VII
Be brave now, for my story is going to be truly sombre and shuddery. Truth can sometimes appear very black; but if we only dare to look her straight in the eye, she smiles, in the end, brightly and blithely.
Only those who are afraid of her, and turn halfway back, will be caught and held fast in the meshes of gloom and misery.
You have, doubtless, known all along that there was something utterly amiss in Johannes’ fine, new life—that he had made a pitiful mistake, and was all at sea. He, also, knew it now, although he would not admit it to himself. Those joyful expectations had not been prompted by the Father’s voice, and he knew now that one could be misled by positive impressions.
However, he was not yet out of the scrape. To acknowledge again that he had made a mistake—to leave this life and return to Markus and Marjon, was a hard thing to do. Here were far greater attractions than Aunt Seréna’s raspberries and fresh rolls. When he thought of the garden at Vrede-best, ah, how eagerly he longed to be there again! But that which held him here had a much stronger hold upon him, for he would not admit to himself that it would be better to leave it. That he should be an intimate little friend of this beautiful, distinguished woman—that, above all things—preoccupied him day and night.
Did you ever, late at night, when you ought to have been in bed, read a very captivating book? You knew then, did you not, that it was not good for you—that you would be sorry for it? Perhaps you even found the book to be dull or base. And yet you could not break off, but read on and on, just one more chapter, to see how it ended.
That was the way with Johannes, in the pretty villa of Countess Dolores.
He stayed on, week after week, month after month, writing nothing to Holland, nor to Aunt Seréna—nothing to his Brother, nor to Marjon, either because of he knew not what, or because he was ashamed.
One thought alone prevailed over all others; what would she say when he should have another talk with Countess Dolores, and what should he reply? Would she stroke his hair, or even press a kiss upon it, as once she had done—the same as with her two little daughters?
Perhaps you have never yet been in love. If you never have, you cannot know what all this means. But it is not a slight matter, and there is nothing in it to rail about.
Johannes himself did not quite know what had happened. He only felt that never yet in his life had anything so perplexing and distressing come to him.
It was so wonderful, too. It gave him pain—sharp pain—and yet it was sweet to him, and he welcomed it. It caused him anguish and anxiety, and yet he would not run away from it. It was so contradictory—so confounding!
One sultry, stormy evening he took a lonely walk over the cliffs, and followed a narrow path lying close to the grey steeps at the foot of which the breakers were pounding.
He saw the sun go down behind great masses of clouds, just as he had formerly done. But now how different it was! How cold and strange it seemed! He felt left out. Life—cruel, human life—with its passions and entanglements, now had him in its grasp.
It seemed agonizing and frightful, as if a great monster had pursued him to the shore of the sea, and were still close behind. And now Nature had become strange and inhospitable.
He stretched out his hand, and cried to the clouds:
“Oh, help me, clouds with the silver lining!” But the clouds rolled on as if wholly unconscious of the wonderful shapes they assumed at every turn—ever changing, and adorned anew with glittering gold and gleaming silver. And all the while the sea was roaring just as if it had no memory whatever of Johannes.
And when he had cried “Help me, clouds with the silver lining!” the words clung to his mind, and, like shining angels, they beckoned other, sister words, still lingering in the depths of his soul, to come and join them. And so they came—one after another, in twinkling file, and fell into line. Their faces seemed more serious than did ever those of his own words.
“Help, oh, help me, ye silver-lined clouds!
Oh, save me, sun and stormy sea!
To thee I fly from stifling haunts of men.
Life, with its frightful, crimson-flaming hands,
Has laid its hold on me.
Once I was thy friend and confidant—
At home in thy mysterious loneliness.
I explored without fear thy boundless space
And celestial mansions builded I there
With the mere light of stars, and the waves of wind.
Peace I found in thy grandeur stern,
And rest in thy bright expanse.
Now, life sweeps me on with its current swift,
And a seething volcano I find where erst
Was an ocean serene of exalted delights.
Alas! thou doest rest in thy splendor immersed—
As cool as a lion licking his paws.
All slowly the cloud is transformed,
Letting the light stream through,
And the tossing main with sparks is clad,
As if with a golden coat of mail.
Ah, beautiful world! Untrue and unreal
Thou glidest away ’neath my anguished eyes.
The ocean roars ever, and silent are sun and clouds.
Sadly, I see the strange daylight fail.
It leaves me alone with still stranger night.
Oh! may I yet find there my Father’s spirit,
That dwells beyond sun and sea and clouds?
Must I join with the hapless, hopeless throng
And bind my sorrowful fate to theirs,
Until the Great Leveler bring surcease?”
What Johannes meant by the “Great Leveler” he did not himself know at first. Neither did he at all realize that he had composed something better than formerly. But in the night he understood that it was Death he had meant. And he knew, also, that something within him had opened to the light, like an unfolding flower.
He felt that the verses might be sung like a song, but he could not hear the melody—or but faintly—like wind-wafted tones from the farthest distance. At night, he heard in his dreams the full strain, but in the morning he had entirely forgotten it. And Marjon was not there to help him.
You must remember that Little Johannes was no longer so very little. Nearly four years had passed since that morning when he had waked up in the dunes, with the little gold key.
He could not refrain from reading the poem to the countess on the following day. The making of it—the writing and rewriting—had calmed the unrest out of which it had come. He was curious, now, to learn what others would say of it—above all, the one who was ever in his thoughts.
“Ah, yes!” said she, after he had read it aloud, “life is fearful! And that ‘surcease’ is all that I long for. I fully agree with you.”
This remark, however kind the intention of the speaker, gave Johannes, to his own astonishment, small pleasure. He would have preferred to hear something different.
“Do you think it good?” he asked, with a vague feeling that he really ought not to ask the question, because he had been so very much in earnest over the verses. And when one is deeply in earnest about anything one does not ask if it is good; no more than he would ask if he had wept beautifully. But yet he would have liked, so well, to know what she thought.
“I do not know, Johannes. You must not hope for a criticism from me. I think the idea very sympathetic, and the form seems to me also quite poetic. But whether or not it is good poetry, you must ask of Mijnheer van Lieverlee. He is a poet.”
“Is Mijnheer van Lieverlee coming soon?”
“Yes; I expect him shortly.”
One fine day Van Lieverlee put in an appearance. With him arrived a host of merrily creaking, yellow trunks, smelling delightfully like russia leather—ditto high-hat box, and a brisk, smooth-shaven, traveling-servant.
Van Lieverlee wore in his button-hole a dark-red rose, and pointed pale-green carnation leaves.
He was very much at his ease—contented and gay—and when he saw Johannes he did not appear to have a very clear remembrance of him.
That evening Johannes read to him the poem. Van Lieverlee listened, with an absent-minded expression of face, while he drummed on the arm of the low, easy-chair in which he lay indolently outstretched. It looked very much as if the verses bored him.
When it was over, and Johannes was waiting in painful suspense, he shook his head emphatically.
“All rhetoric, my worthy friend—mere bombast! ‘Oh! Alas!’ and ‘Ah!’ All those are impotent cryings which show that the business is beyond you. If you had full control of expression, you would not utter such cries—you would form, shape, knead, create, model—model! Plasticity, Johannes! That is the thing—vision, color, imagery! I see nothing in that poem. I want something to see and taste. Just think of that sonnet of mine! Every line full of form, of imagery, of real, actual things! With you, there is nothing but vague terms—weak swaggering—all about the spirit of your Father, and such things—none of them to be seen. And, to produce effect, you call upon the other words: ‘Ah!’ and ‘Alas!’ and ‘Oh!’ as if that helped, at all. Any cad could do that if he fell into the water. That is not poetry.”
Johannes was completely routed. And although his hostess tried to console him with assurances that if he did his best things would go better with him by and by, when he was a little older, it was of no avail. Johannes already knew that it was quite in vain for him to attempt his best, so long as the inspiration he so much needed was withheld.
His night was a sad one; for the serious words of the poem were continually before him, and to think that they had been disdained was indeed torture. They would not be driven away, but remained to vindicate their worth. And then he wished that others, as well as he, should value them. But his powerlessness and his own mistrust, were a grievous vexation.
In the small hours, he had just fallen asleep—probably for only a few minutes—when he awoke again with the feeling that his room was full, but with what kind of company—human beings or other creatures—he could not tell. He did not see them; for just in the place where he was looking there was no one, and where he wanted to look, he could not. He seemed to be prevented from doing so by a strange power.
He heard a laugh, and the sound was very familiar to him. It was a dismal, old-time memory. It was Pluizer’s laugh.
Could Pluizer be in the room?
Johannes tried his best to look at the spot whence the sound came. Exerting himself, he saw something at last—not an entire figure, but hands only—two, four, six little hands, busily doing something. Higher up, to what was above the hands, he could not look—but that they were the hands of Pluizer he was quite positive.
There was something in those hands—a white band—and the little hands were very busy tying all kinds of knots in it. And all the while there was continuous laughing and snickering, as if it was great fun.
What could that mean? Johannes felt that something menaced. The play of those little hands portended danger. Most plainly of all he saw the white band—a common, white tape.
Then the hands went out of the room, and Johannes was forced to follow them. In another room—that of Heléne’s nurse—there they were, as busy as ever, this time with a pair of scissors. The scissors had fallen upon the floor close to a toilet-table. One point having stuck through the carpet into the floor, there they stood—erect. The invisible one was laughing again—giggling and snickering—and all six little hands were pointing at the scissors.
A light was burning in Heléne’s room, but the poor, sick girl was not now complaining. All was quiet there. The door opened, and the nurse came out, leaving it open behind her. The nurse went to her own room to look for something. She was a long time searching, but could not find it. Surely it was the scissors.
All this time they were sticking by one point, in the carpet behind the toilet-table, and the six little hands were pointing at them. But the seeker apparently neither saw the hands nor heard the laughter.
Johannes could not help her. He had to follow the hands. He still heard giggling and snickering, and saw the little hands go away—downstairs, through the hall, outside.
Save for the shining of the stars—sharp and clear in the black sky—it was still very dark out-of-doors.
On the terrace, there was visible to Johannes, a tall, dark figure. He could look at it better than at the sneering ones. He recognized it, instantly. It was He with whom he had traveled by sea.
The dark figure now took the lead with slow, firm strides. Pluizer went next, but in between these two there was a third.
It was quite impossible for Johannes to look at that third one. When he tried to look, he felt an indescribable agony.
That third one! Yes, he certainly knew it well. It wasit! Do you understand? The It which lies in wait around the corner, outside the door, while you dream of being alone in a dark room, vainly trying to call for help.
It, the most frightful object!—so frightful that no one can either look at or describe it.
These three now passed down the dark avenue of the park until they came to the black pool lying deathly still and calmly expectant—shining beneath the starlight.
There the three sat down and waited.
It was still as still could be. Not a leaf rustled.
The star-tips on the water were as sharply defined as points of light upon fathomless darkness.
“Prettily planned; don’t you think so?” said Pluizer.
It grumbled, sneeringly.
Thereupon good Death, in a soft, restful voice, said: “Yet all is for the best!”
Then again they sat very still. Johannes waited with them for he could not do otherwise.
The sound of a door was heard in the still night air, and a white figure drew near, with light, swift steps. By the faint starlight Johannes saw the slender girl in a white night-dress, her black hair flowing loose.
For an instant she stood still at the edge of the pool. Johannes could see her eyes shining with both terror and joy, like those of one pursued who sees escape. He tried to call or to move, but could do neither.
Then the girl waded into the water with her arms extended as if to embrace it. She went cautiously, so that the water neither plashed nor spattered; only, the star-points were broken up and became long stripes, and serpentine lines of light. These, after the white garment could be seen no more, still continued—dancing up and down with the ripples.
“We have her!” sneered Pluizer.
“That remains to be seen,” said good Death.
At once, Johannes found himself awake, in his own bed. He had been wakened by noises, cries of anguished voices, hasty runnings hither and thither through the hallways of the house, and by the opening and shutting of doors.
“Heléne! Heléne!” rang through the halls, in the garden, in the park. “Heléne! Heléne!”
Johannes dressed himself, not overhastily, for he knew it was too late.
The members of the household were already gathered in the large vestibule. The poor nurse, with a startled face of deathly pallor, came in from the garden.
“I cannot find her anywhere,” she cried. “It is my fault—my fault!”
She sat down and began to sob.
“Come, dear,” said the countess, in her tranquil voice, “do not reproach yourself. She may be back again in no time; or perhaps the servants will find her in the town.”
“No, no,” shrieked the poor nurse. “She has long wanted to do it, and I knew it. I never left her door unfastened. But this time I only thought to be gone two seconds. She had knotted a tape into a tangle, and I wanted to get my scissors. But I could not find them... and then.... O God! How could I be so stupid! I can never forgive myself. Oh, my God, my God!”
Could not Johannes have run quickly to the pool, and told what he knew? No, for he also knew, quite as surely, that it was too late. And before he could have done it, the men came to say she had been found. He saw her borne into the house, wrapped in a checked bed-cover.
And when he saw them making vain endeavors to resuscitate her he remarked that he feared it would do no good. And he added, “Indeed, I don’t fear—but I hope so.”
“For her sake,” said the countess.
“Surely for her sake,” repeated Johannes, in some surprise.
Van Lieverlee had not appeared. But when the corpse of the beautiful girl had been placed upon her death-bed, her slender hands crossed upon her breast, her hair—still moist—laid in heavy braids about the delicate, sallow little face, the dark lashes nearly closed over the sightless eyes, white lilies and snowdrops all around, then Van Lieverlee came to see.
“Look,” said he to Johannes, “this is very pretty. I would not have cared to see her taken from the water. A drowned person is nearly always an ugly spectacle. Even the most beautiful girl becomes repulsive and clownlike when being dragged out of the water by leg or arm, with face and hair all duck-weed and mud. But this is worth while. Mind, Johannes, genuine artists are always lucky. They come across the beautiful, everywhere. Such an event as this is, for a poet, a rare bit of good luck.”
The next day he was deep in the making of poetry. But Johannes was in a restless, introverted mood, and could find no words for what distressed him.