Part 54 (1/2)

Constance, as she read on, felt her heart beating, the blood rus.h.i.+ng to her cheeks; her hands trembled, her knees shook, she felt as though she were about to faint. She was growing accustomed to oral slander; but these written, printed articles, which everybody could read, came as a shock to her; and, with eyes starting from their sockets, she read the thing over and over again. She was filled with helpless despair at the thought that such things were being published about her and hers, that next week more things would be printed about her in that libellous paper. She was at her wits' end what to do, when, vaguely rolling her terrified eyes, she caught sight, among the bills and circulars, of another paper, which said:

/$ ”NOTICE!!!

”Why not become a subscriber to the _”DWARSKIJKER?_ ”Terms of subscription: ”50 guilders quarterly, post-free.”

The notice was printed in the cynical capitals of blackmail; and she at once understood; she understood what that subscription of two hundred guilders a year to a scurrilous rag meant! But she also understood that, even if she sent the fifty guilders or the two hundred guilders that moment, it would be no safeguard against further defamation or extortion; and she did not know what to do....

She at first thought of concealing the paper from Van der Welcke; but she was so upset all day that, after dinner, when Addie had gone upstairs, she showed it to her husband. He grew furious at once, giving way to his naturally irritable temper, which he usually kept under control so as not to have too violent scenes with his wife. He swore, clenched his fists, walked up and down the room in impotent rage, longing to break something or to go out and revile the Hague, its streets and its people. To him also the printed libel--especially because it was printed, for every one to read--was a terrible disgrace, which he felt that he would have done anything to avoid. It also occurred to him to go to the office of the _Dwarskijker_ and horsewhip the editor. And, without really knowing why or how, he allowed himself to utter that unpremeditated, illogical phrase, the phrase of a naughty child which does not stop to think when its temper is roused:

”It's all your fault!”

”My fault!” she echoed, vehemently. ”And why, in Heaven's name? Why is it my fault?”

”It's your fault! You would come and live here, with that morbid craving of yours for your family. In Brussels, n.o.body knew us and n.o.body talked about us; and our life if not happy, was at least quiet. Here there's always something, always something! It's no life at all, our life here!”

”And you, weren't you longing to come back? Was I the only one who longed?” she cried, hurt by his unreasonableness.

But he did not hear her; and all his pent-up bitterness burst forth:

”I walk about the streets here every day, feeling as if every one were looking at me and pointing at me! When I go to the Witte or the Plaats, among all the men I used to know, I feel out of place, I feel like an interloper whom they don't want to own. It's your fault, it's your fault!”

”Indeed!”

”Why were you absolutely bent on coming back to Holland?”

”And you?”

”I?”

”Yes, you, you! Didn't you sometimes long for your parents, for Holland!

Didn't you yourself say that it would be good for our boy?”

”For our boy!” he shouted, refusing to listen, in his impotent, seething rage. ”For our boy!”

And he laughed more bitterly, more scornfully than she had ever heard him before:

”For our boy! A lot I can do for him here! However hard he may work, whatever tact he may show, even though he enters the career which I had to abandon, he will always, always be reminded of the scandal of his parents! For our boy! Let him become a farmer, if he must be a Dutchman in Holland, hidden somewhere from all our family, our friends and our acquaintances! And it's all, all your fault!”

”You are unreasonable!” she cried, wincing under his insults. ”If we have anything to reproach ourselves with, then it falls upon both of us; and you have not the right to let me, me, a woman, bear the burden of our misery alone!”

”That misery would at least not have been discussed, mocked at, criticized, ridiculed, traduced,” he shouted, raging and stamping, ”if you had not insisted on coming back to Holland!”

”Was I the only one to wish it?”

”Very well,” he admitted, losing all his self-control, ”I did too. But we were both fools, to return to this rotten country and these rotten people!”

”I don't need them. I only longed for my family.”