Round the house the thaw wept; and in the night the sinewed grain of the ice broke and melted in weeping melancholy, with the added melancholy of the west wind blowing up heavy clouds, the west wind which came from very far and moaned softly along the walls and over the roof, rattling the tight-closed windows of the night....

Inside the house reigned the darkness of repose and the shadow of silence; and the inmates slept. Only Gerdy could not fall sleep: she lay thinking with wide-open eyes, as she listened vaguely to the wind blowing and the thaw pattering, thinking that she hated ... and loved ... that she hated Mathilde ... and loved ... him ... Johan....

CHAPTER XIV

"Yes," said Paul, as he followed Constance out of her own sitting-room, while she, with her key-basket over her arm, went down the stairs with Marietje and Gerdy, "yes, I'm not ashamed to confess it: I've come to see how the country suits me. The Hague is becoming so dirty that I can't stand it any longer. What a dirty place a town is! It's much cleaner in the country.... You're fortunate, you people. But I daresay I should have stayed on at the Hague--I'm not really a man for the country--if my landlady wasn't getting so old, if she wasn't always changing the servants, if those servants weren't so unspeakably slovenly and dirty.... She produced such specimens lately that I gave her notice.... I'd had those rooms fourteen years.... It'll be a great change for me.... But I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to see to everything myself; and I'm getting too old for that.... Yes, I still do my wash-hand-stand myself.... But look here, Constance, when it came to making my bed--because the servant's hands were dirty and my sheets one night smelt of onions--you know, that was really too much to expect. I'm no longer a young man: I'm forty-six. Yes, that's right, you young baggages, laugh at your old uncle! I'm forty-six, forty-six. Lord, what a lot of dirt I've seen in those years!... As the years go by, filth heaps itself around you like a mountain: there's no getting through it.

Politics, people, servants, bedclothes, everything you eat, everything you touch, everything you do, say, think or feel: it's a beastly business, just one sickening ma.s.s of filth.... The only pure, unsullied thing that I have found in the world is music. Ah, what a pure thing music is!..."

"Paul, I must just go down to the store-room and have a talk with my cook about the filth which I'm to give you this evening," said Constance; and the girls laughed.

"All right, I'll come with you ... I sha'n't be in the way. Ah, what a pure thing music is!" he continued, in the store-room, while the cook opened wide eyes. "Look at painting, for instance, how dirty: oil-colours, turpentine, a palette, paint-brushes, water, all equally messy. Sculpture: clay and damp cloths; literature: what's more loathsomely dirty than ink, the oceans of ink which an author pours forth?... But music: that's tone, that's purity, that's sheer Platonism.... Oh, no, since they've taken to building public conveniences at the street-corners in the Hague, I can't go on living there!"

"_Paul_!" said Constance, warningly; but he was too much worked up to understand that she was rebuking him. "Run away now, with the girls and leave me with Keetje.[1] Look at her, staring at you and not minding a word I say.... Keetje, listen to me, I want to order the dinner; and you, Paul, ajo,[2] be off!"

"Come away, Uncle!" said Marietje, "Keetje, at Driebergen, isn't accustomed to hear everything called so dirty."

"Keetje's proud of her kitchen, aren't you, Keetje?" said Gerdy.

"Oh, well," said Keetje, "I expect meneer doesn't mean all he says."

"Not mean all I say!" Paul shouted at the servant, who stood calmly with her arms akimbo. "Not mean all I say!"

"One can do a lot with scrubbing, sir, to keep things nice and clean."

"And I tell you," Paul blazed out, "that everything's dirty, except music...."

"And except my kitchen!" said Keetje, greatly offended. "I don't know what sort of servants meneer's had. But we're good cleaners here, aren't we, ma'am?... Yes, I know, old Mie[3] is very old and mevrouw only keeps her on out of kindness ... and we've got young help besides.... But dirty!" shaking her head energetically. "There's no dirt here ... though it is an old house ... and a big family...."

"Girls! Paul!" cried Constance, in despair. "I've no time to stand in my store-room arguing about what's dirty and what not in the world or in Keetje's kitchen.... Get out of this!... And you, Keetje, listen to _me_ and answer _me_."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Uncle, come along!" said Gerdy. "We'll show you Keetje's kitchen."

"Well, meneer can inspect that with pleasure!" said Keetje, by way of a last shot.

The girls dragged Paul off to the kitchen, where they were joined by Adeletje and even by Marietje van Saetzema; and they screamed with merriment when Paul examined the pans one after the other:

"But look, Uncle ... they're shining like silver and gold!"

"Well, we _can_ have our dinner out of them to-night.... Still, children, music, music is the only pure thing in the world!"

"Provided it's not false."

"Of course it mustn't be false.... Have you a good piano here?"

"Yes, Uncle, Mathilde has hers upstairs and here's mine, in the conservatory," said Gerdy. "I'm the only one who plays."

Paul sat down at the piano, struck a few chords:

"The tone is fairly good.... Ah, music, music!..."

And he played. He played _Wotan's Farewell,_ followed by the _Fire Magic_.... He played very well, by heart: his pale, narrow features became animated, his long fingers quivered, his eyes lit up. In the conservatory the old mother listened, heard merely a flow of soothing sound. At her feet, Klaasje listened, playing with her toys. Mathilde came from upstairs; after her came Guy, deserting his books. Paul played, went on playing ... he had forgotten all about them. Suddenly he stopped:

"You mustn't think," he said abruptly, "that I am an unconditional Wagner-worshipper. His music is delightful; his poetry is crude, childish and thin; his philosophy is very faulty and horribly German and vague.... Proofs? You ask for proofs?... Take the Rheingold: did you ever see such G.o.ds? With no real strength, no real marrow in their coa.r.s.e thieves' souls, their burglars' souls full of filth.... Is that the beginning of a world? No, a world begins in a purer fashion.... And so childishly and crudely: the world's treasure, the gold, the pure gold guarded by three dirty Lorelei, with their hair full of sea-weed, who, the moment they set eyes upon a dwarf, start giggling and making fun....

Are those the pure guardians of the pure gold? But the music in itself, the purity of tone: oh, in that purity of tone he is a master!..."

And he played the prelude to the Rheingold, played it twice consecutively. Suddenly he stopped once more:

"Oh, Gerdy, how dusty your piano is!... Does no one ever wipe the keys?... Where can I wash my hands?"

"Uncle dear, do go on playing!"

"And my fingers black with dust? No, look here, Keetje's pans may shine like silver and gold, but your piano is a sounding-board of dirt. Where can I wash my hands?"

"Here, at the tap."

She led him to the hall.

"Well, first find me a clean towel."

"The towel is clean, sir," said Truitje, who happened to be pa.s.sing.

"No, I want a towel fresh from the wash, folded in nice, clean folds."

And it was great fun: Marietje ran hunting for Constance, to get the keys of the linen-press.

"So you've come to live here?" said Van der Welcke, who came down while Paul was washing his hands.

"Yes, I had a sudden, irresistible impulse to move to Driebergen. I was feeling a little lonely at the Hague," he confessed. "I am growing old and lonely. And it's cleaner in the country; the air is less foul, though I'm not lucky with this thaw. The road outside was one great puddle. But I have found two airy rooms, in a villa.... It's strange, I should never have believed that I could ever come and live at Driebergen ... and in the winter too!..."

He inspected his hands, which were now clean:

"Imagine," he said, "if there were no water left! I should be dead next day!"

Paul really brightened up. He was a great deal at the house, very soon got into the habit of dining there every evening and, because he felt scruples at always taking his meals at Van der Welcke's expense, he made handsome presents, as a set-off for his sponging, he said, so that in the end it cost him more than if he had dined every day at home. He ordered fine flowers and fruit from the Hague; on Van der Welcke's birthday, he gave him a case of champagne; on Constance' birthday, a parcel of caravan tea, because he came and had tea with them every afternoon. In this way he contributed generously to the house-keeping and relieved his scruples. He brightened up considerably, after his recent years of loneliness, talked away l.u.s.tily, broached his philosophies, played Wagner; and even Mathilde accepted him as a pleasant change, with a touch of the Hague about him.

Constance would rebuke him at times and say:

"Paul, I won't have you constantly ordering that expensive fruit for me from the Hague."

"My dear Constance," he would answer, "I'm saving the cost of it on my ties; for my dandyism is gradually wearing away."

In the evening, in the great sitting-room--while the wind blew round the house and the dice fell hard on the backgammon-board and the gaudy colour of the cards flickered in the hands of the bridge-players--Paul's music came as a new sound, driving away the grey melancholy, tinkling in drops of silver harmony. He played everything by heart; and the only thing that his attentive audience couldn't stand was his habit of suddenly breaking off in the most delightful pa.s.sages to defend some philosophical thesis which no one at that instant was thinking of attacking, with which everyone agreed at the time. Nevertheless, despite his playing and his new-found cheerfulness, he felt old, lonely and aimless. Whenever he had an opportunity of talking quietly to Constance for a moment, without having to run after her downstairs, to the store-room, he would say, sadly: