Frederik van Eeden
The Quest
"Look out!" said the Devil. "Do you not see what it says over it?"
"I do not care what it says!" cried Johannes, pounding away.
"Take care! For God's sake, take care!" shouted Bangeling.
"Help! Wistik! Marjon! Markus! help!" cried Johannes, crashing through the door.
Before him he saw a black and bottomless night; but it was more spacious, and he felt his distress diminishing.
And now he saw the imps all racing after him, and they were playing with something. It glittered as they threw it, one to another, and they tugged and pulled and spit on it, and did things still worse – such as only very vile and impudent beings could do.
It was a book, and Johannes saw his name upon it – his own and his family name. Johannes was called the "Traveler" of his family.
At last one of the imps caught hold of it by a leaf, and flung it high up in air to tear it to pieces. The leaves fluttered and glittered, but held together. And the book, ceasing to fall, went higher and higher up into the dark night until it seemed in the far distance to be a little star.
Johannes kept looking at it with all his might, and it seemed to him as if he were a light bit of wood, or a bubble, rising swifter and swifter to the surface – from out the awful depths of the sea. Then, slowly, the heavens grew blue and bright.
At last he was drifting in the full light of day. His eyes were still closed, but he felt that he had returned to his day body, and he rested – still a little longer – in the light, motionless, blissful slumber of a convalescent, or of one come home again after a long and weary journey.
XII
"Shall we go to the beach this morning?" asked Countess Dolores after breakfast. "It will be fresh and cool there now."
It was a merry morning trip. Both of the little girls went with them, and Johannes carried a small folding chair, and his friend's book. The countess took a seat in a beach-chair, and Johannes sat at her feet and read aloud to her, while the two children – their skirts tucked up, and their little feet and legs bare and pink in the clear light – busied themselves in the water and sand, with their pails and shovels.
Everything was flooded with sunshine, and clearly, beautifully tinted: – the knotted blonde tresses of the little girls – beneath their broad-brimmed white beach-hats – against the delicate blue of the horizon; the still deeper blue of the sea wherein could be seen the bright figures of the bathers in their red and blue bathing-dresses; and right and left the pure white sand, and the snowy foam.
Johannes had indeed become quite accustomed to what had so pained him at first – the profanation of the sea by human beings – so they were happy hours.
He resolved this morning to resume his inquiries after Markus, as soon as he was at liberty to do so.
They had not been sitting long on the beach when Van Lieverlee came sauntering-up, arrayed in white flannel. He was without a waistcoat, but wore a lilac shirt, and a wide, black-silk girdle, and had on a straw hat.
He gave the countess a graceful cordial greeting, and immediately said to Johannes, this time without irony:
"I sent to my uncle, this morning, for information. Your friend is not there now. He received his discharge last Saturday on account of his disorderly conduct."
"What had he done?" asked Johannes.
"He had delivered an address at the exchange when, mark you, he had gone there on a matter of business. Now," said Van Lieverlee, looking at the countess with a smile, "it is quite obvious that a man of affairs could not retain such a clerk as that. It takes my uncle Van Trigt, who is so jealous of his good name, to deal with such cases."
"Yes, I understand," said Dolores.
"It depends, though, upon what he said," ventured Johannes.
"No! One talks about business at the exchange – not about reason and morality. There is a time and a place for everything. My uncle was well satisfied with him in all else. He had taken him for a rather well-bred person, he said. But the man has a remarkable propensity for discoursing in public places."
"Where is he now?"
"Where is any idler who has received his discharge? Off looking for an easy berth, L should say."
"Is your friend so very poor?" asked the countess, in a serious whisper, as one would speak over the shame of a kinsman.
"Of course," replied Johannes, with a positiveness that was a challenge. "Indeed, he would be ashamed not to be poor."
"I think such men insufferable!" exclaimed Van Lieverlee. "As Socrates said, their conceit can be seen through the holes in their clothes. Without even opening their mouths they – every one of them – seem to be forever preaching morals and finding fault. I hate the tribe. They are of all men the most turbulent and dangerous."
Johannes had never yet seen Van Lieverlee so angry, but he remained cool throughout the tirade, and kept his temper.
The countess said in a languid voice:
"He certainly is very immoderate. I cannot say, either, that such pronounced types are to my taste."
Johannes was silent, and the other two talked together a while longer. The children came up nearer, and lying down in the clean, clear sand, they listened to the conversation. It was a bright group, for they were all dressed in white, except Johannes.
At last Van Lieverlee rose to go, and the countess, clinging to his hand, with a certain warmth of manner said:
"Of course you are coming to dinner?"
"Most assuredly!" replied Van Lieverlee.
After he had gone, there were several moments of constrained silence – a sort of suspense so obvious that even the children did not resume their chatter as usual, but continued silently playing with the sand, as if waiting for something to be said.
Johannes also began to comprehend that something was pending, but he had no idea of what it could be.
At last the lady said, rather hesitatingly, while tracing all kinds of curious figures in the sand, with her parasol:
"Have you not observed anything, Johannes?"
"Observed anything? I? No, Mevrouw," replied Johannes, with some discomposure. He surely had observed nothing.
"I have!" said Olga, decidedly, without looking up.
"I, too!" lisped Frieda after her.
"Hear the little smarties!" said Mevrouw, laughing in confusion, and blushing. "Well, what have you observed?"
"A new papa!" replied Olga.
"A new papa!" repeated Frieda.
Johannes looked up in some surprise and perplexity, into the beautiful, laughing eyes, and exquisite, blushing face of his friend.
Her laugh was a confirmation; and accompanying her question with a shake of the head, she continued:
"Really, do you not understand yet?"
"No," replied Johannes, in all seriousness. "Who is the new papa?"
"There he goes," said Olga, pointing with her little white finger after Van Lieverlee. And Frieda, too, stretched out her little hand in his direction.
"Fie, children! Do not point," said Mevrouw.
And Johannes began to comprehend – much as one does who has fallen out of a window, or has been struck on the head with a stone. As in the latter case, his first thought was astonishment at the cause of the blow, and that he could possibly survive it.
The blue air, the sea, the sand, the series of light-green dunes, the houses, the white figures – everything reeled and whirled, and then grew altogether black. He could not think, but only felt that he was extremely uncomfortable and qualmish. He was obliged to go.
As he stood up, he heard the words: "How pale you are!" That was the last. Then he walked away, beside the sea, hearing nothing save the washing of the waves upon the sand and the rushing of the blood in his ears.
He staggered a little back and forth, as if he had been drinking too much, and he wondered how that could be.
At last he could no longer see the people or houses – only water, sky, and sand.
It seemed to have been his intention; for, weak and limp, he went and lay down in the loose sand, and fell into a drowse.
XIII
Such drowsing is not real sleep, neither does it refresh. When Johannes awoke after a quarter of an hour, his throat was parched, and he felt as if his heart were shriveled in his breast. He essayed to think over what had happened, but it was too bitter and too frightful. He looked at the imprinted sand where he had been lying, as if he would go to sleep again. But now he could not sleep, and must stay awake.
He sat up and stared at the sea, and then again at the dunes. What was it that had befallen him? A very long time – he knew not himself how long – he sat looking. Then he stood up, feeling stiff and sluggish, as if dead tired from a long journey. Slowly and aimlessly he dragged himself into the dunes, and tried to take an interest in the beetles and the flowers. Sometimes, from force of habit, he succeeded; but immediately there returned the shudderings which that cruel blow had caused.
It had never entered his head that he himself would marry his friend. Why, then, should it go to his heart as if he were flung aside and trampled upon, now that another was about to take the place of her husband?
"It must not —must not be!" was all he could say. He very well knew that the world did not always concern itself with his thoughts, and that his day-life was conducted quite differently from his night-life where everything proceeded from his will and wish. But this was so squarely against his desires and ideas that it seemed to him as if the world must care about it.
Naturally, the world continued not to mind anything about it, because the world is a far greater and stronger thought than that of Little Johannes.
And if he had been sensible he would have modestly admitted it, because it is true. Then, at the most, that truth would only have saddened him.
But he was not yet very wise, and he did not wish to admit that his mind and thought were still weak and small compared with the great world-thought. And therefore he was not only sad, but angry as well.
Do not judge him too harshly, for he was still more boy than man. And how few men even there are with such clear good sense that they impute the variance solely to their own weakness and stupidity, and do not become dismayed and embittered when the world differs from them.
Johannes, then, was angry – furiously angry. That surely was not sensible, but yet it proved that he had more stamina than had Labbekak and Goedzak.
And all his anger was directed against that person who had thrust him aside from the place which he had so long, without being aware of it, considered his own. He thought Van Lieverlee not only a tiresome fool, but also an odious, abominable monster that ought to be exterminated.
And as his fancy pictured other figures, and he thought of that other hated being, Marjon's sister, and then again of Van Lieverlee, and his dear, beautiful, winsome friend, he found himself closely and frightfully besieged by insupportable thoughts – as if in a fire-begirt city, all aglow and scorching, with ever narrowing streets.
It was impossible to cry. At other times, as you surely must have observed, his tears came quickly enough. But now his eyes seemed to have been cauterized. Eyes, heart, brains, and ideas – all were equally hot and dry, and strained and distressed.
He went home at night with no idea of the hour. He had eaten nothing, but felt neither hunger nor thirst. Where he had been for so long, he was unable to tell. He went to his room and began trifling with his knickknacks – his souvenirs, books, and little treasures – for he was a collector.
His hostess came to rap at his door and to ask what was the matter – where he had been, and why he had been absent from his afternoon lessons. But Johannes did not invite her in, and said that he wished to be alone. And she, half surmising the truth, and distressed about it, did not insist.
Then, among his treasures, Johannes found a pair of compasses – a large pair, one arm of which could be loosened for the attachment of a tracing-pen. And that single, loosened compass-arm was a shining, three-cornered bit of steel, about a finger long, and as sharp as a lancet.
With some wood and leather he contrived a handle for that bit of steel, and then he had a dagger – a real, wicked, dangerous dagger.
Apparently he did this merely to pass away the time, but after it was finished he began to think what could be done with it. Then what he wished to do with it. And at last how he should do it, if, indeed, he was to do it.
Thus, he was already a good bit on in an ugly way.
The octopus that he had defied so bravely had laid for him a trap of which he was not aware; for it has many more than eight arms, and there are many more demons than those whose acquaintance Johannes had already made.
He was going to step up to Van Lieverlee and say to him, "You or I." And if Van Lieverlee should then laugh at him, as he most likely would, he would stab him to death.
Such thoughts as that actually took possession of Little Johannes' head; for, I have told you, indeed, that Love is nothing to be ridiculed. Fortunately, a wide gulf yawns between thought and deed, otherwise there would be a great many more accidents upon this earth.
It was already past midnight, and he still sat pottering and burnishing and sharpening, when he heard again the creaking of the stair, that he now instantly recognized, and Marjon's step at the door.
She opened the door, and Johannes looked into her distended, anguished eyes. Her blonde hair fell straight and free over her shoulders, and her long white night-dress reached down to her bare feet.
"What are you doing, Jo?" she asked. "You make me so anxious! What has happened? Where have you been the whole long day? Why do you eat nothing? And why are you still sitting up, with a light, till after midnight?"
Startled and distressed, Johannes made no reply. The dagger was still in his hand. He tried to hide it, without being observed, under his handkerchief. But Marjon saw it, and asked excitedly:
"What is that?"
"Nothing," said Johannes, in shame and confusion, like a detected child.
Marjon snatched away the handkerchief, and looked from the shining little object to Johannes with an expression of mingled pain and fright.
In silence they looked into each other's eyes a long time – Marjon with a searching, beseeching gaze, until Johannes lowered his lids and let his head droop.
"Who is it for?" she whispered. "Yourself?"
Without speaking or looking up, Johannes shook his head. Marjon sighed deeply, as if relieved.
"For whom, then?" again she asked. "For … him?"
Johannes nodded. Then she said:
"Poor Jo!"
That sounded strangely to him, for when irritated one is not apt to be compassionate toward others nor toward one's self. He thought, rather, to find abhorrence of his blood-thirsty plan. But she said it so sincerely and fervently that he began to weaken, although not to the point of crying.
"You will not do it, will you? It would not help at all. And you would … you would make me so frightfully unhappy."
"I cannot endure it, Marjon – I cannot endure it!"
Marjon kneeled down by the table, and rested her chin in her hands. Her clear, true eyes were now looking steadily at Johannes, and as she spoke they grew more tranquil. Johannes continued to look at her with the irresolute expression of one in despair who yet hoped for deliverance.
"Poor Jo!" repeated Marjon. And then, slowly, with frequent pauses, she said: "Do you know why I can speak so?.. I know exactly how you feel. I have felt that way, too. I did not think that this would be the way of it – the way it now is. I only thought, 'She is going to have him, not I.' And then I too said, 'It cannot —cannot be!' But yet it might have been. And now you say, 'It cannot be.' But it can, just the same."
Here she waited a while, and Johannes looked at her more attentively, and with less irresolution.
"And now listen, Jo. You want to stab that prig, don't you? And you well know that I never had any liking for him. But now let me tell you that I myself, for days and for weeks, have wanted to do the same thing."
"What!" exclaimed Johannes, in astonishment.
Marjon hid her face and said: "It is the truth, Jo. Not him, of course, but … but her."
"You do not mean it, Marjon," said Johannes, indignantly.
"I am in earnest, Jo. I am not even sure whether I came into her service for that very reason, or for a better one."
"My God! How frightful!" exclaimed Johannes, deeply moved.
"There you are – alarmed and probably angry. Naturally you think her lovely, and are fond of her. And I am ashamed of myself – heartily ashamed."
Again they were silent, and in both those young heads were many turbulent thoughts.
"And do you know what helped me most to give it up? Not fear of punishment, nor of judgment, for I dreaded nothing so much as, worst of all, that she might succeed in getting you. But it helped me when I thought how much you loved her, and how you would cry and suffer if you should see her lying dead."
Again they looked at each other, steadily and frankly, and their eyes were dimmed with tears. Then said Marjon:
"And now, Jo, think of this. I care nothing about that man, nor do you; and doubtless he would not be a great loss. But to her he would be, and indeed if you should kill him, you would bring it about that she would see him dead, and would have to cry. Do you wish to do that?"
Johannes' eyes opened wide, and he looked into the lamplight.
"Yes," said he, deliberately. "He deceives her and she deceives herself. He is altogether different from what she fancies."
Then Marjon, taking both hands from the table, and resting them upon Johannes' arm, said with rising voice:
"But Jo, Jo – indeed everything is different from what we think! Who can see just how and what people and things are? I thought that woman hateful, and you thought her lovely. You think that fellow odious, while she thinks him charming. Really, only the Father, knows how things are. Believe me, the Father only. We are poor, poor creatures. We know nothing – nothing."
Then, resting her head, with its fair, fine hair, upon his arm, she sobbed bitterly; and Johannes, now completely broken down and mollified, wept with her.
Then they heard a door open in the hall. Probably, in their agitation, they had been talking too loudly.
Marjon took flight. In a moment of less excitement she would have been too shrewd for that. Johannes did indeed quickly put out the light, but he saw, through the crack of the door, that some one with a candle was standing in the hall. There was a meeting, and Johannes overheard a brief exchange of angry words, in vehement, suppressed tones.
The last he understood was: "To-morrow morning you leave."
XIV
About the time all this was taking place, something else occurred which most of you will readily recall. It happened at the time the King and Queen were married.
That was a time of many processions, when arches of honor were erected in all the squares, and when there arose, everywhere, the peculiar odor of spruce-boughs and of burning illuminants.
And the life of the King and Queen was far different from that of Little Johannes. They had to be decked often with beautiful clothes, and then as often to be undressed, to parade, to sit in state, to listen to wearisome harangues, to live through long dinners, and to be forever bowing and smiling. Such was their life.
To Johannes all this excitement and these joyful festivities seemed but a motley background against which his own sombre trouble was all the more sharply in relief. Although everybody was concerned about the King and Queen, and no one at all about Little Johannes, he yet found himself and his own sorrow none the less important.
You are aware that these festivities lasted for several weeks, and took place in every town in the land. In the evening of the day about which I last told you, there was a great display of fireworks on the beach, and Johannes, with the entire household, went to see it.
And there, in the midst of all that crowding and shouting, he had, for the first time, a chance to speak with the beloved friend who had caused him so much suffering. Marjon he had not seen, and he knew not if she was gone; but the countess seemed as friendly and as cheerful as ever, and she had not questioned him.
On the terrace from which they watched the golden columns rush skyward with a hiss, and the "pin-wheels" sizzle and fizz, accompanied by the "a-a-a-ahs!" of admiration from the dark, moving mass of people – there, he ventured in an undertone to speak to her.
"What did you really think of me yesterday, Mevrouw?"
"Well," replied the countess, rather coldly, continuing to look at the fireworks, "you have not come up to my expectations, Johannes."
"What do you mean? Why not?" asked Johannes, sick at heart.
"Oh, you know very well. I was aware that you had plain connections, and were not descended from a distinguished family; but I hoped to make that good, in some degree, through my own influence. Yet I had not thought you so ordinary as that."
"But what do you mean?"
The lady cast a disdainful glance upon him.
"Would you care to hear it spoken, word for word? Liaisons, then – with inferiors. And at your age, too. How could you?"
In a flash Johannes comprehended.
"Oh, Mevrouw – but you mistake – completely. I am not in the least enamored of that girl, but formerly she was my little comrade, and she thinks a great deal of me. She saw that I was unhappy yesterday, and then she came to sympathize with me."
"Sympathize?" asked the countess, hesitatingly, and not without irony, of which Johannes, however, was unconscious.
"Yes, Mevrouw. But for her, I should have done desperate things. She prevented me. She is a brave girl."
Then he told her still more of Marjon.
Countess Dolores believed him, and became more friendly. In that caressing voice which had caused Johannes so much unhappiness, and which even now completely fascinated him, she asked:
"And why were you so desperate, my boy?"
"Do you not understand? It was because of what you told me yesterday."
She understood well enough, and Johannes thought it charming in her to be willing to listen so kindly. But although she felt flattered she pretended not to know what he meant – as if such an idea were unthinkable.
"But how can that make you feel so desperate, my boy? I have not said, however, that you must leave my house on account of it."
"If that should take place, Mevrouw, do you fancy that I could remain with you? Did you think I could endure that? But it is not going to be, is it? It was only a jest. Tell me that it was! You were only teasing me! Tell me that you were only teasing me!"
It was all too clear now, and she could dissemble no longer. Half in kindness, half in compassion, she said:
"But, my boy, my boy, what has got into your head?"
Johannes rested his hand on her arm, and asked, imploringly:
"You were not in earnest, were you?"
But she freed her arm gently, saying:
"Yes, Johannes, I was in earnest."
And now he knew that he was hoping against hope.
"Is there no hope for me?"
The countess smilingly shook her head.
"No, dear boy, not the least. Put the thought quite away from you."
The last of the rockets rushed up with a startling hiss, to burst in the black sky with a soft puff, and expire in a shower of brilliant sparks. Then it was all over. The band played "Wilhelmus of Nassau," and the dark throng surged and pressed more vehemently, while on all sides the street-boys whistled shrilly and shouted to one another: "J-a-a-a-n!" and "Gerrèt!"
Johannes, stunned by renewed pain, passed on through the cheering like one deafened and stupefied.
His hostess, now full of sympathy, said:
"Do you remember, Johannes, what we promised Father Canisius? He was to teach you who Jesus is, was he not? Will you go to church with me to-morrow? That will best console you."
A wicked thought passed through Johannes' head. He wished to ask a question, but he could not utter the hated name.
"Is any one else going?"
"Yes, the man to whom I am engaged. He also is now convinced that peace is only to be found in the Holy Church. He is Catholic, as are myself and my children."
Johannes said not another word that evening; but he slept more peacefully than the night before.
