The Later Life/Chapter I
Van der Welcke woke that morning from a long, sound sleep and stretched himself luxuriously in the warmth of the sheets. But suddenly he remembered what he had been dreaming; and, as he did so, he gazed into the wardrobe-glass, in which he could just see himself from his pillow. A smile began to flicker about his curly moustache; his blue eyes lit up with merriment. The sheets, which still covered his body—he had flung his arms above his head-rose and fell with the ripple of his silent chuckles; and suddenly, irrepressibly, he burst into a loud guffaw:
"Addie!" he shouted, roaring with laughter.
"Addie, are you up? . . . Addie, come here for a minute!"
The door between the two rooms opened; Addie entered.
"Addie! . . . Just imagine . . . just imagine what I've been dreaming. It was at the seaside—Ostende or Scheveningen or somewhere—and everybody, everybody was going about . . . half-naked . . . their legs bare . . . and the rest beautifully dressed. The men had coloured shirts and light jackets and exquisite ties and straw hats, gloves and a stick in their hands . . . and the rest . . . the rest was stark naked. The ladies wore lovely blouses, magnificent hats, parasols . . . and that was all! . . . And there was nothing in it, Addie, really there was nothing in it; it was all quite natural, quite proper, quite fashionable; and they walked about like that and sat on chairs and listened to the music! . . . And the fishermen . . . the fishermen, Addie, went about like that too! . . . And the musicians . . . in the bandstand . . . were half-naked too; and . . . the tails . . . of their dress-coats . . . hung down . . . well . . . like that!"
Van der Welcke, as he told his dream in broken sentences, lay shaking with laughter; his whole bed shook, the sheets rose and fell; he was red in the face, as if on the verge of choking; he wept as though consumed with grief; he gasped for breath, threw the bed-clothes off:
"Just imagine it . . . just imagine it . . . you never . . . you never saw such a stretch of sands as that!"
Addie had begun by listening with his usual serious face; but, when he saw his father crying and gasping for breath, rolling about in the bed, and when the vision of those sands became clearer to his imagination, he also was seized with irresistible laughter. But he had one peculiarity, that he could not laugh outright, but, shaken with internal merriment, would laugh in his stomach without uttering a sound; and he now sat on the edge of his father's bed, rocking with silent laughter as the bed rocked under him. He tried not to look at his father, for, when he saw his father's face, distorted and purple with his paroxysms of laughter, lying on the white pillow like the mask of some faun, he had to make agonized clutches at his stomach and, bent double, to try to laugh outright; and he couldn't, he couldn't.
"Doesn't it . . . doesn't it . . . strike you as funny?" asked Van der Welcke, hearing no sound of laughter from his son.
And he looked at Addie and, suddenly remembering that Addie could never roar with laughter out loud, he became still merrier at the sight of his poor boy's silent throes, his noiseless stomach-laugh, until his own laughter rang through the room, echoing back from the walls, filling the whole room with loud Homeric mirth.
"Oh, Father, stop!" said Addie at last, a little relieved by his internal paroxysms, the tears streaming in wet streaks down his face.
And he heaved a sigh of despair that he could not laugh like his father.
"Give me a pencil and paper," said Van der Welcke, "and I'll draw you my dream."
But Addie was very severe and shocked:
"No, Father, that won't do! That'll never do. . . . it'd be a vulgar drawing!"
And his son's chaste seriousness worked to such an extent upon Van der Welcke's easily tickled nerves that he began roaring once more at Addie's indignation . . .
Truitje was prowling about the passage, knocking at all the doors, not knowing where Addie was:
"Are you up, Master Addie?"
"Yes," cried Addie. "Wait a minute."
He went to the door:
"What is it?"
"A telegram . . . from the mistress, I expect . . ."
"Here."
He took the telegram, shut the door again.
"From Mamma?" asked Van der Welcke.
"Sure to be. Yes, from Paris: 'J'arrive ce soir.' "
Van der Welcke grew serious:
"And high time too. What business had Mamma to go rushing abroad like that? . . . One'd think we were well off . . . What did you do about those bills, Addie?"
"I went to the shops and said that mevrouw was out of town and that they'd have to wait."
"I see. That's all right . . . Can you meet Mamma at the station?"
"Yes. The train's due at six . . . Then we'll have dinner afterwards, with Mamma."
"I don't know . . . I think I'd better dine at the club."
"Come, Father, don't be silly!"
"No," said Van der Welcke, crossly, "don't bother me. I'll stay on at the Witte."
"But don't you see that means starting off with a manifestation? Whereas, if you wait in for Mamma peacefully and we all have dinner together, then things'll come right of themselves. That'll be much easier than if you go staying out at once: Mamma would only think it rude."
"Rude? . . . Rude? . . ."
"Well, there's nothing to flare up about! And you just come home to dinner. Then you'll be on the right side."
"I'll think it over. If I don't look out, you'll be bossing me altogether."
"Well, then, don't mind me, stay at the Witte."
"Oho! So you're offended, young man?"
"Oh, no! I'd rather you came home, of course; but, if you prefer to dine at the Witte, do."
"Dearly-beloved son!" said Van der Welcke, throwing out his hands with a comical gesture of resignation. "Your father will obey your sapient wishes."
"Fond Father, I thank you. But I must be off to school now."
"Good-bye, then . . . and you'd better forget those sands."
They both exploded and Addie hurried away and vanished, shaking with his painful stomach-laugh, while he heard Van der Welcke break into a fresh guffaw:
"He can laugh!" thought the boy.