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The flames in the stove sent huge, elongated shadows like black ghosts flitting over the walls and ceiling in the darkened room. Wavering gleams were to be seen on an antique silver jug, on the carved edge of a sideboard looming dark and massive at the back, and on the various decorative plates and mugs displayed on the walls.
Vincent Vere reclined on his couch, watching the shadow play through half-closed eyes. The prevailing gloom shot through with that strange ruddy glow was agreeable to him, and made him forget the dinginess of his rented rooms in Spuistraat, where the shabby, bourgeois aspect was relieved only by the few personal valuables that accompanied him on his travels. He lay musing a while in the Dantesque twilight.
The last few days he had been overcome with fatigue. He was barely able to move; he felt as though there were tepid water running through his veins instead of blood, as if some sort of fog descended on his brain from time to time, robbing him of the ability to think. His veined eyelids drooped over his lacklustre, pale-blue eyes, and his lower lip was slack, thereby imparting a suggestion of suffering to his small mouth. The feeling was not new to him, but this time he blamed the atmosphere of The Hague, which he found stifling. He yearned for more space and more air, and could not imagine what had induced him to seek quarters in a city that had never held any attraction for him. Yes, he could recall, through the haze of his exhaustion, looking forward to a period of rest after his extended travels, but already he felt a nervous flickering of desire to plunge anew into the maelstrom of change. Rest and regularity had a numbing effect on him, and despite his weakness he found himself wishing for movement, for action, for ever-changing horizons. Although he lacked the energy to devote himself to any kind of employment with due determination, his capricious temperament kept driving him onwards in his fruitless search for new alliances and new circles that might be congenial to him.
The fortnight he had now spent in The Hague seemed to him like a century of tedium. The day after meeting Betsy and Eline at the opera he had called at the Van Raats at coffee hour, and had asked Henk for a loan of five hundred guilders, saying he was expecting some money to arrive from Brussels any day, and would repay his debt at the very first opportunity. Henk took this promise from his wife’s cousin with a pinch of salt, but did not like to refuse him, and consequently handed over the requested sum. So now Vincent was surviving on borrowed money, which he allowed to trickle through his fingers like water one day only to cling on to it with parsimonious economy the next, while the cheques from Brussels failed to materialise.
He was little concerned about the future; he had always lived from day to day, having known times of luxury in Smyrna and times of privation in Paris and London, but whatever his circumstances, he had always been spurred on by that feverish desire for change. But for the time being, faced with having to get by on five hundred guilders, he was so out of sorts that the burden of his weakness tended to be outweighed by a sheer lack of energy.
Thus his thoughts drifted on as he stared into the semi-darkness, where the ruddy glow from the stove made the furniture stand out in ghostly relief, as befitting his pessimistic frame of mind. Why bother to make plans? Once the money ran out, which would be soon, he would see his way to obtaining some more one way or another, and what was wrong with that? Notions of good and evil had no relevance in the real world, things just happened to be the way they were, as the inevitable result of a sequence of causes and effects, everything that was had a right to be; no one could alter that which was, or was to be; no one had free will; everyone had a different temperament, and it was that individual temperament, subject to environment and circumstance, that governed one’s actions. That was the truth, people were always trying to fudge things up with a mixture of childish idealism and hogwash about goodness, and, as often as not, a smattering of pious poetry thrown in for good measure.
‘My God, how miserable life is!’ he thought, holding his head in his hands while his fingers toyed with the light brown curls at his neck. ‘The life I’m leading now, anyway. If it goes on like this I’ll be either insane or dead within the year. Tomorrow will the same as today: dull, dreary and boring.’
He plunged into a sea of remembrance, revisiting the various countries and cities of his past, ruminating on his experiences.
‘And yet, all that wasted effort!’ he muttered under his breath, and his eyelids drooped as he felt the fog descending on his memory again. Beads of perspiration formed on his brow, his ears rang, and in his mind’s eye he saw a fearful space, inconceivably vast, stretching away before him.
But this debility, bordering on a swoon, lasted only a second or two. A deep sigh rose from his chest, and he came to himself.
. .
Rapid steps sounded on the stairs, and a cheery voice could be heard exchanging a word of greeting with the girl in the haberdashers shop downstairs. He was expecting a few acquaintances to call.
The door opened. .
‘Good grief! It looks like a scene from hell in here, with that fire blazing in the dark. Where are you, Vere?’ cried Paul van Raat from the doorway.
Vincent rose from the couch and stepped forward; he put his hands on Paul’s shoulders.
‘Here I am, old chap, have no fear. . Wait, I’ll light the lamp.’
He cast around for matches, lit two old-fashioned paraffin lamps on the mantelpiece, and for an instant was blinded by the abrupt yellow glare. The Dantesque illusion was dispelled, leaving a dingy room in which the only note of cheer was the brightly burning stove; the antique sideboard bearing the silver jug and a few oriental objects looked sorely out of place beside the shabby armchairs upholstered in Utrecht velveteen, just as the antique prints on the wall struck a jarringly aristocratic note among the cheap engravings and common chromolithographs.
It was Paul’s first visit to Vincent’s rooms, and his attention was caught by the silver jug and the porcelain plates, which he pronounced to be admirable.
‘Yes, they’re quite good in their own way. Actually, the jug leaks, but the workmanship is very fine, as you can see. I went to an antique dealer today, an old Jew, to see if I could sell them. They’re just dead weight, really. He said he’d come by tomorrow. Or would you be interested? They’re yours for the taking.’
‘No, my room, or my studio if you will, is too full already.’
‘Come on, a few more plates won’t do any harm.’
‘No, thanks.’
‘All right; I’d rather sell them to the Jew anyway. I’ll get the better of him if I can, you know, and with you I’d naturally be too honest to do anything like that.’
‘Much obliged. And suppose he’s sharper than you are?’
‘Well, then he’ll get the better of me, that’s all. All in a day’s work, eh? You have had tea, I suppose?’
‘Yes. No need to put yourself out,’ said Paul as they both sat down. ‘But tell me, how long are you planning to stay in The Hague?’
Vincent raised his shoulders and his eyebrows. He really could not say; he had not yet made enquiries about the position with the quinine farm on Java, but he had heard that they would give preference to a chemist, which he was not. So he would most likely give up on that idea, and besides, he wasn’t so sure the East Indian climate would agree with him. On the other hand, staying in The Hague, finding something here, was out of the question. He was already getting bored, The Hague was such a backwater, everyone knew everyone else, at least by sight, and one ran into the same people all the time — too dull for words! He had not yet made up his mind what he would do, but first he had to wait for some letters and cheques from Brussels. And he concluded by asking Paul whether he could lend him a hundred guilders for a few days. Paul thought that would be all right, but could not yet say for certain.