Louis Couperus - The Hidden Force

While they rocked around the table, they saw him approaching through the garden and every woman’s eyes were trained on him as on a young seducer arriving in the sunshine, which was like a radiant garland around him. The dowager radèn-ayu smiled and looked at her youngest son with love, her favourite. Behind her, squatting on the ground, the golden foster-child peered wide-eyed; the sisters peered, the nieces peered, Doddy peered, and Léonie van Oudijck’s milk-white complexion was tinged with a pink shade that merged with the glow of her smile. Automatically she glanced at Theo and their eyes met. And these souls that were all burning love — their eyes, mouths, flesh — understood each other, and Theo’s jealousy blazed so fiercely in her direction that the pink shade faded and she turned pale and was afraid, with a sudden unreasoning, shuddering fear that pierced her usual indifference, while the Seducer, in his halo of sunshine, came closer and closer…

MRS VAN OUDIJCK had promised to stay on for a few days in Pajaram, and in fact she was rather apprehensive, not feeling quite at home in these old-fashioned Indies surroundings. But when Addy appeared, she changed her mind. Deep in her heart this woman worshipped her sensuality, as if in the temple of her selfishness this milky-white Creole woman sacrificed all the intimacy of her rose-tinted imagination to her unquenchable desire, and in that worship she had arrived at an art, a knowledge, a science, of ascertaining with a single glance what attracted her in any man who was approaching her, who walked past her. With one it was his bearing, his voice; with another it was the curve of his neck on his shoulders; in a third it was his hand on his knee; but whatever it was, she saw it at once, at a glance. She knew instantly, in a trice. She had weighed up the passer-by in a fraction of a second and she knew at once whom she rejected — and that was the majority — and those she deemed worthy — and they were many. And those whom she rejected in that split second in her own supreme court, with that one glance, in that one instant, could abandon all hope: she, the priestess, would never admit them to the temple. For others the temple was open, but only behind the screen of her decorum. However shameless she might be, she was always decorous, and love was always secret; for the world she was nothing but the charming, smiling Commissioner’s wife, somewhat indolent, who won everyone over with her smile. When people did not see her, they spoke ill of her; once they saw her, she immediately captivated them. Among all those with whom she had shared the secret of her love, there existed a kind of freemasonry, a mysterious cult: whenever two of them met in passing they would exchange no more than a few whispered words about the same memory. And Léonie, milky-white, could sit calmly in a large circle around a marble table where at least two or three men had been initiated into the secret. It did not ruffle her composure or dim her smile. She smiled ad nauseam. She would barely glance from one to the other, while she briefly reappraised them, with her infallible judgement. She had scarcely any recollection of past time spent with them, scarcely any thought of the next day’s assignation. It was the secret that existed only in the mystery of intimacy, and was therefore never divulged in the profane world. If in the circle a foot sought to touch hers, she would withdraw hers. She never flirted, indeed she was sometimes rather dull, stiff, prim and smiling. In the freemasonry between the initiates and herself, she revealed the mystery, but in the eyes of the world, in the circles round the marble tables, she did not give so much as a glance, a handshake, and her dress did not so much as approach a trouser leg.

She had been bored during these days at Pajaram after accepting the invitation to the milling celebrations, which she had declined in previous years, but now that she saw Addy approaching, she was no longer bored. Of course she had known him for years and had seen him grow from a child to a boy to a man, and she had even kissed him occasionally as a boy. She had been weighing him up for a long time, the Seducer. But now he approached with his halo of sunshine, she appraised him once more: his handsome, slim, animal quality and the glow of his Seducer’s eyes in the shadowy brown of his young Moor’s face, the curling swell of his lips, made just for kissing, with the young down of his moustache, the tigerish strength and suppleness of his Don Juan’s limbs. It all blazed out at her and made her blink. As he said hello and sat down, scattering cheerful words round the circle filled with languorous conversation and sleepy thoughts — as if showering a handful of his sunshine, his gold dust, over them all, over all those women: his mother and sisters and nieces and Doddy and Léonie — Léonie looked at him, just as they all looked at him, and her gaze moved to his hands. She could have kissed those hands; she suddenly fell in love with the shape of his fingers, with the brown tigerish strength of his palms. She fell instantly in love with all the wild animal quality that exuded from the young man’s every pore like a scent of virility. She could feel her blood pulsing, scarcely controllable, despite her great skill at remaining cool and decorous in the circles round the marble tables. But she was no longer bored. She had an aim for the next few days. Yet…her blood was pulsing so violently that Theo had seen her blush and the trembling of her eyelids. Loving her as he did, his eyes had seen right through her. And when they went for the rijsttafel on the back veranda, where the maids were already squatting to grind everyone’s hot spices according to the individual tastes, he shot just two words at her under his breath:

“Be careful!”

She started, feeling he was threatening her. That had never happened before; all those who had shared in the mystery had always shown her respect. She was so shocked, so indignant at that touching of the temple curtain — on a veranda full of people — that her calm indifference was set churning and her eternally carefree tranquillity was roused to revolt. But she looked at him — blond, broad-shouldered, tall, a younger version of her husband, his Indies blood revealing itself only in the sensuality of his mouth — and she did not want to lose him: she wanted to keep this type of man alongside the Moorish Seducer. She wanted them both; she wanted to savour the difference between their male attraction, the Dutch blond-and-white kind with the merest trace of Indies blood, and Addy’s feral attraction. Her soul trembled, her blood trembled, as the long succession of dishes circulated ceremoniously. She was in more turmoil than she had ever been. Awakening from her placid indifference was like a rebirth, an unknown emotion. She found it bewildering to be thirty, and to feel it for the first time. A feverish wickedness blossomed in her, like the overpowering scent of red flowers. She looked at Doddy sitting next to Addy; the poor child could scarcely eat, she was aglow with love… Oh, the Seducer, he had only to appear!.. And Léonie, in her fever of wickedness, rejoiced at being the rival of her much younger stepdaughter… She would look after her, she would even warn Van Oudijck. Would it ever come to a marriage? What did marriage matter to her, Léonie?! Oh, the Seducer! She had never dreamt of him so in her pink siesta hours! This was not the charm of cherubs, this was the pungent smell of tiger-like attraction; the golden sparkle of his eyes, the muscular suppleness of his prowling paws… And she smiled at Theo with a look of self-surrender: a great rarity among the circle of people eating their rice. Normally she never gave herself away in public. Now she yielded for a second, happy that Theo was jealous. She was passionately fond of him. She loved the fact that he looked pale and angry with jealousy. Around her, the sunny afternoon glowed and the sambal was irritating her dry palate. There were small beads of sweat on her temples, and on her breasts under the lace of her jacket. She would have liked to hug them both at once, Theo and Addy, in a single embrace, in a mixture of different sorts of lust, clutching them both to a body made for love…