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Louis Couperus
The Later Life
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066141318
Table of Contents
Chapter II
Van der Welcke had dressed and breakfasted and, because he felt bored, took his bicycle and went for a long ride by himself. He was very often bored these days, now that Addie was working hard at the grammar-school. Without his boy, he seemed at once to have nothing to do, no object in life; he could see no reason for his existence. He would smoke endless cigarettes in his den, or go bicycling, or turn up once in a way at the Plaats, once in a way at the Witte; but he did not go to either of his clubs as often as he used to. He saw much less of his friends, his friends of former days, the men of birth and position who had all won fame in their respective spheres, though Van Vreeswijck continued his visits regularly, appreciating the cosy little dinners. Van der Welcke generally felt lonely and stranded, found his own company more and more boring from day to day; and it was only when he saw his boy come back from school that he cheered up, enjoyed life, was glad and lively as a child.
He loved the quick movement of it; and he cycled and cycled along the lonely, chill, windy country-roads, aiming at no destination, just pedalling away for the sake of speed, for the sake of covering the ground. If he were only rich: then he’d have a motor-car! There was nothing like a motor-car! A motor-car made up for this rotten, stodgy, boring life. To rush along the smooth roads in your car, to let her rip: tock, tock, tock, tock, tock-tock-tock-tock! Ha! … Ha! … That would be grand! Suppose his father were to make him a present of a car. … Ha! … Tock-tock-tock-tock! … And, as he spurted along, he suggested to himself the frantic orgy of speed of a puffing, snorting motor-car, the acrid stench of its petrol-fumes, the ready obedience of the pneumatic-tyred wheels while the car flew through the dust like a storm-chariot over the clouds. It made him poetic—tock-tock-tock-tock, tock-tock-tock-tock—but, as long as his father lived, he would never have enough money to buy himself a decent car!
Life was stodgy, rotten, boring. … If only Addie had finished school! But then … then he would have to go to the university … and into the diplomatic service. … No, no, the older his boy grew, the less he would see of him. … How wretched it all was: he did not know whether to wish that Addie was older or not! … To think, it wasn’t a year ago since the child used to sit on his knee, with his cheek against his father’s, his arm round his father’s neck; and Van der Welcke would feel that slight and yet sturdy frame against his heart; and now … now already he was a lad, a chap with a deep voice, who ruled his father with a rod of iron! Yes, Van der Welcke was simply ruled by him: there was no getting away from it! Suppose he wanted to stay and dine at the Witte that night: why the blazes shouldn’t he? And he knew as sure as anything that he wouldn’t! He would come home like a good little boy, because Addie had rather he did, because otherwise Addie would look upon it as a manifestation against Constance. … She too was coming back, after Addie had written that it really wouldn’t do, financially. She had run away like a madwoman, two months ago, after that pleasant business at the last Sunday-evening which they had spent at Mamma van Lowe’s, after the furious scene which she had made him, Van der Welcke, because he wanted to hit their brother-in-law, Van Naghel, in the face. Mind, it was for her, for his wife’s sake, that he wanted to hit Van Naghel in the face. For her sake, because that pompous ass had dared to say that he wasn’t keen on Constance calling on Bertha’s at-home day … but that in other respects they were brothers and sisters! The disgusting snob! That old woman, that non-entity, that rotter, that twopenny-halfpenny cabinet-minister, who had got on simply because old Van Lowe, in his day, had kicked him upstairs step by step!