1

Next evening, Cecile revelled even more than usual in the luxury of being able to stay at home.

It was after dinner; she was sitting on the sofa in her little boudoir with Dolf and Christie, an arm thrown round each of them, sitting between them, so young, like an elder sister. In her low voice she was telling them:

“Judah came near to him, and said, O my Lord, let me abide a bondman instead of the lad. For our father, who is such an old man, said to us, when we left with Benjamin, My son Joseph I have already lost; surely he is torn in pieces by the wild beasts. And if ye take this also from me and mischief befall him, ye shall bring [41]down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Then (Judah said) I said to our father that I would be surety for the lad and that I should bear the blame if I did not bring Benjamin home again. And therefore I pray thee, O my lord, let me abide a bondman, and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father if the lad be not with me?...”

“And Joseph, mamma, what did Joseph say?” asked Christie.

He had nestled closely against his mother, this poor little slender fellow of six, with his fine golden hair and his eyes of pale forget-me-not blue; and his little fingers hooked themselves nervously into Cecile’s gown, rumpling the crape.

“Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him and he caused every man to leave him. And Joseph made himself known unto his [42]brethren. And he wept aloud and said, I am Joseph.”

But Cecile could not continue the story, for Christie had thrown himself on her neck in a frenzy of despair and she heard him sobbing against her.

“Christie! Darling!”

She was greatly distressed; she had grown interested in her own recital and had not noticed Christie’s excitement; and now he was sobbing against her in such violent grief that she could find no word to quiet him, to comfort him, to tell him that it ended happily.

“But, Christie, don’t cry, don’t cry! It ends happily.”

“And Benjamin, what about Benjamin?”

“Benjamin returned to his father; and Jacob went down into Egypt to live with Joseph.”

The child raised his wet face from her [43]shoulder and looked at her deliberately:

“Was it really like that? Or are you only making it up?”

“No, really, darling. Don’t, don’t cry any more....”

Christie grew calmer, but he was evidently disappointed. He was not satisfied with the end of the story; and yet it was very pretty like that, much prettier than if Joseph had been angry and put Benjamin in prison.

“What a baby, Christie, to go crying like that!” said Dolf. “Why, it’s only a story.”

Cecile did not reply that the story had really happened, because it was in the Bible. She had suddenly become very sad, in doubt of herself. She fondly dried the child’s sad eyes with her pocket-handkerchief:

“And now, children, bed! It’s late!” she said, faintly. [44]

She put them to bed, a ceremony which lasted a long time; a ceremony with an elaborate ritual of undressing, washing, saying of prayers, tucking in and kissing.
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2

When, an hour later, she was sitting downstairs again alone, she realized for the first time how sad she felt.

Ah, no, she did not know! Amélie was quite right: one never knew anything, never! She had been so happy that day; she had found herself again, deep in the recesses of her secret self, in the essence of her soul; all day she had seen her dreams hovering about her as an apotheosis; all day she had felt within her that consuming love of her children. She had told them stories out of the Bible after dinner; and suddenly, when Christie began to cry, a doubt had arisen within her. Was she really good to her little boys? Did she [45]not, in her love, in the tenderness of her affection for them, spoil and weaken them? Would she not end by utterly unfitting them for practical life, with which she did not come into contact, but in which the children, when they grew up, would have to move? It flashed through her mind: parting, boarding-schools, her children estranged from her, coming home big, rough boys, smoking and swearing, with cynicism on their lips and in their hearts: lips which would no longer kiss her, hearts in which she would no longer have a place. She pictured them already with the swagger of their seventeen or eighteen years, tramping across her rooms in their cadet’s and midshipman’s uniforms, with broad shoulders and a hard laugh, flicking the ash from their cigars upon the carpet.... Why did Quaerts’ image suddenly rise up in the midst of this cruelty? Was it chance or a logical [46]consequence? She could not analyse it; she could not explain the presence of this man, rising up through her grief in his atmosphere of antipathy. But she felt sad, sad, sad, as she had not felt sad since Van Even’s death; not vaguely melancholy, as she so often felt, but sad, undoubtedly sorrowful at the thought of what must come.... Oh! to have to part with her children! And then, to be alone.... Loneliness, everlasting loneliness! Loneliness within herself: that feeling of which Jules had such a dread! Withdrawn from the world which had no charm for her, sinking away alone into emptiness! She was thirty, she was old, an old woman. Her house would be empty, her heart empty! Dreams, clouds of dreaming, which fly away, which lift like smoke, revealing only emptiness. Emptiness, emptiness, emptiness! The word each time fell hollowly, with hammer strokes, [47]upon her breast. Emptiness, emptiness!...

“Why am I like this?” she asked herself. “What ails me? What has altered?”

Never had she felt that word emptiness throb within her in this way: that very afternoon she had been gently happy, as usual. And now! She saw nothing before her: no future, no life, nothing but one great darkness. Estranged from her children, alone within herself....

She rose with a little moan of pain and walked across the boudoir. The discreet twilight troubled her, oppressed her. She turned the key of the lace-covered lamp: a golden gleam crept over the rose folds of the silk curtains like glistening water. A strange coolness wafted away something of that scent of violets which hung about everything. A fire burned on the hearth, but she felt cold. [48]

She stopped beside the low table; she took up a visiting-card, with one corner turned down, and read:

“T. H. Quaerts.”

There was a five-balled coronet above the name.

“Quaerts!”

How short it sounded! A name like the smack of a hard hand. There was something bad, something cruel in the name:

“Quaerts, Quaerts!...”

She threw down the bit of pasteboard, was angry with herself. She felt cold and not herself, just as she had felt at the Van Attemas’ last evening:

“I will not go out again. Never again, never!” she said, almost aloud. “I am so contented in my own house, so contented with my life, so beautifully happy.... That card! Why should he leave a [49]card? What do I want with his card?...”

She sat down at her writing-table and opened her blotting-book. She thought of finishing a half-written letter to India; but she was in quite a different mood from when she had begun it. So she took from a drawer a thick manuscript-book, her diary. She wrote the date, then reflected a moment, tapping her teeth nervously with the silver penholder....

But then, with a little ill-tempered gesture, she threw down the pen, pushed the book aside and, letting her head fall into her hands on the blotting-book, sobbed aloud.