Part 27 (1/2)
”No.”
”And what's that?”
He pointed to her eyes. She shrugged her shoulders:
”That's done with a pencil, just a touch. It's nothing. That's not a make-up. Make-up ... is something quite different.”
”Oh, really! Well, I don't like all that messing. What do you do it for?”
She looked at him in dismay; and again the blinding shock bored an endless, dead-black perspective before her ... of death. But he saw only the laugh of her golden eyes.
”What do you do it for?” he repeated. ”You usedn't to.”
”No.”
”Then why do it now?”
She made an effort, so as not to cry. She laughed, shrilly; and it sounded like a jeer, as though she were saying, jeeringly:
”I make up my face, but I've got you all the same.”
”Give me a towel,” he said, roughly.
”No,” she said, struggling and releasing herself from his grip.
”Give me a towel.”
”No, Gerrit, I won't, do you hear?”
Her eyes just flashed an angry look of dark reproach. But they laughed and mocked immediately afterwards.
He s.n.a.t.c.hed a towel from the wash-hand-stand:
”Come here,” he said.
Her first impulse was a storm of seething rage, a rage as on the last occasion, when she locked herself in and he had to go away.... But there was something so cruel and vindictive in his voice, in his glance, in the abrupt movements of his great body that she grew frightened and came:
”Gerrit,” she implored, softly, timidly.
”Come here. I don't like all that muck....”
He had wetted the towel. He now washed her face; and he became a little gentler in his movements, glance and voice ... because she was frightened and meek. He washed her face all over:
”There,” he said. ”Now at least you're natural.”
Something like hatred gripped at her heart, but she could not yield to it: her nerves had become too slack for hatred. Besides, she had always, always been very fond of him, just because he was such a strange mixture of roughness and gentleness. She remained standing anxiously in front of him, with her hands in his.
Like that, like that, at any rate, she no longer looked like the picture on a chocolate-box. He was safe now against his sentimentality. But, Lord, how old she looked! Her skin was wrinkled, covered with freckles and blotches. Was it possible that a drop of wet stuff out of a bottle and a touch of powder could cover all that? And the golden eyes of mockery, how ghastly they looked, without the shadows about the brows and lashes!... And yet she kept on mocking him.... But then, suddenly, he felt pity, was sick at having been rough, at pretending to be rougher than he was. He was always like that, always made that pretence, putting on a bl.u.s.tering voice, squaring his broad shoulders, banging his fist on the table ... for no reason, save to be rough ... and not sentimental.
And, seeking for something to say to her, he said, in a voice which she at once recognized, a voice of pity, the gentleness now tempering the roughness, that mixture which she had always loved in him:
”Really, Pauline, you look much prettier like this....”