Eline was beside herself. Her nerves were strung to their highest tension, quivering under Betsy’s vituperations. What Betsy had said about her and Otto, and especially about her sympathy for Vincent, which she thought she had kept hidden from everyone, filled her with helpless rage. She gripped Betsy’s wrists and, hissing between her teeth, shrilled out:
‘Shut up! Stop it, I tell you! Don’t you dare lecture me about Otto, or Vincent for that matter, or I’ll slap you. You’re horrible. I’ve had as much as I can take of your aggravation! I warn you!’
‘Eline, have you taken leave of your senses?’ cried Betsy, but Eline stood where she was, shaking her fists.
‘Yes, you drive me mad with all your aggravation about “my house, my house”! I am well aware it’s your house I’m living in, but I never asked to come here, and you keep harping on the fact that it’s your house as if I ought to thank you for taking me in. I don’t depend on you for anything, and even if I am living under your roof, that doesn’t give you any say in what I do or don’t do. I’m free, free to do as I please.’
‘No you are not. You are here, in my house, and you must conduct yourself accordingly. And if you cannot, then it is up to me to try to do something about it.’
Betsy had left the door open when she came in, and their shouting reverberated through the whole house, almost drowning out the rattling of the shutters in the storm. Henk appeared in the doorway, but was unable to make himself heard over the din.
‘You have nothing to say about how I should or should not behave!’ shrieked Eline. ‘I’m free, I tell you! I don’t need your house, and I swear to you that I shan’t stay here for another second! I swear it! You can stuff your precious house!’ She hardly knew what she was saying, having worked herself up into a paroxysm of fury, nor was she conscious of what she was doing when she snatched up her cloak off the floor and flung it about her shoulders. She made a dash for the door, but Henk stood in her path.
‘Eline!’ he began gravely.
‘Let me go, let me go!’ she raged like a wounded tigress, pushing him away with such force that he staggered back. He tried to stop her again, but she was already out of the door, flying down the stairs.
‘Eline! For God’s sake, Eline! You don’t know what you’re doing!’ he called, in hot pursuit. She was deaf to his cries, for there was only one thought in her mind: to flee from this house where she was not wanted, and she was blind to Gerard and the maids staring at her in blank amazement as she rushed through the vestibule, threw open the glass-panelled inner door and swiftly drew the bolt of the street door. A blast of wind caused the inner door to slam shut, and at her back she heard the shattered glass fall to the floor.
. .
Then the front door, too, slammed behind her, and she found herself in the street, in the driving rain with the gale blowing open her cloak and spitting at her face and neck. It was impossible for her to battle against that raging force, so she gave up and allowed herself to be propelled by the storm lashing her back like a gigantic vampire with broad, razor-sharp claws. She saw no one in the street, and as she ran ahead all alone in the doom-laden night, in the unrelenting, splashing downpour, buffeted by the gusting wind, she was seized with panic. She felt as if she had been wrenched from her familiar existence and hurled into a nightmare of disaster and despair; the rain was beating down on her bare head and she felt terror at the darkness enfolding her with calamity. The wind almost tore her cloak from her shoulders, numbing her with cold in her fluttering black tulle. Her dainty patent leather shoes went wading and splashing through puddles and mud, her dishevelled hair clung in dripping strands to her cheeks, and under her flapping cloak she felt an icy moisture gliding down her neck and shoulders. She no longer knew where she was, but hurried on regardless, shuddering with fright at each broken twig that came skittering her way, at each menacing rumble of loose roof tiles. And she saw no one, not a soul.
She was slow in coming back to reality: she had fled from her brother-in-law’s house! She wanted to stand still for a moment to reflect on this, but the blustering storm drove her forward as though she were one of the autumn leaves flying past her head. And she let herself be blown along, trying to gather her thoughts as she went. Despite the direness of her self-inflicted plight, she felt no remorse, but rather, to her astonishment, a flickering of pride at her own temerity. Never had she imagined herself capable of taking flight like this, in the middle of the night, without even knowing where she was going! Heartened by this surprise, she forced herself to apply her mind to the urgent matter at hand: she could not wander about aimlessly all night, she had to think of somewhere to go.
Suddenly she noticed that she had reached Laan Copes van Cattenburgh. Driven by the wind, she rushed headlong onwards over the slippery, muddy footpath, flinching from the boughs sighing overhead. The tree trunks creaked ominously, and she was terrified that one of them would topple over and crush her to death. She battled on regardless, summoning all her willpower to put some order in her thoughts. Where for the love of God should she go? She felt great staring eyes fixed on her in the darkness. Whom could she turn to? To old Madame van Raat? Oh, she might have been fond of Eline once, but now she was bound to take sides with her son and daughter-in-law! To the Verstraetens, then, who were her brother-in-law’s relatives? She felt herself sinking into a muddy abyss of despair. Otto loomed up in her mind, and she thought how willingly she would have traded the rest of her life just to have him appear at her side at this moment, to be drawn into his embrace, to be borne away to a safe place full of warmth, light and love. His name rose to her lips like a supplication, but her voice was drowned out by the storm. She was barely able to take another step, she was ready to let herself fall into the mud at her feet and lie there, lashed by the wind, until she died! But that would be a cowardly thing to do, while she had found the courage to follow her impulse to leave, and so she forced herself to focus on the question as to whom she could possibly turn to in her distress. Not to Madame van Raat — not to the Verstraetens, either — oh God, where should she go? Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning in that night of torment and dread, it came to her. Jeanne! In her mind’s eye she saw her old school friend’s sitting room in the cramped abode over the greengrocer’s shop. Yes, that’s where she would go! It was a last resort, but she could not think of anything better, and besides, her strength was failing her. So she turned to face the driving wind and, with faltering steps, fought to cross the square at Alexanderveld in the direction of Hugo de Grootstraat, clutching the collar of her cloak tightly about her neck, drenched to the skin and shivering with cold. On the far side of the green she could just see the backs of the houses on Nassauplein. There were still lights in a few windows, but she was too far away to distinguish which ones were Betsy’s — hers no longer — and a pang of longing and regret went through her at the realisation of what she had left behind. With a sinking feeling she calculated how much longer it would take her to reach the Ferelijns’ apartment. She was exhausted, exhausted from the quarrel with Betsy, from the unrelenting, icy rain striking her in the face, from the wind buffeting her from side to side, from her sodden patent leather shoes, heavy with mud and threatening to slip off at each step. She felt she was about to die of misery, desolation, hardship.