Small Souls/Chapter XXIV
Constance made it a duty to go often to Adolphine’s during Floortje’s wedding-preliminaries. She went out of her way to be cordial; she sent a beautiful basket of flowers on the day of the contract; she gave a handsome present, much more expensive than the one which she had sent Emilie; and she showed great interest in the party and the dinner that were to be given at the Witte Brug. She examined attentively the open presses with the stacks of linen composing Floortje’s trousseau—“Just look at those chemises; and those table-cloths and napkins: there’s quality there, you can’t beat it. Just feel them, only feel them! Whereas those fripperies of Emilie’s . . .!”—and listened attentively to the endless pæans of self-glorification, spent herself in admiration, was determined to flatter Adolphine and to make a good impression on her sister. Because, during those days, she had conscientiously set herself the task of winning over Adolphine, she swallowed the criticism that was never wanting, little spiteful arrows shot off in between the pæans:
“How pale you’re looking! Have you been using too much powder again, or aren’t you well? . . . What a pity that your boy is such an old gentleman, Constance! . . . Tell me, Constance: your father- and mother-in-law were not very nice to you, were they? . . . Constance, are those rings of yours real? . . . Oh, really? Upon my word, I thought one of those stones was paste. . . .”
She swallowed it all, accepted the affront with a gentle smile, a word of almost assenting reply:
“Yes, Addie is rather old-fashioned. . . . Oh, it was very difficult for Papa and Mamma van der Welcke. . . . You are right, that stone is a little dull sometimes. . . .”
She swallowed it, took it all so gently and so submissively that Addie, when he happened to be present, looked up at his mother in surprise, thinking her so different from the woman whom he knew, who blazed out for the least thing at Papa and who always behaved towards himself as the spoilt little mother who wanted to be petted and loved by her boy. And the lad, in his small, bright, earnest, doughty soul, felt a sort of amazement at that puzzle of a woman’s soul that was his mother’s:
“Are they all like that, so queer? Or is it only Mamma? And why is she so forbearing towards Aunt Adolphine, when she can’t bear the least thing from Papa?”
This made him still more of a little man towards his mother, with something protecting and condescending, because she was so weak and irresolute and excitable, but also with very much that was affectionate, because that strange womanliness possessed a charm for his small male soul.
Adolphine, however, on the day when the contract was signed, at the big family-dinner at the Witte Brug and the subsequent evening-party for all the friends and relations, boasted aloud in her self-complacency. She bragged to Uncle Ruyvenaer, to Karel and Cateau, to Constance, to Gerrit and Adeline: those were fine rooms, the rooms of the Witte Brug, much finer than the rooms in the Doelen; that was a splendid dinner, the dinner which she had given: it cost a lot of money, though, and she told how much, but added a couple of hundred guilders to the cost; and did they remember that impossible dinner of Bertha’s, at Emilie’s wedding, and the queer dishes that had been set before them? Wasn’t it a splendid dessert, with beautiful strawberries, which she had given? And so many and at this season, too: but you had to pay for them! And how gay they had been at table, her family—as though that same family were not also Bertha’s family—and her friends: so very different from that pretentious set of Bertha’s! There was such a gay, spontaneous tone in the speeches and the conversation; and did Gerrit remember that deathly stillness at table at Emilietje’s dinner? Such nice people, Dijkerhof’s parents, her girl’s future father- and mother-in-law. . . . And how well Floortje looked, didn’t she? And the other girls were prettily dressed too. She boasted so breathlessly of everything, of every detail, that neither Uncle nor Gerrit had a single opportunity of expressing their appreciation, of giving voice to their admiration; and it was not until she had passed on, boasting right and left to her acquaintances—“Well, what do you say to my dinner? Well, what do you say to my party? Well, what do you think of my dress?”—that Uncle Ruyvenaer said:
“Any one would think that Adolphine had built the Witte Brug herself!”
“I think,” whined Cateau, “Adolph-ine oughtn’t to say all those things her-self, don’t you, Ger-rit?”
“Well,” said Gerrit, “it’s a delightful feeling to be so pleased with your own self and your own children and your own dinner. But, if you think as you do, Cateau, why didn’t you compliment her yourself?”
“Be-cause I think,” whined Cateau, whining worse than usual, “that that dress doesn’t look at all smart on Adolph-ine. What do you think, A-deline?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Adeline, good-naturedly.
“Con-stance, you have such very good taste: do tell me, do you think that dress looks smart?”
“I think Adolphine looks exceedingly well tonight,” said Constance, irritably.
“I say, Sissy, you can’t mean that!” said Gerrit.
“And, even if you don’t think so, Gerrit, it’s not nice of you to speak like that of your sister!”
“Oh, well, a little criticism! . . .”
“Yes, but to be always criticizing one another is horrid, I think,” said Constance, angrily.
“I’m bound to say, though, that I think it a ramshackle party,” said Uncle Ruyvenaer. “Who on earth are all these people?” he continued, putting on dignity, disdainfully. “I say, Toetie, are you enjoying yourself?” “Yes, Papa, awfully!” said Toetie, as she passed on her partner’s arm.
The Ruyvenaer girls, though no longer young, always enjoyed themselves “awfully,” not caring whether it was at Bertha’s or Adolphine’s. Good-natured, kindly, simply and pleasantly Indian in their ways, they loved dancing, they always enjoyed themselves “awfully.”
“And, Dotje, what do you think of my party?”
“Oh, Adolphine, so jolly your party: I’m enjoying it awfully.”
And Dot also shone with gratitude and perspiration after dancing.
“Are those the Dijkerhofs’ friends?” asked Mamma van Lowe, in a whisper, of Bertha, glancing towards a gentleman and a lady who had been introduced to her, but whose name she had not caught. “What strange friends those Dijkerhofs have! Such obscure people: one never knows who they are or what they are! Very vulgar people, I think. It’s such a pity, Bertha, isn’t it? Dijkerhof himself is not bad; and, if Floortje is fond of him, well, I suppose it will be all right; but I must admit I am sorry that Adolphine is mixed up with this lot. . . . And those people over there, Bertha, the stout man and the tall woman with whom Adeline is talking so familiarly: are those intimate friends? What curious friends she has! . . . It must strike Constance too, now that she’s come back to it all. At our house there was a certain harmony, a set, as there is in your house now, Bertha. But, at Adolphine’s, it’s always such a queer lot, such a queer lot! I can’t call it anything else. Goodness gracious, what a number of curious people!”
“Mamma,” said Paul, “what do you think of this menagerie of Adolphine’s?”
“Oh, Paul,” sighed the old lady, a little nervously, “I was just saying to Bertha . . . But we mustn’t let any one else notice what we think. . . .”
“I say, Mamma,” asked Gerrit, “do you know who those two are?”
“No, Gerrit. Van Naghel, do you know who those two people are: that stout gentleman and that tall lady?”
“Yes, Mamma: it’s Bruys and his wife. He’s the editor of the Fonograaf: very respectable people, Mamma. . . .”
“My dear Van Naghel! . . .”
Utterly perplexed, the old lady passed on, leaning on Van Naghel’s arm. . . .
Constance had overheard the comments of the family upon Adolphine’s friends. She herself, newcomer that she now was in Hague society, was not so greatly struck by the fact that Adolphine’s guests consisted of all sorts of dissimilar elements: she had sometimes at Rome had to suffer incongruous elements at her big receptions and she had often found, abroad, that it was possible for witty, polished, cultured people to exist, even though they did not belong to her set. Then again she considered that, at a wedding-party, which was attended by relations’ relations and friends’ friends, it was almost inevitable that the guests were sometimes entirely unknown to one another: wasn’t it the same at Bertha’s party? Yes, Bertha had given two evening-parties, in order to separate the elements; but hadn’t the family found fault with this? Was there nothing but fault-finding and criticizing in the family; and did none think right what another did? Gerrit and Paul were now sitting beside her; and she heard them talking, condemning, criticizing, ridiculing.
“Poor, dear Mother: she’s quite bewildered!”
“I say, Paul, are you allowing yourself to be introduced to Dijkerhof’s uncles and aunts?”
“I’m not going to be introduced to another soul,” said Paul, wearily blinking his eyes. “I’m here to make studies. The only way to amuse yourself in a Noah’s ark like this party of Adolphine’s is to make studies of the animal side of mankind. Look at Mrs. Bruys eating her cake with an almost animal satisfaction. Look at that uncle of Dijkerhof’s dancing with Van Saetzema’s cousin: it’s almost disgusting.”
“Paul,” said Constance, “I’ve known you wittier than you are to-night.”
“My dear sister, I feel myself growing dull here. The figures and colours swarm before my eyes so hideously as really to cause me physical pain. My God, the charm of our modern life, the charm at an evening-party of Adolphine’s: where is it, where is it?”
“It’s gone, it’s gone!” Gerrit noisily declaimed. “Adolphine’s charm is gone!” “I don’t think either of you at all nice!” Constance broke in, irritably. “Tell me, my dear brothers, is this irony, this fault-finding tone, usual among us? Has it become a custom for the brothers and sisters to carp and cavil at one another—and even for Mamma to cavil at her children—as I have heard you all do to-night? Does each of us criticize the other in a general cross-fire of criticism? I heard something of the kind at Bertha’s party; but is there really nothing good here to-night? I feel bound to tell you I think you very petty, provincial, narrow-minded and cliquey: even you, Paul, for all your philosophy! You, Gerrit, are afraid of demeaning yourself by allowing yourself to be introduced to a few of Dijkerhof’s uncles and aunts, whom perhaps you won’t see three times again as long as you live; and, as for you, Paul, why are you so spiteful in your comments on absolute strangers who don’t eat a cake in the exact way which you approve of? I think Uncle Ruyvenaer ridiculous: he’s not particularly well-bred himself and he sneers at the breeding of Van Saetzema’s friends; I think Cateau ridiculous: she hasn’t the faintest pretensions to smartness, though her clothes may be good and substantial, and she criticizes Adolphine’s smartness. . . .”
“O dear, gentle soul!” said Paul, affectedly, and took Constance’ hand. “O proud and noble one! O heroine in a sacred cause! You are a revelation to me! How broad are the principles which you proclaim, how great your tolerance! It is terrible! Only you, you dear, gentle soul, are not so sparing of the criticism which you criticize in us.”
“Very well, I criticized you, for once; but you’re criticizing others everlastingly.”
“No, not quite; but we’re only very small people and we think it fun to pass remarks on others,” said Gerrit.
“I am a very small person, like yourselves. I have never met big people, in ‘our set,’” said Constance, with a sneer. “What is any one in our set but small?”
“Good!” said Paul. “Well done! You got that from me. But proceed, my fond disciple!”
“I am frightened!” said Constance, earnestly. “You think I am only just exciting myself a little, but I’m frightened, I’m simply frightened. I hear so much criticism from the mouths of my relations on every side, criticism on a dress, on an evening-party, on a couple of utter strangers who happen to be friends of my sister’s, that I am frightened of the criticism of my relations concerning myself, myself in whom there is so much to criticize.”
“Come, Sis!” said Gerrit, good-naturedly, restlessly stretching out his long legs.
“Mayn’t I speak out my mind, to my brothers?” asked Constance. “Have I come back to the Hague and to all of you, after being away for years, to behave as though nothing had happened to separate me from all of you who are dear to me?”
“O tender one!” said Paul. “Hearken unto the words of wisdom of your younger brother! You’re afraid of criticism, because you fear that, where so much criticism is passed, in such a hot-bed of criticism as our family, you yourself will not escape a severe judgment. But let me tell you now that you don’t know humanity, the humanity of small people. Small people criticize—because they think it fun, as Gerrit says—criticize a dress, or an evening-party, but they never criticize life. To begin with, they’re afraid to: small people are interested only in what is not serious, in what is really not worth while.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Constance. “That’s a clever phrase, Paul, and nothing more. I am becoming distrustful. When I hear so much criticizing—even from Mamma—on Adolphine, I ask myself, ‘What will my mother, what will my brothers and sisters find to say of me? . . .’ Oh, perhaps it can’t be helped; perhaps everything is insincere, in our set!”
“But not in our family,” said Gerrit.
“You say that, Gerrit, with a nice sound in your voice.”
“The captain of hussars with the nice sound in his voice!” said Paul.
“You silly boy! Be serious for a moment, if you can! I am frightened, I am frightened. Honestly, it makes me nervous. Perhaps I did wrong, perhaps I ought not to have come back here, to the Hague, among all of you. . . .”
“Are you so disappointed in your brothers and sisters?” asked Gerrit. “I am not complaining on my own behalf now, I am complaining on behalf of Adolphine. I think you others are not tolerant enough of anything that does not appeal to your taste. That’s all. I am not complaining as far as I’m concerned. You have all received me very nicely; only, I am frightened. I’m frightened, I’m frightened. . . . Tell me, is it possible that there should be a strong family-feeling, a mutual kindliness, when the daily criticism is so inexorable?”
“The daily criticism in the family: what a good title for an essay!”
“Paul, do be serious!”
“My dear Connie, you know I can’t. Alas, I can only be serious when I am holding forth myself!”
“Well, then, I’ll let you talk. . . .”
“That’s generous of you. My Connie, you must remember this—it’s a cruel law in our social life—that parents care much for their children, but children less for their parents; that the family-bonds become still looser between brothers and sisters; and that those bonds gradually become wholly loosened between uncles and aunts and nephews and nieces and cousins. Family-life may have existed in the days of the old patriarchs, who went into the wilderness with sons and daughters and herds, but it has ceased to exist in our modern days. At Gerrit’s, although he has no herds, a little bit of it may still exist, because his children are very many and very small. But, when children are a little bigger, they want to stretch their wings; and then the family-bonds get loosened. If children marry, then each child has his own family—for so long as it lasts—and his own interests; and the bonds that bound together the patriarchal family of the desert flap lightly in the wind. Now how can you expect criticism, the greatest and cheapest ‘fun’ that man can have at his fellow-man’s expense, not to be directed at relations, when the word ‘relation’ is really only a synonym for ‘stranger’? There is no such thing as the family in modern society. Each man is himself. But in natures such as yours and Mamma’s there remains something nice and atavistic that belongs to the patriarchal family of the desert: you would like to see the family exist, with family-love, love of parents for children and children for parents, of brothers and sisters and even nephews and nieces and uncles and aunts and cousins. Mamma, who has a simple nature, has instituted, for the satisfying of that feeling, a weekly evening at which we, who are related by blood but not by interest, meet out of deference for an old woman whom we do not want to grieve, whom we wish to leave in her illusion. You, my noble, gentle one, with your more complex character, feel a more powerful yearning for the old patriarchal life of the desert, especially after the sorrow and loneliness which you have known in your life. And you come to the Hague, with your pastoral ideas, to find yourself in the midst of polished cannibals, who rend one another daily into tiny pieces and eat one another up with their family-criticism. That your gentle nature should be shocked at the spectacle was only to be expected.”
“So we are all strangers to one another,” said Constance; and a chilly feeling passed over her, a melancholy rose within her at the sound of those words of Paul’s, half banter, half earnest. “We are strangers to one another. That feeling which I felt to be deep and true within myself, when I was abroad, and which drove me back to my family and my country is what you call atavistic and has no reason for existence, since we no longer live in Mosaic times. So we are strangers to one another, we who, for Mamma’s sake, continue to greet one another as relations once a week, at her Sundays, because otherwise we should give her pain; and my longing for you all, whom I had not seen for twenty years, my yearning for you, which brought me back to my own country, was no more than an illusion, a phantom? . . .”
“Well, Connie, perhaps I was cruel; but, really, you are so pastoral! Country, native country! My dear child, what beautiful phrases: how well you remember your Dutch! I have forgotten the very words.”
“Sis, dear,” Gerrit interrupted, “don’t listen to the fellow: he’s talking nonsense. He denies everything because he loves to hear himself speak and because he is a humbug: to-morrow he will be defending the country and the family just as he is demolishing them to-night. No, Sis, believe me, there are such things as family and one’s native country.”
“Listen to the captain, the defender of his country, with the nice sound in his voice!”
“There is such a thing as family. Not only with me, because my children are still young, as Paul has been trying to explain, but everywhere, everywhere. I feel that you are my sister, even though I didn’t see you for twenty years. I did not recognize you at once, perhaps; perhaps I have not quite got you back yet: when I think of Constance, I always think of my little sister who used to play in the river at Buitenzorg. . . .”
“Oh, Gerrit, don’t begin about my bare feet again!” said Constance, raising her finger.
“But I feel that you are not a stranger, that there is a bond between us, a relationship, something almost mystical. . . .”
“Oh, I say, what a poetic captain of hussars!” cried Paul. “Once he lets himself go . . .!”
“And country, one’s native country,” Gerrit continued, impetuously, “there is such a thing as one’s country: I feel it in me, Paul, you sceptic and philosopher, old before your time; I feel it in me, not as something poetical and mystical, my boy, like the family-feeling, but as something quite simple, when I ride at the head of my squadron; I feel it as something big and primitive and not at all complex, when I escort my Queen; I feel that there exists for me a land where I was born, out of which I have grown . . .” “Adelientje!” Paul beckoned. “Do come here, Adelientje! Your husband is so poetic, you must really listen to him.”
The fair-haired little mother came up.
“I feel that, if any one says anything about Holland, about my native land, criticizes it, speaks a disrespectful word of my sovereign, I feel something here, here, in my breast. . . .”
“Adelientje, do listen! Your husband is not an orator, but still he feels that he feels something; in short, he feels! Loud cheers for the captain of hussars with the soft note in his voice and the mystic feelings!”
“Gerrit, they’re teasing you!” said Adeline.
Gerrit shrugged his shoulders, a little angrily, a little uncomfortably, and stretched his long legs across the carpet.
“Gerrit,” said Constance, “I’m glad you said what you did.”
“It’s all nonsense,” growled Gerrit. “There is a tendency, not only in Paul,—he’s a humbug—but in all sorts of people in our set, Constance, of which you were speaking so scornfully just now, to run Holland down, to think nothing Dutch good, to think our language ugly, to think everything French, English or German better than Dutch. Those are your smart Dutch people, Constance, your Hague people, whom you meet in Bertha’s drawing-room, Constance. If they go abroad for a couple of months, they’ve forgotten their mother-tongue when they come back; but let them be three years without going to Paris, London or Berlin, they’ll never, never, never forget their French, their English or their German! Oh, they know their foreign languages so well!”
“Gerrit,” said Paul, “what you say is true; but just try and say it in fine Dutch, Gerrit!”
“And, Sis,” continued Gerrit, stammering a little, but full of mettle, “that is why I think it so nice that you, a woman like you, who have lived for years in Rome, in just that smart, cosmopolitan world where patriotism tends to disappear, that you, who have been away from your country for twenty years, that just you have felt awaken in yourself . . .”
“Bravo!” cried Paul. “His words are coming!”
“A feeling for your country, for your motherland, that made you long to see Holland again. I would never have suspected it in you; and that, Sissy, is why I should almost like to kiss you . . . but we’re at a party. . . .”
“And a party of Adolphine’s into the bargain. And Adelientje is jealous.”
“No, I’m not!” said Adeline, good-naturedly.
“Well, then, Connie, here goes!”
And Gerrit gave his sister an offhand kiss.
“You’re a couple of pastoral characters!” said Paul. “I can’t compete with you.”
“And now, Constance, a glass of champagne . . . to drink to all the family and to our native land,” said Gerrit; and, with Constance on his arm, he walked across the room to the buffet. “Adelientje,” said Paul, “was there ever such a madman as your husband?”
But Adolphine approached triumphant, trailing her satin train, which she thought magnificent, and, radiant with self-complacency, asked:
“Adeline, tell me now, what do you think of my party?”
“Oh, beautiful, Adolphine!” said Adeline.
“Adolphine,” said Paul, “your party is simply dazzling. I have been to many parties in my life, but one like to-night’s, never!”
“And a good dinner, wasn’t it?”
“The dinner was so good, it couldn’t have been better.”
“How do you like my new dress, Adeline? Just see how it fits.”
She passed her hands over her bosom.
“It’s a very charming dress, Adolphine,” said Adeline.
“Adolphine,” said Paul, “that velvet on the collar of Saetzema’s coat . . .”
“Yes? . . .”
“That’s good velvet.”
“Yes, they’re his new dress-clothes, from Teunissen’s.”
“And that satin of Floortje’s dress . . .”
“Yes? . . .”
“That’s good satin.”
“Oh, what do you know about satin?”
“Every one’s saying so.”
“Really?” “Yes, I heard them saying so all over the room.”
“Not really?”
“Yes, as I moved about among the people, I heard it whispered on every side, like a rumour: ‘Have you noticed the satin of Floortje’s dress? . . . I say, did you notice the satin of Floortje’s dress? . . .’”
Adolphine looked vaguely in front of her, not knowing what to believe:
“Well, that frock cost . . . a hundred and twenty guilders!” she said, lying to the extent of forty guilders; and, radiant, she went on and talked to Mrs. Bruys, the wife of the editor of the Fonograaf:
“And, mevrouw, what do you say to my party?”
“Paul,” said Adeline, in gentle reproach, “I was really frightened that Adolphine would notice. . . .”