The old man felt again, deeply, that proximity to the miraculous the idea of which, whether divine or earthly, had obsessed him for weeks. But he knew that he stood outside a dark, closed gate, from which he must humbly turn away again, merely leaving a reverent kiss on the forbidden threshold. He picked up a brush to work, and so chase away ideas that were already lost in clouded gloom. However, when he looked to see how close his copy came to reality, he was spellbound for a moment. He felt as if all his searching so far had been in a world hung about with veils, although he did not know it, and only now that they were removed did its power and extravagance burn before him. The picture he had wanted was coming to life. With shining eyes and clutching hands, the healthy, happy child turned to the light that poured its soft radiance over his naked body. And above that playful face was a second, tenderly bent over the child, and itself full of the radiance cast by that bright little body. Esther held her slender, childish hands on both sides of the baby to protect and avert all misfortune from him. And above her head was a fleeting light caught in her hair and seeming to shine out of it from within. Gentle movement united with moving light, unconsciousness joined dreaming memory, they all came together in a brief and beautiful image, airy and made of translucent colours, an image that could be shattered by a moment’s abrupt movement.
The old man looked at the couple as if at a vision. The swift play of light seemed to have brought them together, and as if in distant dreams he thought of the Italian master’s almost forgotten picture and its divine serenity. Once again he felt as if he heard the call of God. But this time he did not lose himself in dreams, he put all his strength into the moment. With vigorous strokes, he set down the play of the girl’s childish hands, the gentle inclination of her bent head, her attitude no longer harsh. It was as if, although the moment was transitory, he wanted to preserve it for ever. He felt creative power in him like hot young blood. His whole life was in flux and flow, light and colour flowed into that moment, forming and holding his painting hand. And as he came closer to the secret of divine power and the unlimited abundance of life than ever before, he did not think about its signs and miracles, he lived them out by creating them himself.
The game did not last long. The child at last got tired of constantly snatching at the light, and Esther was surprised to see the old man suddenly working with feverish haste, his cheeks flushed. His face showed the same visionary light as in the days when he had talked to her about God and his many miracles, and she felt fervent awe in the presence of a mind that could lose itself so entirely in worlds of creation. And in that overwhelming feeling she lost the slight sense of shame she had felt, thinking that the painter had taken her by surprise at the moment when she was entirely fulfilled by the sight of the child. She saw only the abundance of life, and its sublime variety allowed her to feel again the awe that she had first known when the painter showed her pictures of distant, unknown people, cities as lovely as a dream, lush landscapes. The deprivations of her own life, the monotony of her intellectual experience took on colour from the sound of what was strange and the magnificence of what was distant. And a creative longing of her own burnt deep in her soul, like a hidden light burning in darkness.
That day was a turning point in the history of Esther and the picture. The shadows had fallen away from her. Now she walked fast, stepping lightly, to those hours in the studio that seemed to pass so quickly; they strung together a whole series of little incidents each of which was significant to her, for she did not know the true value of life and thought herself rich with the little copper coins of unimportant events. Imperceptibly, the figure of the old man retreated into the background of her mind by comparison with the baby’s helpless little pink body. Her hatred had turned to a wild and almost greedy affection, such as girls often feel for small children and little animals. Her whole being was poured into watching and caressing him; unconsciously and in a passionate game, she was living out a woman’s most sublime dream, the dream of motherhood. The purpose of her visits to the studio eluded her. She came, sat down in the big armchair with the healthy little baby, who soon recognised her and would laugh back at her, and began her ardent flirtation with him, quite forgetting that she was here for the sake of the picture, and that she had once felt this naked child was nothing but a nuisance. That time seemed as far away as one of the countless deceptive dreams that she used to spin in her long hours in the dark, dismal alley; their fabric dissolved at the first cautious breath of a wind of reality. Only in those hours at the studio did she now seem to live, not in the time she spent at home or the night into which she plunged to sleep. When her fingers held the baby’s plump little hands, she felt that this was not an empty dream. And the smile for her in his big blue eyes was not a lie. It was life, and she drank it in with an avidity for abundance that was a rich, unconscious part of her heritage, and also a need to give of herself, a feminine longing before she was a woman yet. This game already had in it the seed of deeper longing and deeper joy. But it was still only a flirtatious dance of affection and admiration, playful charm and foolish dream. She cradled the baby like a child cuddling her doll, but she dreamt as women and mothers dream—sweetly, lovingly, as if in some boundless distant space.
The old man felt the change with all the fullness of his wise heart. He sensed that he was further from her now, but not stranger, and that he was not at the centre of her wishes but left to one side, like a pleasant memory. And he was glad of this change, much as he also loved Esther, for he saw young, strong, kind instincts in her which, he hoped, would do more than his own efforts to break through the defiance and reserve of the nature she had inherited. He knew that her love for him, an old man at the end of his days, was wasteful, although it could bring blessing and promise to her young life.
He owed wonderful hours to the love for the child that had awakened in Esther. Images of great beauty formed before him, all expressing a single idea and yet all different. Soon it was an affectionate game—his sketches showed Esther playing with the child, still a child herself in her unbounded delight, they showed flexible movements without harshness or passion, mild colours blending gently, the tender merging of tender forms. And then again there were moments of silence when the child had fallen asleep on her soft lap, and Esther’s little hands watched over him like two hovering angels, when the tender joy of possession lit in her eyes, and a silent longing to wake the sleeping face with loving play. Then again there were seconds when the two pairs of eyes, hers and the baby’s, were drawn to each other unconsciously, unintentionally, each seeking the other in loving devotion. Again, there were moments of charming confusion when the child’s clumsy hands felt for the girl’s breast, expecting to find his mother’s milk there. Esther’s cheeks would flush bashfully at that, but she felt no fear now, no reluctance, only a shy surge of emotion that turned to a happy smile.
These days were the creative hours that went into the picture. The painter made it out of a thousand touches of tenderness, a thousand loving, blissful, fearful, happy, ardent maternal glances. A great work full of serenity was coming into being. It was plain and simple—just a child playing and a girl’s head gently bending down. But the colours were milder and clearer than he had ever painted colours before, and the forms stood out as sharply and distinctly as dark trees against the glow of an evening sky. It was as if there must be some inner light hidden in the picture, shedding that secret brightness, as if air blew in it more softly, caressingly and clearly than in any other earthly work. There was nothing supernatural about it, and yet it showed the mystical mind of the man who had created it. For the first time the old man felt that in his long and busy creative life he had always been painting, brushstroke after brushstroke, some being of which he really knew nothing. It was like the old folk tale of the magical imps who do their work in hiding, yet so industriously that people marvel in the morning to see all they did overnight. That was how the painter felt when, after moments of creative inspiration, he stepped back fro
m the picture and looked critically at it. Once again the idea of a miracle knocked on the door of his heart, and this time he hardly hesitated to let it in. For this work seemed to him not only the flower of his entire achievement, but something more distant and sublime of which his humble work was not worthy, although it was also the crown of his artistic career. Then his cheerful creativity would die away and turn to a strange mood when he felt fear of his own work, no longer daring to see himself in it.
So he distanced himself from Esther, who now seemed to him only the means of expressing the earthly miracle that he had worked. He showed her all his old kindness, but once again his mind was full of the pious dreams that he had thought far away. The simple power of life suddenly seemed to him so wonderful. Who could give him answers? The Bible was old and sacred, but his heart was earthly and still bound to this life. Where could he ask whether the wings of God descended to this world? Were there signs of God still abroad today, or only the ordinary miracles of life?
The old man did not venture to wish for the answer, although he had seen strange things during his life. But he was no longer as sure of himself as in the old days when he believed in life and in God, and did not stop to wonder which of them was really true. Every evening he carefully covered up the picture, because once recently, on coming home to see silver moonlight resting on it like a blessing, he felt as if the Mother of God herself had shown him her face, and he could almost have thrown himself down in prayer before the work of his own hands.
Something else, however, happened at this time in Esther’s life, nothing in itself strange or unlikely, but it affected the depths of her being like a rising storm and left her trembling in pain that she did not understand. She was experiencing the mystery of maturity, turning from a child into a woman. She was bewildered, since no one had taught her anything about it in advance; she had gone her own strange way alone between deep darkness and mystical light. Now longing awoke in her and did not know where to turn. The defiance that used to make her avoid playing with other children or speaking an unnecessary word burnt like a dark curse at this time. She did not feel the secret sweetness of the change in her, the promise of a seed not yet ready to come to life, only a dull, mysterious pain that she had to bear alone. In her ignorance, she saw the legends and miracles of which the old painter had spoken like lights leading her astray, while her dreams followed them through the most unlikely of possibilities. The story of the mild woman whose picture she had seen, the girl who became a mother after a wonderful Annunciation, suddenly struck her with almost joyful fear. She dared not believe it, because she had heard many other things that she did not understand. However, she thought that some miracle must be taking place inside her because she felt so different in every way, the world and everyone in it also suddenly seemed so different, deeper, stranger, full of secret urges. It all appeared to come together into an inner life trying to get out, then retreating again. There was some common factor at work; she did not know where it lay, but it seemed to hold everything that had once been separate together. She herself felt a force that was trying to take her out into life, to other human beings, but it did not know where to turn, and left behind only that urgent, pressing, tormenting pain of unspent longing and unused power.
In these hours when she was overwhelmed by desperation and needed some kind of support to cling to, Esther tried something that she had thought impossible before. She spoke to her foster father. Until now she had instinctively avoided him, because she felt the distance between them. But now she was driven over that threshold. She told him all about it, and talked about the picture, she looked deep into herself to find something gleaned from those hours that could be useful to her. And the landlord, visibly pleased to hear of the change in her, patted her cheeks with rough kindness and listened. Sometimes he put in a word, but it was as casual and impersonal as the way he spat out tobacco. Then he told her, in his own clumsy fashion, what had just happened to her. Esther listened, but it was no use. He didn’t know what else to say to her and didn’t even try. Nothing seemed to touch him except outwardly, there was no real sympathy between them, and his words suggested an indifference that repelled her. She knew now what she had only guessed before—people like him could never understand her. They might live side by side, but they did not know each other; it was like living in a desert. And in fact she thought her foster father was the best of all those who went in and out of this dismal tavern, because he had a certain rough plainness about him that could turn to kindness.
However, this disappointment could not daunt the power of her longings, and they all streamed back towards the two living beings she knew who spanned the morning and evening of human life. She desperately counted the lonely night hours still separating her from morning, and then she counted the morning hours separating her from her visit to the painter. Her ardent longings showed in her face. And once out in the street she abandoned herself entirely to her passion like a swimmer plunging into a foaming torrent, and raced through the hurrying crowd, stopping only when, with flushed face and untidy hair, she reached the door of the house she longed to see. In this time of the change in her, she was overcome by an instinctive urge to make free, passionate gestures, and it gave her a wild and desirable beauty.
That greedy, almost desperate need for affection made her prefer the baby to the old man, in whose friendly kindness there was a serenity that rejected stormy passion. He knew nothing about the feminine change in Esther, but he guessed it from her demeanour, and her sudden ecstatic transports made him uneasy. Sensing the nature of the elemental urge driving her on, he did not try to rein it in. Nor did he lose his fatherly love for this lonely child, although his mind had gone back to contemplation of the abstract interplay of the secret forces of life. He was glad to see her, and tried to keep her with him. The picture was in fact finished, but he did not tell Esther so, not wishing to part her from the baby on whom she lavished such affection. Now and then he added a few brushstrokes, but they were minor details—the design of a fold, a slight shading in the background, a fleeting nuance added to the play of light. He dared not touch the real idea behind the picture any more, for the magic of reality had slowly retreated, and he thought the dual aspect of the painting conveyed the spiritual nature of the wonderful creativity that now, as the memory of his execution of it faded, seemed to him less and less like the work of earthly powers. Any further attempt at improvement, he thought, would be not only folly but a sin. And he made up his mind that after this work, in which his hand had clearly been guided, he would do no more paintings, for they could only be lesser works, but spend his days in prayer and in searching for a way to reach those heights whose golden evening glow had rested on him in these late hours of his life.
With the fine instinct that the orphaned and rejected harbour in their hearts, like a secret network of sensitive fibres encompassing everything said and unsaid, Esther sensed the slight distance that the old man who was so dear to her had placed between them, and his mild tenderness, which was still the same, almost distressed her. She felt that at this moment she needed his whole attention and the free abundance of his love so that she could tell him all that was in her heart, all that now troubled it, and ask for answers to the riddles around her. She waited for the right moment to let out the words to express her mental turmoil, but the waiting was endless and tired her out. So all her affection was bent on the child. Her love concentrated on that helpless little body; she would catch the baby up and smother him with warm kisses so impetuously, forgetting his vulnerability, that she hurt him and he began to cry. Then she was less fiercely loving, more protective and reassuring, but even her anxieties were a kind of ecstasy, just as her feelings were not truly maternal, but more of a surge of longing erotic instincts dimly sensed. A force was trying to emerge in her, and her ignorance led her to turn it on the child. She was living out a dream, in a painful dazed state; she clung convulsively to the baby because he had a warm, beating heart, like hers, because she
could lavish all the tenderness in her on his silent lips, because with him, unconsciously longing for a human touch, she could clasp another living creature without fearing the shame that came over her if she said a single word to a stranger. She spent hours and hours like that, never tiring, and never realising how she was giving herself away.
For her, all the life for which she longed so wildly was now contained in the child. These were dark times, growing even darker, but she never noticed. The citizens of Antwerp gathered in the evenings and talked of the old liberties and good King Charles, who had loved his land of Flanders so much, with regret and secret anger. There was unrest in the city. The Protestants were secretly uniting. Rabble who feared the daylight assembled, as ominous news arrived from Spain. Minor skirmishes and clashes with the soldiers became more frequent, and in this uneasy, hostile atmosphere the first flames of war and rebellion flared up. Prudent people began to look abroad, others consoled and reassured themselves as well as they could, but the whole country was in a state of fearful expectation, and it was reflected in all faces. At the tavern, the men sat together in corners talking in muted voices, while the landlord spoke of the horrors of war, and joked in his rough way, but no one felt like laughing. The carefree cheerfulness of easy-going folk was extinguished by fear and restless waiting.