Eline Vere

by Louis Couperus

  Eline laughed out loud; the shrill, crazed edge to her voice frightened Ben, who gazed up at her round-eyed, his mouth gaping. But she went on laughing.

  ‘Oh, he has no idea, does he, the little mite! No, you don’t know what Auntie’s raving about, do you? But it feels so good to rant and rave for once! I wish I could do something outrageous, something quite mad, but there’s nothing I can think of. I’m so dull nowadays that I can’t even think at all. If only Eliza were here, she’d know what to do. Do you know what Eliza and I did once, that first time I was staying in Brussels? I never dared to tell anyone before, but now I don’t care, I can say whatever I like. Just imagine, one evening we went out, just the two us, for a walk; we were feeling adventurous, you know. Mind you don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Then we met two gentlemen, two very nice gentlemen, whom we’d never met before. And we went for a drive with them … in an open landau, and then we … we went to a café.’

  Her whole speech had been punctuated by nervous, shrill giggles, and by the end of it she was laughing hysterically, with frenzied tears running down her contorted features. Not a word of it was true, but to her it was all real.

  ‘Just fancy! We were in café! A café! And then–’

  ‘Eline, please! Stop being so silly,’ Betsy said quietly.

  ‘Oh, you think it’s terribly shocking, don’t you? Well, you can put your mind at rest; it wasn’t that bad.’

  She gave another wild, forced laugh and then broke down into sobs.

  ‘Oh, that wretched Reijer! I have this constant pain here, in my head, and he doesn’t even care, all he goes on about is my cough. I know I cough, I don’t need him to tell me. Oh, God! And that boarding house is so awful.’

  ‘Then why don’t you come back to live with us?’

  ‘We’d only be at each other’s throats again after the first three days!’ Eline laughed hollowly. ‘Now that we don’t see very much of each other we seem to get on rather better than before, I find.’

  ‘Honestly, I’d do my best to make you feel at home!’ pleaded Betsy, feeling increasingly concerned about the state of Eline’s nerves. ‘We could take care of you properly! I’d accommodate myself to your wishes.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t accommodate myself to yours! No, thank you very much! Freedom above all. You talk such nonsense. We’d start bickering in no time – I mean, just look at us, we’re bickering already.’

  ‘Why do you say that? I am not bickering, not by any means. All I want is for you to come back to us as soon as possible – tonight, preferably.’

  ‘Betsy, if you don’t shut up about that I shall leave now and never come back. I have no desire to live in your house, do you hear? I will not live with you, and that’s final.’

  She hummed a little.

  ‘Will you stay for supper, at least?’ asked Betsy.

  ‘Yes please! But I’m exhausted, so I won’t have much conversation. What are your plans for later this evening?’

  ‘We’re going to the Oudendijks’. Haven’t you been invited?’

  ‘No, I’ve stopped going out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Drat the Oudendijks! Oh, my poor head! I’m half dead … do you mind if I go and lie down for a while?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘Then I’ll go to Henk’s room; there’s a comfy couch there.’

  ‘The fire isn’t lit, though.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind.’

  …

  She went upstairs to Henk’s sitting room. Henk was out. She removed her coat and hat. Then she took a cigar from a cigar box, bit the tip off and lit it, but the bitter taste disgusted her and she stubbed it out. She lay down on the couch. Her wandering eyes lit on a weapon rack, a trophy of swords, daggers and pistols. What if she wanted to kill herself, how would she do it? A dagger through her heart? A bullet in her mouth? Oh no, no, she would never have the courage, and anyway she wouldn’t know how to handle a dagger or a pistol. She might just wound herself, mutilate herself, and … go on living. Besides, death was even worse than life. Death was something she never dared to think about, something infinitely, unspeakably vast and empty. Would there be life after death, would there be a God? She remembered having sweet visions of azure landscapes bathed in a luminous glow, with singing angels flitting about on silvery wings, and far away in the hazy distance a throne of clouds occupied by an ethereal being of majestic allure. The vision came back to her now, and she felt herself being borne aloft on the soft strains of heavenly song. But then she had a sense of falling down to earth at dizzying speed with the room wheeling all around her, until her eyes came to rest on the weapon rack again. No, no, not a pistol, not a dagger! Not poison, either, because she would turn blue and green and they’d find her with her face twisted and swollen and everybody would be appalled by her ugliness. What if she drowned? Then, too, she would be ugly, with her body all bloated by the time they fished her out of the lake. But drowning was supposed to be a gentle death; you saw the water closing over your head in a gorgeous swirl of lovely colours and then you gradually dropped off to sleep, sinking deeper and deeper into a billowing, downy softness, and in death you were like Ophelia, adorned with water lilies and reeds. But she couldn’t think of any lake with lilies and reeds in The Hague, there were only canals with foulsmelling, green water … oh no, not that! The lake in the woods, then? Or the sea at Scheveningen? No, no, she would be too terrified, and anyway she was too weak; she wouldn’t even have the strength now to run away in the middle of the night during a storm as she had done so long ago, all alone, battling against the wind and the driving rain. And she came to the conclusion that she would never find the courage to hang herself, or to suffocate herself; the fact was that she was too cowardly to kill herself at all. She began to quake as in a fever, so horrified was she by her thoughts.

  Why did she have to be like this? Why couldn’t she have been happy with Otto? Why hadn’t she met St Clare when she was eighteen? What had she done to deserve such wretchedness? Who had she ever harmed? Hadn’t she taken good care of Aunt Vere in her final illness, hadn’t she sacrificed her own good fortune for Vincent? Oh, if only she had been capable of happiness, then she would have shared it with everyone around her. St Clare – or was it Otto? – had once told her there were treasures slumbering in her soul. Well, she would have shared out those treasures, she would have bestowed the jewels of her joy wherever she went. But it had not come to pass, she had been crushed by the sheer weight of her existence, and now she was so tired from the struggle that her only wish was that it should end. Oh, if only she were dead …

  The rain had stopped; it grew dark. Exhausted from her sombre ruminations, she lay back, numb, her mind a blank, and at length dozed off. She was roused by a heavy footfall in the hallway, and before she was fully awake, Henk entered.

  ‘My dear Sis! What are you doing here in the dark? My, how cold it is in here!’

  ‘Cold?’ she echoed with the dazed look of a sleepwalker. ‘Yes, so it is, I can feel it now – I’m shivering. I must have been asleep.’

  ‘Why don’t you come downstairs with me? Dinner will soon be served. Betsy said you were staying, is that right?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, Henk, how awful that I fell asleep.’

  ‘Awful? Why?’

  ‘Now I won’t sleep a wink tonight!’ she sobbed, burying her head in his shoulder.

  ‘Why won’t you come back to live with us, Elly?’ he asked softly. ‘It would be so much better all round.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t want that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It wouldn’t do, Henk. I am certain of that. It’s very sweet of you to ask, but it simply wouldn’t do. I have these sudden moods when I feel like smacking Betsy, for instance, especially when she’s being nice to me. I very nearly hit her this afternoon.’

  He sighed with a hopeless expression. She was ever a mystery to him.

  ‘Let’s go down,’ he said, and as they descended the stairs together she leant h
eavily on his arm, shivering from the cold that had now truly overtaken her.

  …

  Winter came to an end and Eline’s condition remained unchanged. It was May, and although the weather had been wintry only the previous week, the summer season had burst forth with soaring temperatures. Eline lay on her couch, felled by the heat.

  ‘Don’t you think it would do you good to spend some time in the country this summer?’ suggested Reijer. ‘I don’t mean travelling from one place to another, that would be too tiring. I am thinking along the lines of a holiday in some cool, shady retreat, a place where you would find a caring environment.’

  She thought of De Horze. Oh, if only she had married Otto! Then she would have had all the cool shade and loving care she needed!

  ‘I wouldn’t know where to go,’ she answered dully.

  ‘I might be able to help you there. I know some people in Gelderland, a most agreeable couple who run a small country estate with a fine wood of pine trees nearby.’

  ‘Not pine trees, for Heaven’s sake!’ cried Eline with passion.

  ‘The country air would agree with you.’

  ‘Nothing will agree with me. I do wish you’d stop nagging, Dr Reijer.’

  ‘Have you been sleeping well lately?’

  ‘Oh yes, very well.’

  It was not true; she did not sleep at all at night, only dozed off from time to time during the day. The drops no longer sent her to sleep; instead, they left her in a permanent state of hazy exaltation, a crazed semi-consciousness veering between extreme lassitude and mortal fear, during which she had spells of becoming an actress moaning and writhing in agony on the floor.

  Reijer regarded her intently.

  ‘Miss Vere, pray tell me the truth. Have you been taking any other medicines besides the ones I have prescribed?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I should like an honest answer, Miss Vere.’

  ‘Of course I haven’t! How could you think I would do such a thing! I wouldn’t dare! No, no, you may rest quite assured about that.’

  Reijer left, and in his carriage he forgot about his notebook for a moment while reflecting on the plight of Miss Vere. Then he heaved a sigh of defeat.

  No sooner had he gone than Eline stood up; her room was unbearably hot and stuffy, even though the door to the balcony was open. She wore only a thin grey peignoir carelessly draped over her emaciated frame. Standing before the mirror, she plunged her hands into her loose hair. It had grown very thin, and she laughed as she twisted a strand between her fingers. Then she flung herself on the floor.

  I refuse to see him again! she thought to herself. That Reijer! He only makes me feel worse. I can’t stand him. I shall write and tell him he’s discharged.

  But she knew she would not have the spirit to do this, and remained crouched down, tracing the floral patterns on the carpet with her finger. She began to hum to herself.

  The sun shining in through the open balcony door cast a rectangle of gold on the floor, with myriad dust particles dancing above it. The glare disturbed Eline, and she drew back.

  ‘The sun!’ she whispered inaudibly, with strangely staring, glazed eyes. ‘How I hate the sun! I want the rain and the wind, cold rain and cold wind, I want to feel the rain trickling down the décolletage of my black tulle dress.’

  Suddenly she scrambled to her feet and wrung her hands on her chest as though holding the sides of a cloak to prevent the wind from tearing it from her shoulders.

  ‘Jeanne, Jeanne,’ she moaned in her delirium. ‘Please let me in, I beg you. I have run away from home, because Betsy’s so horrid to me, you see, and during dinner at Hovel’s this evening she said all sorts of hateful things about Vincent. And you know how much I love Vincent. It was because of him that I broke off my engagement, my engagement to St Clare. Oh, he bored me to tears with his calmness. So calm he was, for ever calm. It drove me mad! But truly, Henk, I shall go to Lawrence and ask his pardon, only don’t hit me, Henk. Oh, Lawrence, I beg you, I love you so much, don’t be angry with me, Lawrence – Lawrence! See if I don’t love you! Look, I have your portrait right here! I keep it with me all the time.’

  She fell to her knees by the sofa and lifted her face, as if she had seen someone, then gave a violent start and rose unsteadily to her feet.

  ‘Oh God, there it is again!’ she thought, recovering herself.

  She felt as if there was a war going on inside her brain, with her powers of reason fighting a losing battle against the madness assailing her. She groped for a book that was lying on the table, and opened it, to force herself to be sensible and to read. It was the score of Le Tribut de Zamora, which she had bought long ago, during her passion for Fabrice.

  She dared not look up, fearing that her madness would take some hideous form before her eyes. She dared not move, out of terror for herself, and in her wandering mind salvation would come if only she could pass out of her body, as it were, and into the sunlight, which was now flooding her entire room, rippling over the satin curtains and bathing the delicate Japanese porcelain and polished brass ornaments in a golden glow.

  Softly she began to sing, without thinking what, in a voice hoarse and raw with endless coughing. But there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she asked anxiously

  ‘It’s me, Miss,’ a voice cried. ‘Bringing you your lunch.’

  ‘Thank you, Sophie, but I have no appetite. Dr Reijer said I wasn’t to eat too much.’

  ‘Shall I take it away then, Miss?’

  ‘Yes, take it away.’

  ‘You will ring if you want anything, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  She heard the rattle of plates and glasses on the tray as the maid descended the stairs, and tried to focus her mind on Xaïma’s score. She drew herself up, held her head high and made a regal gesture with her hand as she broke into song, only to crumple up in a fit of coughing.

  There was another knock at the door.

  ‘Oh, what is it now?’ cried Eline, greatly perturbed.

  ‘May I come in a moment, Miss Vere?’ It was a different voice, affable and genteel.

  Eline thought hard a moment, then closed the songbook and sank down on the couch. She lay back against the cushions and half-closed her eyes.

  ‘Yes you may,’ she answered graciously.

  The door opened and the proprietress, a buxom lady dressed entirely in black, stepped into the room.

  ‘I just popped in to see how you are,’ she said with warm civility. ‘Are you not well?’

  ‘No, I am not!’ groaned Eline, closing her eyes. ‘I feel very weak.’

  In reality she was feeling full of nervous, manic energy which she was minded to express by means of song, but it had become a habit to say that she felt weak when people asked after her health.

  ‘Won’t you have a bite to eat?’

  ‘Dr Reijer said–’ Eline began.

  The proprietress shook her head.

  ‘My dear Miss Vere, shame on you for trying to mislead me. I just heard from Dr Reijer that you would benefit from a cup of hot broth.’

  ‘I am afraid hot broth would make me nauseous.’

  ‘But you must eat something, Miss Vere.’

  ‘I assure you, I feel too ill to eat now.’

  ‘Well, later then. May I prepare a wholesome meal for you? What would you fancy?’

  ‘Do whatever you like. My appetite may come back to me, I suppose. But in the meantime would you be so kind as to tell any callers, including my sister, that I cannot receive them? I feel very low this afternoon. I can’t tell you how low.’

  ‘Is there anything you need? Anything I can do for you?’

  ‘You are very kind, but really, I have no need of anything. Except perhaps some ice, come to think of it. I am rather thirsty.’

  ‘A chilled carafe?’

  ‘I would rather have a slab of ice.’

  ‘Are you running a fever?’

  ‘No, but I like th
e feel of a lump of ice melting in my mouth. And please remember what I said – I am not at home to callers this afternoon.’

  ‘Certainly. I shall send for some ice at once. But you won’t mind if I let down the blinds, will you? Spare a thought for my poor furniture, Miss Vere!’

  The proprietress lowered the blinds and left. Eline sat up, smiling and clicking her tongue in anticipation of the cooling ice, took up the songbook again and pictured herself as Xaïma.

  She was standing tall, like a queen on a precipice, pointing to the dreamt ravine at her feet. Fancying that she heard a response from Ben-Saïd, she remained a moment thus transfixed, then resumed her portrayal of Xaïma, humming now rather than singing. But her voice cracked so that she had to clear her throat, which made her cough several times, and soon she was coughing so violently that she laid aside the score and sat down with her hands pressed to her constricted throat.

  ‘What’s the matter with me?’ she thought. ‘I’m not making any sense! I want to make sense!’

  But the turmoil in her mind persisted as wave upon wave of confused memories washed over her, drowning her reason. Her eyes darted feverishly about her.

  ‘I want to make sense!’ she kept telling herself, and this aim became a wheel spinning in her brain. ‘I want to make sense!’

  Her head felt leaden, and her theatrical excitement subsided into the mental torpor that she so feared. At such moments of desolation her only desire was to see St Clare. If only he had been there with her! He would have known what to do, he would have comforted her and made her see sense again. Their parting words in Brussels flashed into her mind. Five months from now, they had said. That had been in January, now it was March. He had said it would take only one word from her and he would rush back to her side. The idea was so tempting that she resolved to write him a note – she knew where to send it thanks to her correspondence with Vincent – oh, just a few words, just enough to make him come back! A soothing perspective opened before her eyes, and for a moment she felt very calm, and even happy. But that very calmness enabled her to take possession of herself, and her illusion evaporated. She shook her head from side to side: St Clare loved her out of pity, out of a desire to heal a fellow creature’s suffering, and even if he were indeed able to give her some measure of happiness, she had no right to chain her wilted life to his. And her next thought was of Otto. So she knew that it could never be. Never.