Part 18 (2/2)
”Really?” said Elsje, looking straight at me with her frank, innocent eyes.
Before this look my heart melted with tenderness. I felt a desire to kneel down before her and cover her hands with tears and kisses. But I controlled myself, for I reflected that I was an Italian and that it was a Dutch girl I had to deal with, and I did not want to risk my fragile happiness by foolish extravagances. And there was a subtle relish in this sobriety and this respectful self-control. But I wanted to be honest too - my happiness must rest on a firm foundation of uprightness - I wanted to make my position clear.
”Yes, really, Elsje; and yet I had never heard of you, and no one had spoken of you to me. And now, tell me, had you never heard of me either? Do you know anything about me? Do you know my name?”
”I saw your name in the hotel register. Otherwise I knew nothing of you until I saw you.”
”Really not? Also not ?”
”What?”
”That I am married and have a good wife and four children?” I burst out, almost roughly in my brave effort to spare myself nothing and to risk the worst.
Elsje without starting gazed at me long, attentively and thoughtfully.
What I distinctly discerned in her glance was a questioning doubt and a tender compa.s.sion.
”A good wife and four children,” she repeated softly, pensively. ”I thought that you were probably married. But you are not happy after all, I know it.”
”No, I am not happy, Elsje, that is true. Or rather - was not until to-day.”
She asked nothing more after that, as though she thought that I would probably myself tell her what I deemed necessary for her to know. But I knew enough, and I also saw that she knew enough and we spoke no more about ourselves that day. We felt as one does in dreams - one understands and communicates without words.
I slept very little that night. With me also, well balanced in mind as I am, sleep grows more elusive with the advancing years. But it is not care, but happiness, that drives it away. I lay all night silent and happy in a bright cloud of joy, thinking of her who now lay peacefully breathing under the same roof. Then toward morning I had a short dream, which by its dark terror gave me a measure for the brightness of my joy. I dreamt that I was back in my office at The Hague and, coming home, I found a letter containing my transference to j.a.pan. My sailing excursions, my little city, Elsje - it had all been a dream and I was again deep in my old, gloomy life, worldly and yet estranged from the world. My anguish was terrible, I cried and sobbed desperately and woke up in that way, my face and my pillow now really wet with tears. And then - the relief, the transition, the glorious realization of the reality of my newly-found happiness, my dawning memory of yesterday's beautiful day, of Elsje's winsome ways and the frank, fervent look in her eyes, her ready sympathy and tender compa.s.sion. Only then I really comprehended what had been given me. I was no longer a stranger in the world - life, the sacred human life had won me back. I would not die after all without having been entirely human.
At my solitary breakfast in the upper room, into which the sun was s.h.i.+ning, Elsje, amid the pressure of her domestic duties, stopped a moment to greet me. I said that I had no time to sail back, but would go home by train, leaving the yacht anch.o.r.ed in the harbor, to call for it the following Sunday.
”That is well considered,” said Elsje, with a roguish little laugh of comprehension.
And at my departure I saw my peaceful, friendly little city, with its venerable old church steeple, stretched out calm and sunny in matinal activity. In front of the ugly, bare little station I turned, and stretching out my hands I blessed the little city with all my heart, murmuring in my glowing, pa.s.sionate mother tongue:
”Benedetto sia 'l giorno e 'l mese e 'l anno
E la stagione e 'l tempo e 'l ora e 'l punto
E 'l bel paese e 'l loco ov' io fu giunto
Da duo begli occhi, che legato m' hanno.”
XXIII
”Dear Lucia, will you hear me a moment? I have something to tell you and would like to have it off my mind before we go to bed.”
We had just come home from a court banquet and in our gala dress stood looking over the letters which had arrived that night. Lucia looked up interestedly.
”Come to my room with me then,” she said, and then regarding me: ”It is surely something good, isn't it? I haven't seen you in such good spirits for a long time.”
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