Eline Vere by Louis Couperus - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXX.

Uncle Daniel and Aunt Elise were not a bit surprised when Eline, a few days after St. Clare’s and Vincent’s departure, told them that she intended to return to the Hague. They knew how capricious Eline was, how she longed, now for this and now for that, and never was contented. But this time it was not out of caprice that Eline longed for another dwelling-place. After the soirée, at which St. Clare had asked her somewhat brusquely how she got there, it seemed to her as if a veil had risen before her eyes, as if suddenly it was made plain to her that she was   not in her place with her uncle and aunt, and especially in their coterie, and it was out of respect, out of friendship, perhaps out of love for St. Clare, that she determined to leave her Brussels acquaintances.

She wrote to Henk and asked him to take two rooms for her in a ladies’ boarding-house or in one of the new stately hotels. In reply she received letters from Henk, from Betsy, from old Madame van Raat, all of whom begged her not to go into apartments, but to make her home with them. Betsy wrote her that she forgave and forgot everything that had happened, if Eline on her part would also forgive and forget, and implored Eline not to be so eccentric as to go and live by herself when there was room for her in her sister’s house. Old Madame van Raat, too, wrote very urgently and very affectionately, but Eline refused with repeated professions of gratitude; she was determined that no one should make her change her mind.

Henk, therefore, with a dejected face, shrugged his shoulders, and with Betsy he chose two handsome apartments in a large pension on the Bezuidenhout. Thereupon Eline came to the Hague.

She recollected how the previous summer, worn-out with her wandering, she had come to the Hague to make her stay with Madame van Raat. She compared her languor of those days with the exhaustion which now, as it were, was surely undermining her, and she did not even feel strength to weep about it. For the sake of her regard for St. Clare, she had concentrated the last lingering remnants of strength to be once more as she had been—winning, amiable, if not brilliant; and now that St. Clare was gone, she discovered how, frank and natural as she had been towards him, she had for all that involuntarily, as it were, excited herself so that she should not appear to him altogether the utterly worn-out being, the living corpse that she was. Now that that excitement was no longer necessary, she collapsed, broken down utterly. The emotion caused by her latest confession, too, had greatly unnerved her, and it became to her a certainty that she would never more be able to arouse herself from her physical exhaustion and her moral inanition.

Her cough was very violent, and Reyer attended her again, but she never told him about her Brussels doctor, who had prescribed her the morphine-drops, as she remembered that Reyer would never allow her to take an opiate. It was February, the cold was   intense, and she did not leave the house. When in the morning she rose, she felt as formerly she had felt at Madame van Raat’s, too fatigued and languid to dress herself. She wrapped herself in her peignoir and sank down on a couch. Then a delicious feeling would come over her that she need not trouble herself about any one, that there was no need for her to dress herself, and that she could remain as she was in her slippers as long as she liked. Often Madame van Raat or Betsy, Madame Verstraeten or Marie and Lili, found her thus undressed, dishevelled, vacantly staring out of the window. She did not read, she did not do anything, and hour after hour passed by during which she did not even think. At times she would suddenly throw herself on the floor, her face pressed down on the carpet, and then it grew dark, oh, so dark around her, until a knock at the door—the servant who brought her dinner—made her start up with a sudden fright. Then she would sit down and eat a very little, and then a wan little smile would hover around her lips, in which at once something satirical and something idiotic were intermingled.

The nights that followed on those days were for Eline veritable hours of terror. Everything within her began to live, and she felt as if electrified by the horror, so that she could not sleep. Her brain was in a mad whirl. Shrill, mysterious sounds rushed through her ears. A very maelstrom of memories whirled round and round in her mind. Visions of all shapes and forms rose up around her. She started in terror at everything—at a shadow falling along the wall, at a pin glistening on the floor; then she took her drops, and a dull sleep at last fell upon her like a leaden mantle.

For minutes at a time she would stand staring in the glass at her faded features. The tears would then start to her eyes, whose brightness was for ever extinguished, and she thought of former days, she longed for that past again without really asking herself what that past had been. For latterly she was no longer capable of continuous thought. It was as if before her thoughts a barrier had been placed, which she could not cross. But it was that very dullness which now overtook her that in some measure lessened her melancholy, which, had her brain been of its normal clearness, would certainly have risen to an unbearable crisis. But instead of that melancholy she now struggled through hours of doubt, in which she was at a loss what to do with her useless self, her useless existence, which dragged itself along within these four walls, with   only her violent fits of coughing to break the weary monotony. Then she fell to weeping bitterly about her unfulfilled desires, and she writhed on the ground, stretching forth her arms towards an image which vaguely shaped itself to her eyes; for in her dreams, as well as in her waking thoughts, the forms of Otto and St. Clare began to be confused in her mind. The observations and sayings, the ideas of the one she ascribed to the other, and she could no longer say which of them she had ever loved in truth, or which of them she still loved. When, in such doubts, she attempted to continue her train of thought, that impassable barrier stopped her, and her impotency enraged her; with her clenched fist she beat herself on the forehead, as if therein there was something broken that she would repair.

“What can it be?” she would then ask herself in despair. “Why is it that I forget so many things that have happened, and of which I can only remember that they have happened? All that dullness here in my head! Rather the most horrible pain than that dullness! It is as if I am going mad!”

A shudder crept over her back like a cold snake at that thought. Suppose she were to go mad, what then would they do with her? But she would not follow up such terrible suppositions, although it seemed to her that if she could only think through that spectre of rising insanity, she would suddenly pass over the barrier that had been placed before her thoughts! But when once she should have passed into it, then—then, indeed, she would be insane.

At such moments she covered her face with her hands and pressed her fingers in her ears, as though she would not hear, would not see; as if the first impression she would now receive would drive her mad. And at that idea she was so terrified that she said not a word about that dullness to Reyer.

Her uninterrupted, listless idleness made her yield herself up entirely like a slave to the strange fantasies and ideas which frequently rose to the most senseless ecstasies, from which she suddenly awoke in dread terror; reclining on her couch, her fingers nervously plucking at the tassels of the cushions, playing with the loose hair that hung dishevelled about her head, her thoughts went back to her theatrical illusions in the days when she had sung duets with Paul, and when she thought she loved Fabrice. Then she became an actress; she saw the stage, the public, she smiled   and bowed, flowers rained down upon her. Quite unconscious of herself, she would rise from her couch, and with her broken voice softly hum a recitative, a phrase from some Italian aria; and she moved about her room as if she were playing a part—she acted, she stretched forth her arms in movements of despair, or lifted them up with longing towards the fleeing lover; she sank down on her knees, and imagined that she was dragged forward, although she prayed and implored for mercy. Various rôles rose confused in her brain: Marguerite, Juliette, Lucia, Isabelle, Mireille—of all these in the space of a few minutes she would go through the most tragic scenes, and suddenly, roughly awakened from that madness, she would see herself once more alone in her room, and making the strangest motions. Then she drew back in terror for herself, and tremblingly she thought—

“Heavens above! is it coming over me?”

After such moments she would remain lying down staring about her with frightened eyes, as if she expected that some crushing catastrophe would occur, as if the features of the statuettes, the figures in the pictures and plates around her, would suddenly come to life and laugh at her—a hard, grinning laugh, cruel as that of demons.

After such a day she did her best in her silent terror to become herself once more. In the morning, after awakening from her leaden, artificial sleep, she would quickly get up, dress herself with much care, and go out shopping; then go and take coffee with Henk and Betsy, with the Verstraetens, or with Madame van Raat. She complained about her loneliness, and as, in such moments, she showed herself rather amiable, they asked her here and there out of pity to stay to dinner. Then the evening would pass cheerily enough, and she returned home, glad that another day was gone, but fainting almost with fatigue at her unusual emotions by her artificially excited gaiety, unnatural and full of shrill laughter, mingled with coughs. And such a day she had to pay for dearly at night; the drops gave her no relief, she remained all through hopelessly wide awake, struggling with horrible nightmares, haunted by spectres of her diseased brain.

Her acquaintances spoke a good deal about Eline, and Betsy frequently remarked with a serious face that she feared it was far from right with her; Eline was so strange just now, and Reyer was not satisfied either, and her acquaintances pitied her. Poor Eline!   formerly she was so pretty, so elegant, so cheerful—and now she was like a shadow of her former self. Yes, indeed, she was very ill. That one could easily see.

It was raining—a cold, searching March rain—and Betsy was at home, sitting in the little violet boudoir which opened on the conservatory. It was somewhat dark, but Betsy had moved her fauteuil in the light, and was reading Les Pêcheurs d’Islande by Pierre Loti. But the book bored her; how could fishermen be so very sentimental? Now and then her glance fell along the palms of the conservatory and on the barren garden, where the bare branches were dripping with wet. Ben sat on the floor by her fauteuil. All at once he gave a sigh.

“What is it, Ben? Is anything the matter?” asked Betsy.

“No, ma,” he answered, looking up in surprise with his laboured little voice.

“Why do you sigh then, child?”

“I don’t know, ma.”

She looked at him searchingly for a moment, then she laid down her book.

“Just come here, Ben.”

“Where, ma dear?”

“Here, on my lap.”

He clambered slowly on to her lap and smiled. Lately her brusque voice often had something soft in it when she addressed her only child.

“Are you fond of your ma?” she asked caressingly.

“Yes.”

“Kiss me, then.”

He flung his little arms round her neck.

“Come, give me a kiss!”

Still with the same listless little smile he kissed her.

“Ma is never naughty to you, is she?” asked Betsy.

“No.”

“Will you stop with ma like that?”

“Yes.”

He nestled himself, the big boy of seven, against her bosom.

“Tell me, Ben, is there nothing you would like? Would you not like something nice of ma?”

“No.”  

“For instance, a little horse and carriage—a real horse, a pony? Then Herman can teach you to drive.”

“Oh, no, thank you,” he said, in a tone as if she bored him a little.

She grew almost impatient, and was on the point of giving him a scolding, and telling him that he was a wretch of a boy, but that impatience lasted only for a second. She clasped him closer to her and kissed him.

“But if there is anything you would like, you must tell me,” she said, almost weeping. “Will you tell me, Ben? Say, child, will you really tell ma?”

“Yes,” he answered, in a tone of great satisfaction.

And she closed her eyes, shuddering at the thought that her child was an idiot. It was like a curse that had come to her. But why, how had she then deserved it? What had she done?

She did not read further, and she kept him on her lap, where he lay quietly, with his head resting on her shoulder, when she heard some one approaching through the salon. It was Eline.

“Good morning, Eline.”

“Good morning, Betsy. Good morning, Ben.”

“Fancy you going out in this rain!”

“I had a cab. I could not stay at home any longer. The weather made me so melancholy, and I thought I was going mad with ennui. Oh, great heavens!”

She let herself go, as with a cry of despair she fell down on a seat, and removed her little veil.

“Just imagine always being pent up within the four walls of your room, no one to see you, nothing in which you take any interest. Is that not enough to drive you mad? At all events, I cannot bear it any longer, I shall certainly go crazy.”

“Eline, prends garde, l’enfant t’écoute.”

“He—he does not understand that, and probably will never understand it,” she continued in a hoarse voice. “Ben, come here; come here for a moment. Do you know what you must do when you are big? Never think of anything, little man, whatever you do. Don’t think at all. Eat, drink, and enjoy yourself as long as you can, and then—then—you must marry! But you must not think, do you hear?”

“Eline, vraiment tu es folle,” cried Betsy hastily, fearing more for her child than for her sister.  

Eline laughed loudly, and her laugh and the shrill words of her excited voice frightened Ben. With his big eyes and his mouth wide open he stared at her. But still she laughed.

“Oh, he does not understand anything of it, the little man. Eh, you don’t know what it is that aunt is raving about, do you? But it is delicious to rave like that. I wish I could do something very desperate, some awfully mad trick, something utterly ridiculous, but I cannot think of anything. My mind is so dulled just now that I cannot think. If only Elise were here she would know something. Do you know what we did one day, Elise and I, the first time I stayed in Brussels? I never had the courage to tell any one of it before, but now I dare say anything. Nothing troubles me now. Just fancy, one evening we went out together for a walk, all alone, you know, just for a little adventure. Don’t you say a word of it to any one, do you hear? Then we met two gentlemen, two very nice gentlemen, whom we did not know at all. With them we went for a drive—in an open landau, and then—then we went with them into a café.”

Her story was continually interrupted by little nervous shrill laughs, and with the last words she burst out into an uncontrollable fit of hysterical laughter. Not a word was true of the whole story, but at that moment she believed in it herself.

“Just fancy, in a café—in a café! And then——”

“Eline, do pray stop that mad talk,” said Betsy softly.

“Ah! I suppose you think it awfully shocking, eh? But rest assured, it was not quite so bad as all that.”

She still laughed, half weeping, and at last she burst out in hysterical sobs.

“Oh, that wretched Reyer! I have always such a terrible pain here in my head, and he does not care. He is always boring me about my cough. I know I cough—that is no news; and oh, great heavens! it is so horribly dull in that Pension.”

“Why don’t you come and stay with us then?”

“Oh, that would never do. In three days’ time we should be pulling ourselves by the hair,” laughed Eline boisterously. “Now that we see each other but rarely it is much better.”

“Really, I should do my very best to make you comfortable,” implored Betsy, who felt terribly alarmed at Eline’s excited state. “We should have the greatest care for you, and I should study you in everything.”  

“But I should not study you. No, thank you very much. I value my liberty before everything. How can you be so provoking? We should begin haggling at once. Why, we are haggling now already.”

“Why do you say that? I am not haggling at all. There is nothing I should like better than for you to come here this evening, if you like.”

“Betsy, now just leave off about it, or you will never see me again. I won’t live with you any more. I won’t, so there! I’ve had enough of it.”

And she hummed a tune.

“Will you stay to dinner then this afternoon?” asked Betsy.

“Rather! But I’m tired. You won’t find me very lively. What are you going to do this evening?”

“We are going to the Oudendykens’. Are you not invited?”

“No. I never visit them.”

“Why not?”

“For my part they can frizzle themselves, the Oudendykens. Oh, my head—may I lie down on a couch?”

“Certainly.”

“Then I shall go to Henk’s room. There is such a cosy sofa there.”

“There is no fire there.”

“Oh, that does not matter.”

She went up-stairs to Henk’s sitting-room. She lay down on the sofa, and ere long, exhausted as she was with her excitement, sleep overtook her. She was aroused from her slumbers by a heavy step on the landing. Before she was well awake, Henk entered.

“Hullo, sissy, what have you been doing here in the dark? and how cold it is in here!”

“Cold!” she repeated, with a look as that of a somnambulist. “Yes, now I feel it too. I’m shivering—but I have been asleep.”

“Come along down-stairs. Dinner will soon be ready. Betsy said you were going to stay; aren’t you?”

“Yes. Oh, Henk, how terrible that I have been asleep here!”

“Terrible! Why?”

“Now I won’t sleep to-night,” she screamed in despair, and she threw her head on his shoulder and sobbed.  

“Why don’t you rather come and stay with us again?” he asked softly. “You would be so comfortable with us.”

“No, not that.”

“Why not?”

“It would never do. I am certain of it. It is very kind of you, Henk, to ask me, but it would not do. Sometimes I feel as if I could strike Betsy, and I feel that just at the moment when she speaks nicely to me, as she did this afternoon, for instance. I had to restrain myself with all my might from striking her.”

He sighed, with a despairing face. To him she remained a puzzle.

“Then let us go down-stairs,” said he.

And as they were going down she leant heavily on his arm, trembling with the cold, which only now she began to feel.

The winter went by, and Eline remained in the same condition.

“Would it not do you good to go into the country in the summer?” asked Reyer. “I don’t mean that you should travel from one place to the other, that would fatigue you too much. But you might make a little stay in some quiet, cool spot amidst some cheerful surroundings.”

Her thoughts went back to the Horze. Oh, if she had been Otto’s wife, then grateful coolness, shade, affection would have been hers.

“I don’t know of such a place,” she answered languidly.

“Perhaps I might know of something for you. I know some very nice kind people in Gelderland. They have a little country seat surrounded by magnificent pine forests.”

“In Heaven’s name,” screamed Eline passionately, “no pine forests!”

“But country life would strengthen you.”

“It is impossible to strengthen me. Pray, Mr. Reyer, let me lie where I am.”

“Do you sleep better now?”

“Oh yes, fairly well.”

It was not true. She never slept at night, and by day she slumbered just a little, she dozed just a little. The drops had no more effect, and only brought her into a continual whirling ecstasy, a condition full of listlessness and terror, in which she either   raved like an actress, or dragged herself groaning along the floor. Reyer looked at her penetratingly.

“Miss Vere, pray tell me the truth. Are you in the habit of taking other medicines than those which I prescribe?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Answer me the truth, Miss Vere.”

“Of course not. How can you think such a thing? I should not have the courage to do so. No, no, you may rest quite assured about that.”

Reyer left, and in his carriage he forgot his note-book for a moment, and was deep in thought about Miss Vere. Then he heaved a hopeless sigh. Scarcely had he left the room when Eline rose. She was dressed only in a loose gray peignoir, which hung about her emaciated figure. In front of the glass, she plunged her hands in her loose hair. It had grown very thin, and she laughed about it while the stray locks fell about her fingers. Then she flung herself on the floor.

“I won’t,” she stammered, “I will not see him any more, that Reyer. He makes me worse than I am. I cannot bear him any longer. I shall write him to stay away.”

But she did not feel sufficient energy to do so, and she remained lying on the floor, and her fingers traced the figures of the carpet. Softly she began to hum to herself. Through the door the sun cast a square golden glimmer on the floor, and thousands of little dust particles danced about in the golden light. The glitter irritated Eline, and she drew herself back.

“Oh, that sun!” she whispered, with strange, big, dull eyes. “I hate that sun. ’Tis rain and wind that I want—cold rain and cold wind—the rain that oozes through on my chest, through my black tulle dress.”

Suddenly she rose, and wrung her hands on her chest as though she would prevent the wind from blowing open the cloak from her shoulders.

“Jeanne! Jeanne!” she commenced in her delirium; “pray, pray take me in. I have run away from Betsy, for she is unbearable. This evening, at the dinner at Hovel’s, she said all kinds of nasty things about Vincent, and you know that I love Vincent; for his sake I have broken my engagement, my engagement with Otto. Oh, how he bored me with his eternal calmness, always calm—always calm! I—I shall go mad under all that calmness; but   really, Henk, I shall go to Lawrence and ask his pardon. But don’t strike me, Henk! Oh, Lawrence, Lawrence, I love you so! Do not be angry with me, Lawrence; see if I do not love you! Here is your portrait which I always wear on my bosom.”

She had knelt down by the sofa, and lifted up her face as if she saw somebody. All at once she started in terror, and hastily, and with a shudder, she raised herself.

“Great heavens! there it is coming again,” she thought, becoming once more conscious of herself.

There seemed to be a struggle going on in her brain, a struggle between her impotent senses and her ever-increasing madness. With an uncertain movement she took up a book which was lying on the table, and opened it, to force herself to be sensible and to read. It was the score of Le Tribut de Zamora, which she had once procured during her passion for Fabrice. She dared not look up, fearing lest she might see her insanity take some hideous shape before her eyes. She dared not move, out of terror for herself, and she would gladly have saved her fleeing senses had she been able, as it were, to pass away out of her own self. And the ray of sunshine once more filled the room, glowing over the satin of the curtains and reflecting itself back in the china of the Japanese vases and the polished glittering brass of the ornaments. Softly she began to sing something to herself, quite unconsciously, in a voice hoarse and raw with endless coughing. Then there was a knock at the door.

“Who is there?” she asked, alarmed.

“’Tis I, miss,” cried a voice; “I’ve brought you your lunch.”

“No, thank you, Sophie, I have no appetite.”

“Will you not take anything, miss?”

“No, thank you.”

“Then you will ring, miss, when you want something, will you not?”

“Yes, yes.”

She heard the servant go down-stairs, she heard the tinkling of plates and glasses on the tray. Eline gave another glance at the rôle of Xaïma, and she lifted her head proudly and made an heroic motion with her hand, as she began to sing in a weak voice, interrupted by coughing.

At half-past five Sophie brought the dinner and laid the little   round table with much care. But Eline scarcely touched any of the food, and she was glad when Sophie took it back again. She took up a few cards which Sophie had brought with her, cards from Madame Verstraeten and from Lili.

“Old Madame van Raat has also been here, and she went away.”

Eline remained alone. The evening was falling, the sun was slowly sinking in the west, but the light long remained. From her cupboard Eline took a little bottle and carefully counted out some drops, which she let fall in a glass of water. Slowly she drank it. Ah, if they would only bring her some relief! It had so often been in vain lately.

She was tired after her long day of idleness and half-insane ravings, and she wanted to retire to her rest at an early hour. No, she would not light the gas, she would stay a little longer in the twilight, and then—then she would try to sleep. But it all began to boil, to seethe, to throb in her head. She gasped for breath, and regardless of the evening air which began to blow into the room, she let the gray peignoir glide down from her shoulders. Her arms were thin, her chest was hollow, and she looked at herself with a sad smile as her fingers passed through her thin hair. And because it was growing dark, because in spite of her drops she would not sleep, because she was very pale and white in the lace and the embroidery of her dress, because she grew terrified at the increasing gloom, the madness once more returned—

“Ah, perfido! Spergiuro!”

she began as in a rage to hum to herself, as she lifted up her arm. It was the scene of Beethoven in which Vincent used to smell the odour of vervain. In her song she reproached a faithless lover with his broken troth, and her face expressed the most tragic grief, a wounded love which would avenge itself. She told the lover to go, but the gods above would crush him under their chastisement. Suddenly she snatched from her bed a sheet, and she wrapped herself in the long white material, which in the faint evening light fell about her like a cloak of marble.

“Oh no! Fermate, vindici Dei!”

she sang hoarsely, and her voice broke into coughs, with melting eyes this time, for in another mood she now invoked the mercy of the gods for the faithless one; however he may have changed she   remained the same, she wanted no revenge, she had lived and now she would die for him. And slowly she murmured the Adagio slowly, very slowly, while the white folds of her drapery, with the imploring motions which she made with her arms, rose and fell continually. Thus she sang on, on, until a plaint forced itself from her throat, and in that plaint all at once she began to act, as with the noble art of a prima donna. It seemed to her as though the lover had already fled, and as though she turned to the chorus which surrounded her pityingly—

“Se in tanto affa—a—a—anno!”

she murmured, almost weeping, in grief-stricken cadences, and her agony rose, the plaint rose, and she shrieked higher and higher—

“Non son degna di pieta!”

She started violently, terrified at the penetrating, shrill notes of her broken voice, and she flung her sheet from her shoulders and sat down shivering. Would they have heard her? she wondered. She just glanced through the open French window on to the street. No, there were only a few people walking about in the growing darkness. But in the house? Well, any way, she could not help it now. She would be sensible once more. She sobbed, and yet she laughed. She laughed at herself. If she excited herself like that she would never sleep. Suddenly she threw herself on her disarranged bed, and closed her eyes, but sleep would not come.

“Oh, heavens! Oh, great heavens!” she groaned. “Oh, great heavens, I pray you let me sleep.”

And she wept bitterly, continuously. Then a thought shot through her brain. If she should drink a few drops more than the Brussels doctor had prescribed? Would it hurt her? She thought not, because the dose she was in the habit of taking now gave her no relief whatever. How many drops, she wondered, could she add to it without risk? As many as she had taken already? No, that would be too many, of course. Who knows what might happen? But, for instance, half as many again! Therefore, three drops more? No, no, she dared not. The doctor had so urgently warned her to be careful. Still it was very tempting, the few drops, and she rose. She took her little phial to count the three drops. One—two—three—four—five—the last two fell into the glass before she had time to take away the bottle. Five—that would be too   many? She hesitated for a moment. With these fiv