, a night which her eyes sought to penetrate in order to see where they saw nothing, nothing, and she moaned low, and wrung her hands, sunk into a heap before the window, and peered at the trams which, with the tinkling of their bells, ran pitilessly to and fro.

III

She shut herself up; she saw little of her children; she told her friends that she was ill. She was at home to no visitors. She guessed intuitively that in their respective circles people spoke of Quaerts and herself. Life hung dull about her, a closely woven web of tiresome meshes, and she remained motionless in her corner, to avoid entangling herself in those meshes. Once Jules forced his way to her; he went up to her in spite of Greta’s protests; he sought her in the little boudoir, and, not finding her, went resolutely to her bedroom. He knocked without receiving any reply, but entered nevertheless. The room was half in darkness, for she kept the blinds lowered; in the shadow of the canopy which rose above the bedstead, with its hangings of old blue brocade, Cecile lay sleeping. Her dressing-gown was open over her breast, the train fell from the bed and lay creased over the carpet; her hair trailed over the pillows; one of her hands clutched nervously at the tulle bed-curtain.

“Auntie!” cried Jules. “Auntie!”

He shook her by the arm, and she waked heavily, with heavy, blue-encircled eyes. She did not recognise him at first, and thought that he was little Dolf.

“It is I, Auntie; Jules …”

She recognised him, asked him how he came there, what was the matter, whether he did not know that she was ill.

“I knew, but I wanted to speak to you. I came to speak to you about … him …”

“Him?”

“About Taco. He asked me to tell you. He could not write to you. He is going on a long journey with his friend from Brussels; he will be away a long time, and he would like … he would like to take leave of you.”

“To take leave?”

“Yes, and he told me to ask you whether he might see you once more?”

She had half risen up, and looked at Jules stupidly. In an instant the memory ran through her brain of a long look which Jules directed on her so strangely when she saw Quaerts for the first time and spoke to him coolly and distantly: “Have you many relations in the Hague? You have no occupation I believe? Sport?” The memory of Jules playing on the piano, of Rubinstein’s Romance in E, of the ecstasy of his fantasia: the glittering rainbows and the souls turning to angels.

“To take leave?” she repeated.

Jules nodded. “Yes, Auntie, he is going away for a long, long time.”

He could have shed tears himself, and there were tears in his voice, but he would not, and his eyes were moist.

“He told me to ask you,” he repeated with difficulty.

“Whether he can come and take leave?”

“Yes, Auntie.”

She made no reply, but lay staring before her. An emptiness began to measure itself out before her, in endless perspective, a silhouette of their evening of rapture, but no light beamed out of the shadow.

“Emptiness …” she muttered through closed lips.

“What, Auntie?”

She would have liked to ask Jules whether he was still, as formerly, afraid of the emptiness within himself; but a gentleness of pity, a soft feeling, a sweetening of the bitterness which so filled her being, stayed her.

“To take leave?” she repeated, with a smile of melancholy, and the big tears fell heavily, drop by drop, upon her fingers wrung together.

“Yes, Auntie …”

He could no longer restrain himself: a single sob convulsed his throat, but he gave a cough to conceal it. Cecile threw her arm round his neck.

“You are very fond of Taco … are you not?” she asked; and it struck Cecile that this was the first time she had pronounced the name, for she had never called Quaerts by it: she had never called him by any name.

He did not answer at first, but nestled in her arm, in her embrace, and began to cry.

“Yes, I cannot tell you how much,” he said.

“I know,” she said, and she thought of the rainbows and the angels; he had played as out of her own soul.

“May he come?” asked Jules, faithfully thoughtful of his instructions.

“Yes.”

“He asks whether he may come this evening?”

“Very well.”

“Auntie, he is going away, because … because …”

“Because what, Jules?”

“Because of you; because you do not like him, and will not marry him. Mamma says so …”

She made no reply; she lay sobbing, her head on Jules’ head.

“Is it true, Auntie? No, it is not true, is it … ?”

“No.”

“Why, then?”

She raised herself suddenly, conquering herself, and looked at him fixedly.

“He is going away because he must, Jules. I cannot tell you why. But what he does is right. All that he does is right.”

The boy looked at her, motionless, with large, wet eyes, full of astonishment.

“Is right?” he repeated.

“Yes. He is better than any of us. If you continue to love him, Jules, it will bring you happiness, even if … if you never see him again.”

“Do you think so?” he asked. “Does he bring happiness? Even in that case …”

“Even in that case …”

She listened to her words as she spoke them: it was to her as if another was speaking; another who consoled not only Jules but herself as well, and who would perhaps give her strength to take leave from Taco as would be seemly – without despair.

IV

“So you are going a long journey?” she asked.

He sat facing her, motionless, with anguish on his face. Outwardly she was very calm, only there was melancholy in her look and in her voice. In her white dress, with the girdle falling before her feet, she lay back among the three cushions of the rose-moiré chaise-longue; the points of her little slippers were lost in the sheepskin rug. On the little table before her lay a great bouquet of loose roses, pink, white, and yellow, bound together with a broad ribbon. He had brought them for her, and she had not yet placed them. There was great calm about her; the “exquisite” atmosphere of the boudoir seemed unchanged.

“Tell me, do I not grieve you sorely?” he asked, with the anguish in his eyes, the eyes she now knew so well.

She smiled.

“No …” she said. “I will be honest with you. I have suffered, but I suffer no longer. I have battled with myself for the second time, and I have conquered myself. Will you believe me?”

“If you knew the remorse that I feel …”

She rose and went to him.

“Why?” she asked in a clear voice. “Because you comprehended me, and gave me happiness?”

“Did I do so?”

“Have you forgotten, then?”

“No, but I thought …”

“What?”

“I do not know; I thought that you would – would suffer so, I … I cursed myself …!”

She shook her head gently, with smiling disapproval.

“For shame!” she said. “Do not blaspheme …”

“Can you forgive me?”

“I have nothing to forgive. Listen to me. Swear to me that you believe me, that you believe that you have given me happiness and that I am not suffering.”

“I … I swear.”

“I trust you do not swear this merely to comply with my wish.”

“You have been the highest in my life,” he said, gently.

A rapture shot through her soul.

“Tell me only …” she began.

“What?”

“Tell me if you believe that I, I, I … shall always remain the highest in your life.”

She stood before him, tall, in her clinging white. She seemed to shed radiance; never yet had he seen her so beautiful.

“I am certain of that,” he said. “Certain, oh! Certain … My God! how can I convey the certainty of it to you?”

“But I believe you, I believe you,” she exclaimed.

She laughed a laugh of rapture. In her soul a sun seemed to be shooting out rays on every side. She placed her arm tenderly about his neck and kissed his forehead, a caress of chastity.

For one moment he seemed to forget everything. He too rose, took her in his arms, almost savagely, and clasped her suddenly to him, as if he were about to crush her against his breast. She just caught sight of his sad eyes, and then nothing more, blinded by the kisses of his mouth, which rained upon her whole face in sparks of fire. With the sun-rapture of her soul was mingled a bliss of earth, a yielding to the violence of his embrace. She released herself, put him away, and said:

“And now … go.”

It stunned him; he understood that to be final.

“Yes, yes, I am going,” he said. “I may write to you, may I not?”

She nodded yes, with her smile.

“Write to me, I will write to you too,” she said. “Let me always hear from you …”

“Then these are not to be the last words between us? This … this … is not the end?”

“No …”

“Thank you. Goodbye, Mevrouw, goodbye … Cecile. Ah! if you knew what this moment costs me!”

“It must be. It cannot be otherwise. Go, go. You must go. Do go …”

She gave her hand again, for the last time. A moment later he was gone.

She looked strangely about her, with bewildered eyes, with hands locked together. “Go, go,” she repeated, like one raving. Then she noticed the roses. With a light scream she sank down before the little table and buried her face in his gift, until the thorns wounded her face. The pain, two drops of blood which fell from her forehead, brought her back to her senses. Standing before the little Venetian mirror hanging over her writing-table, she wiped away the red spots with her handkerchief.

“Happiness!” she stammered to herself. “His happiness! The highest in his life! So he knew happiness, though short it was. But now … now he suffers, now he will suffer again as before. The remembrance of happiness cannot do everything. Ah! if it could only do that, then everything would be well, everything … I wish for nothing more, I have had my life, my own life, my own happiness … I have now my children; I belong to them now. To him I was not permitted to be anything more …”

She turned away from the mirror and sat down on the settee, as if tired with a great space traversed; and she closed her eyes, as if stunned with too great a light. She folded her hands together like one in prayer; her face beamed in its fatigue from smile to smile.

“Happiness!” she repeated, falteringly. “The highest in his life! Oh my God, happiness! I thank Thee. Oh God, I thank Thee …”