initial commit of ebook 34761HEADmain

1 files changed, 11728 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/34761.txt b/old/34761.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..98a5589
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/34761.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11728 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Dr. Adriaan, by Louis Couperus, Translated by
+Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Dr. Adriaan
+
+
+Author: Louis Couperus
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 27, 2010  [eBook #34761]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. ADRIAAN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Christine Bell and Marc D'Hooghe
+(http://www.freeliterature.org)
+
+
+
+DR. ADRIAAN
+
+by
+
+LOUIS COUPERUS
+
+Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Dodd, Mead and Company
+1918
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
+
+_Dr. Adriaan_ is the fourth and last of the volumes forming _The Books
+of the Small Souls_. In it the reader renews his acquaintance with all
+the characters that survive from _Small Souls, The Later Life_ and _The
+Twilight of the Souls._
+
+                                           ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS.
+
+  _Chelsea_, 30 March, 1918.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The afternoon sky was full of thick, dark clouds, drifting ponderously
+grey over almost black violet: clouds so dark, heavy and thick that they
+seemed to creep laboriously upon the east wind, for all that it was
+blowing hard. In its breath the clouds now and again changed their
+watery outline, before their time came to pour down in heavy straight
+streaks of rain. The stiff pine-woods quivered, erect and anxious, along
+the road; and the tops of the trees lost themselves in a silver-grey air
+hardly lighter than the clouds and dissolving far and wide under all
+that massive grey-violet and purple-black which seemed so close and low.
+The road ran near and went winding past, lonely, deserted and sad. It
+was as though it came winding out of low horizons and went on towards
+low horizons, dipping humbly under very low skies, and only the
+pine-trees still stood up, pointed, proud and straight, when everything
+else was stooping. The modest villa-residence, the smaller poor
+dwellings here and there stooped under the heavy sky and the gusty wind;
+the shrubs dipped along the road-side; and the few people who went
+along--an old gentleman; a peasant-woman; two poor children carrying a
+basket and followed by a melancholy, big, rough-coated dog--seemed to
+hang their heads low under the solemn weight of the clouds and the
+fierce mastery of the wind, which had months ago blown the smile from
+the now humble, frowning, pensive landscape. The soul of that landscape
+appeared small and all forlorn in the watery mists of the dreary
+winter.
+
+The wind came howling along, chill and cold, like an angry spite that
+was all mouth and breath; and Adeletje, hanging on her aunt's arm,
+huddled into herself, for the wind blew chill in her sleeves and on her
+back.
+
+"Are you cold, dear?"
+
+"No, Auntie," said Adeletje, softly, shivering.
+
+Constance smiled and pressed Adeletje's arm close to her:
+
+"Let's walk a little faster, dear. It'll warm you; and, besides, I'm
+afraid it's going to rain. It's quite a long way to the old lady's and
+back again.... I fear I've tired you."
+
+"No, Auntie."
+
+"You see, I didn't want to take the carriage. This way, we do the thing
+by ourselves; and otherwise everybody would know of it at once. And you
+must promise me not to talk about it."
+
+"No, Auntie, I won't."
+
+"Not to anybody. Otherwise there'll be all sorts of remarks; and it's no
+concern of other people's what we do."
+
+"The poor old thing was very happy, Auntie. The beef-tea and the wine
+and chicken...."
+
+"Poor little old woman...."
+
+"And so well-mannered. And so discreet.... Auntie, will Addie be back
+soon?"
+
+"He's sure to telegraph."
+
+"It's _very_ nice of him to take such pains for Alex. We all of us give
+Addie a lot of trouble.... When do you think he'll come back?"
+
+"I don't know; to-morrow, or the next day...."
+
+"Auntie, you've been very fidgety lately."
+
+"My dear, I haven't."
+
+"Yes, you have.... Tell me, has anything happened with Mathilde? Has
+there?"
+
+"No, child.... But do keep your little mouth shut now. I'm frightened,
+the wind's so cold."
+
+They walked on in silence, Adeletje accommodating her step by Aunt
+Constance' regular pace. Constance was a good walker; and Addie always
+said that, leading the outdoor life she did, Mama grew no older. They
+had now been living for ten years at Driebergen, in the big, old, gloomy
+house, which seemed to be lighted only by themselves, by their affection
+for one another, but which Constance had never brought herself to like,
+hard though she tried. Ten years! How often, oh, how often she saw them
+speed before her in retrospect!... Ten years: was it really ten years?
+How quickly they had passed! They had been full and busy years; and
+Constance was satisfied with the years that had fleeted by, only she was
+distressed that it all went so fast and that she would be old before....
+But the wind was blowing too fiercely and Adeletje was hanging heavily
+on her arm--poor child, she was shivering: how cold she must be!--and
+Constance could not follow her thoughts.... Before ... before.... Well,
+if she died, there would be Addie.... Only.... No, she couldn't think
+now; and besides they would be home presently.... They would be home....
+Home! The word seemed strange to her; and she did not think that right.
+And yet, struggle against the singular emotion as she would, she could
+not cure herself of thinking that big house gloomy and regretting the
+little villa in the Kerkhoflaan at the Hague, even though she had never
+known any great domestic happiness there.... Still ... still, one loves
+the thing that one has grown used to; and was it not funny that she had
+grown so fond of that little house, where she had lived four years, and
+been disconsolate when, after the old man's death, Van der Welcke and
+Addie too had insisted on moving to the big, sombre villa at
+Driebergen?... Fortunately, it was at once lighted by all of them, by
+their affection for one another; if she had not had the consoling
+brightness of mutual love, oh, it would have been impossible for her to
+go and live in that dark, gloomy, cavernous villa-house, among the
+eternally rustling trees, under the eternally louring skies! The house
+was dear to Van der Welcke and Addie because of a strange sympathy, a
+sense that their home was there and nowhere else. The father was born in
+the house and had played there as a child; and the son, strangely
+enough, cherished the exact same feeling of attraction towards it. Had
+they not almost forced her to move into the house: Van der Welcke crying
+for it like a child, first going there for a few days at a time and
+living there with nobody but the decrepit old charwoman who made his bed
+for him; then Addie following his father's example, fitting up a room
+for herself and making constant pretexts--that he must go and have a
+look among his papers, that he must run down for a book--seizing any
+excuse that offered?... Then they left her alone, in her house in the
+Kerkhoflaan. That had trees round it too and skies overhead. But it was
+strange: among those trees in the Hague Woods, under those clouds which
+came drifting from Scheveningen, she had felt at home, though their
+little villa was only a house hired on a five years' lease, taken at the
+time under Addie's deciding influence. He, quite a small boy then, had
+gone and seen the fat estate-agent.... Oh, how the years, how the years
+hurried past!... To think that it was all so long ago!... Strange, in
+that leasehold house she had felt at home, at the Hague, among her
+relations, under familiar skies and among familiar people and things,
+unyielding though both things and people had often proved. Whereas here,
+in this house, in this great cavernous, gloomy villa-residence--and she
+had lived in it since the old man's death fully ten years ago--she had
+always felt, though the house belonged to them as their inheritance, as
+their family-residence, a stranger, an intruder, one who had come there
+by accident ... along with her husband and her son. She could never
+shake off this feeling. It pursued her even to her own sitting-room,
+which, with its bits of furniture from the Kerkhoflaan, was almost
+exactly the same as her little drawing-room at the Hague.... Oh, how the
+wind blew and how Adeletje was shivering against her: if only the poor
+child did not fall ill from that long walk!... There came the first
+drops of rain, thick and big, like tears of despair.... She put up her
+umbrella and Adeletje pushed still closer, walked right up against her,
+under the same shelter, so as to feel safe and warm.... The lane now ran
+straight into the high road; and there, before you, lay the house.... It
+stood in its own big garden--nearly a park, with a pool at the
+back--like a square, melancholy block, dreary and massive; and she could
+not understand why Van der Welcke and Addie clung to it so. Or rather
+she did understand now; but she ... no, she did not care for the house.
+It never smiled to her, always frowned, as it stood there broad and
+severe, as though imperishable, behind the front-garden, with the dwarf
+rose-bushes and standard roses wound in straw, awaiting the spring
+days.... It looked down upon her with its front of six upper windows as
+with stern eyes, which suffered but never forgave her.... It was like
+the old man himself, who had died without forgiving.... Oh, she could
+never have lived there if she had not always remembered the old woman's
+forgiveness, that last hour of gentleness by her bedside, the
+reconciliation, in complete understanding and knowledge almost
+articulate, offered at the moment of departure for ever.... Then it
+seemed to her as if she heard the old woman's breaking voice speak
+softly to her and say:
+
+"Forgive, even though he never forgives, for he _will_ never
+forgive...."
+
+And it seemed to her as if she heard that voice, rustling with soft
+encouragement, in the wind, in the trees, now that she was passing
+through the garden, while the implacable house looked down upon her with
+that everlasting cold frown. It was a strange feeling which always sent
+a shudder through her for just two or three seconds every time that she
+went past the roses in their straw wrappings to the great front door,
+the feeling which had sent a shudder through her the very first time
+when she alighted from their carriage ... after being disowned for
+years, as a disgrace, hidden away in a corner.... It was only for two or
+three seconds. The rain was now splashing down. She closed her umbrella
+as Truitje opened the door, with a glad laugh, that mevrouw had got home
+before it absolutely poured; and now she was in the long hall.... Oh,
+what a gloomy hall it was, with the oak doors on either side, the Delft
+jugs on the antique cabinet; the engravings and family-portraits; and
+then, at the far end, the one door gloomier than the others, that door
+which led ... simply to a small, inner staircase, for the servants, so
+that they should not constantly be using the main staircase.... But she
+had not known this until she moved in and, yielding to an impulse, ran
+to the sombre door which had always stared at her, from the far end of
+that typical Dutch interior, as an eternally-sealed mystery....
+Pluckily, playing the mistress of the house who was looking into things,
+while her heart beat with terror, she had opened the door and seen the
+staircase, the little staircase winding up in the dark to the bedroom
+floor; and the old charwoman had told her that it was very handy for
+carrying up water, because there was no water laid on upstairs: a
+decided fault in the house.... Then she had shut the door again and
+known all about it: a little back-stair, for the maids, and nothing
+more.... But why had she never opened the door since, never touched the
+handle? No doubt because there was no need to, because she felt sure
+that the maids would scrub the small staircase as well as the big one on
+the days set aside for cleaning stairs and passages. Why should she have
+opened the gloomy door?... And she had never opened it since. Once and
+once only she had seen it open; old Mie had forgotten to shut it; and
+she had grumbled, had told Truitje that it looked slovenly to leave the
+door open like that.... She had then seen the little staircase winding
+up in the dark, its steps just marked with brown stripes against the
+black of the shadow.... But the door, when closed, stared at her. She
+had never told anyone; but the door stared at her ... like the front of
+the house. Yes, in the garden behind, the back-windows also stared at
+her as with eyes, but more gently, sadly and almost laughingly, with an
+encouraging and more winsome look amid the livelier green of the
+lime-trees which, in summer, surrounded her with their heavy
+fragrance.... Summer!... It was November now, with its incessant wind
+and rain, raging all around and against the house and rattling on the
+window-panes until they shivered.... It was a strange feeling ever and
+always, though it did last for only two or three seconds, but she could
+not feel at home there.... And yet during those ten years her life had
+sped and sped and sped.... It sped on without resting.... She was always
+busy....
+
+She had sent Adeletje upstairs, to change her things at once, and opened
+the door of the drawing-room.... It felt a little chilly, she thought;
+and, while she saw her mother sitting quietly in the conservatory,
+peering out of doors from her usual seat, she went to the stove, moved
+the cinder-drawer to and fro to send the ashes to the bottom and make
+the fire glow up behind the mica doors....
+
+"Aren't you cold out there, Mummie?"
+
+The old woman looked round at the sound of her voice. Constance went
+into the conservatory and again asked:
+
+"Aren't you cold, Mummie?"
+
+The old woman heard her this time; and Constance stooped over her and
+kissed the waxen forehead.
+
+"It's blowing," said the old woman.
+
+"Yes, it's blowing like anything!" said Constance. "You don't feel
+cold?"
+
+The old woman smiled, with her eyes in her daughter's.
+
+"Won't you rather come and sit inside, Mamma?"
+
+But the old woman only smiled and said:
+
+"The trees are waving from side to side; and just now a branch fell ...
+right in front of the window."
+
+"Yes. Harm'll have plenty of work to-morrow. There are branches lying
+all over the place."
+
+"It's blowing," said the old woman.
+
+Constance went in, took a shawl and put it over her mother's shoulders:
+
+"You'll come in, won't you, Mamma, if you feel cold?"
+
+And she went back to the drawing-room, intending to go upstairs.
+
+But voices sounded from the hall and the door was opened. It was Gerdy
+and Guy:
+
+"Are you in, Auntie?"
+
+"Are you back at last?"
+
+"Where have you been all the afternoon?"
+
+"Have you been walking with Adele?"
+
+"Come, Auntie," said Guy, "give an account of yourself!"
+
+He was a well-set-up, fair-haired boy of nineteen, tall and broad, with
+a fair moustache; and she spoilt him because he was like his father.
+Really she spoilt them all, each for a different reason, but Guy could
+do anything that he pleased with her. He now caught her in his arms and
+asked once more:
+
+"Now, Auntie, where have you been?"
+
+And she blushed like a child. She did not mean to say where she had
+been, but she had not reckoned on his attacking her like this:
+
+"Why, nowhere!" she said, defending herself. "I've been walking with
+Adele...."
+
+"No!" said Guy, firmly. "You've been to the little old lady's."
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Oh, yes!"
+
+"Come, boy, let me be. I want to go up and change.... Where's Mamma?"
+
+"Mamma's upstairs," said Gerdy. "Are you coming down soon again, Auntie?
+Shall I get tea ready? Shall I light the lamp? It's jolly, having tea in
+a storm like this."
+
+"All right, dear, do."
+
+"Will you come down soon?"
+
+"Yes, yes, at once...."
+
+She went upstairs, up the wide, winding oak staircase.... Why did she
+think, each time the wind blew, of that evening when she had gone up
+like that, across the passage, through the rooms, to the great, dark
+bedstead, in which the wan face of the dying woman showed palely on the
+pillow?... Then as now the heavy rain rattled against the windows and
+the tall cabinets in the dark passage creaked with those sudden sounds
+which old wood makes and which sometimes moaned and reverberated through
+the house. But one scarcely heard them now, because the house was no
+longer silent, because now there were always voices buzzing and young
+feet hurrying in the rooms and along the passages, thanks to all the new
+life that had entered the house.... Ten years, thought Constance, while
+she put on the light in her room, before dressing: was it really ten
+years?... Immediately after the death of her poor brother Gerrit--poor
+Adeline and the children had moved from their house to a cheap
+_pension_--came the death of old Mr. Van der Welcke, just as she, Van
+der Welcke and Addie, going through Gerrit's papers, had come upon this
+letter:
+
+"Addie, I recommend my children to your care; my wife I recommend to
+yours, Constance."
+
+It was the letter of a sick man, mentally and physically sick, who
+already saw death's wings beating before his eyes. And even in that
+shabby _pension_ Addie had taken charge of the children, as though he
+were their own young father; but, when the old gentleman died and both
+Van der Welcke and Addie insisted on moving to Driebergen, then the boy
+had stepped forward boldly as the protector of those nine children, as
+the protector of that poor woman distraught and utterly crushed by the
+blow.... Even now, while hurriedly changing her dress, so as not to
+keep them waiting too long downstairs, Constance still heard her boy
+say, in his calm, confident voice:
+
+"Papa ... Mamma ... we have a big house now, a very big house.... We are
+rich now ... and Aunt Adeline has nothing ... the children have only a
+couple of thousand guilders apiece.... They must all come to us now,
+mustn't they, all come and live with us at Driebergen, mustn't they,
+Papa ... and Mamma?"
+
+He said nothing beyond those few simple words; and his confident voice
+was as quiet as though his proposal spoke for itself, as though it were
+quite commonplace....
+
+"What is there to make a fuss about?" he had asked, with wide-open eyes,
+when she fell upon his neck with tears of emotion and kissed him, her
+heart swelling with happiness in her child....
+
+She had just looked round anxiously at her husband, anxious what he
+would wish, what he would say to his son's words.... There were fewer
+scenes between them, it was true, much fewer; but still she had thought
+to herself, what would he say to this?... But he had only laughed, burst
+out laughing, with his young laugh like a great boy's ... laughed at all
+his son's great family: a wife and nine children whom Addie at sixteen
+was quietly taking unto himself, because his people had money now and a
+big house.... Since that time Van der Welcke had always chaffed the boy
+about his nine children. And Addie answered his father's chaff with that
+placid smile in his eyes and on his lips, as though he were thinking:
+
+"Have your joke, Daddy. You're a good chap after all!..."
+
+And Addie had interested himself in his nine children as calmly as if
+they were not the least trouble.... Then came the move to Driebergen,
+but Addie remained at the Hague, staying with Aunt Lot, for the two
+years that he still went to school. He came down each week-end, however:
+by the husband's train. Van der Welcke said, chaffingly, to join his
+wife and children; and he took a hand in everything: in the profitable
+investment and saving of their two thousand guilders apiece; in their
+schooling; in the choice of a governess for the girls: he saved Aunt
+Adeline all responsibility; his Saturday afternoons and Sundays were
+filled with all sorts of cares; he considered and discussed and
+decided.... Moreover, Granny, who was now lonely and fallen into her
+dotage, could no longer be left to live in her big house, with no one to
+look after her; and Constance had easily managed for old Mamma to
+accompany them to Driebergen. But the old woman had hardly noticed the
+change: she thought that she was still living in the Alexanderstraat
+sometimes, in the summer, she would be living at Buitenzorg, in the
+viceregal palace, and the children round her went about and talked
+vivaciously ... as she had always known them to do.... Emilie had
+refused to leave Constance; and, though she sometimes went to stay at
+Baarn, she really lived with them: Emilie, so grievously shattered in
+her young life, so unable to forget Henri's death that she was as a
+shadow of her former self, pale and silent, mostly pining in her room
+... until from sheer loneliness she went to join the family-circle
+downstairs....
+
+Ten years ... ten years had sped like this, sped like fleeting shadows
+of time; and yet how much had happened! The children growing up,
+blossoming into young girls and sturdy lads; Addie studying medicine at
+Amsterdam, walking the hospitals, until, after passing his examination,
+the young foster-father at last settled down among them all as a
+doctor, in the great house at Driebergen; and then that immense change
+in their lives: his marriage, his dreadfully premature marriage.... Oh,
+that marriage of her son's!... She had had to summon all her deeper
+wisdom and to clutch it with convulsive hands ... in order to approve
+... to approve ... and not for a single moment to let herself be dragged
+along by all the prejudices of the old days, the prejudices of the
+narrow little circle which she had learnt to scorn in her later life,
+the life which had become permanent!... Now he was really a husband, now
+he was really a father.
+
+"Aunt Constance ... do come!"
+
+It was Gerdy's voice; and it fidgeted her. They were all very nice,
+certainly, but also they were all very restless; and she was really a
+woman for loneliness and dreams--had become so--and sometimes felt a
+need to be quite alone ... quite alone ... in her room; to lie on her
+sofa and think ... above all things, to think herself back into the
+years which had sped and sped and sped as fleeting shadows of time....
+
+A tripping step came hastening up the stairs, followed by a tapping at
+the door:
+
+"Auntie! Aunt Constance.... I've made tea; and, if you don't come, it'll
+be too strong...."
+
+She would have liked to tell Gerdy that she did not care for that
+calling out all over the house and through the passages: it always
+jarred upon her, as though the clear, girlish voice profaned that brown
+indoor atmosphere of the sombre old house which was so full of the past
+... as though the old people were still living there and might be
+shocked by all that youthful carelessness and presumption. But she never
+did tell her.
+
+"Yes, darling, I'm coming."
+
+She was ready now and turned out the gas. Gerdy ran downstairs again;
+and Constance found the lamps lit in the drawing-room and Gerdy very
+busy with the tea-pot and tea-cups. And Constance smiled, for there was
+a sort of homely peace, in this room, a peace almost of happiness, the
+lesser happiness which people sometimes find, for a brief moment.
+Marietje, the eldest of the girls, a motherly little soul from
+childhood, had coaxed Grandmamma into leaving the conservatory, which
+was really too cold, had installed her in the back drawing-room, where
+the old woman now sat, with her shawl round her, her toes on the
+foot-warmer, her hands trembling in her lap and her head nodding, as
+though she knew all sorts of things for certain.... Always she sat like
+that and scarcely spoke, only a few words, quietly living away the last
+few years of her life and already looking at the rest in panorama ...
+but quite unconscious of her surroundings.... In front of the fire,
+close together, sat Adeline and Emilie, both silent, but filled with the
+strange peace that reigned in both of them, because things around them
+were so youthful and so bright. For at this hour all the young people
+were gathered in the drawing-room, all Gerrit's children, except
+Constant, who was seventeen and at a boarding-school near Arnhem, to
+Gerdy's great regret, for she and he had always been together, two good
+little, fair-haired children. Marietje was twenty-two now, had not grown
+up pretty, was tall and lank, fair-haired, really an unattractive girl,
+though she had a certain lovableness from always caring for others,
+especially for Grandmamma: she had acquired this very early, as the
+eldest sister, because her mother had at once and as a matter of course
+entrusted her with the care of her little brothers and sisters.
+Adeletje too was plain and in addition ailing and anything but strong,
+with her narrow, shrunk chest; and Constance often wondered that the two
+elders had become like that, because she remembered them as the two
+pretty little fair-haired children that they used to be, frail, it is
+true, but rosy-cheeked, sweet little children. Alex also was there; and
+he too often surprised Constance, when she remembered the naughty rascal
+that he was, now a boy of twenty, pale and sallow, with frightened blue
+eyes, shy, reserved, with a trick of giving a sudden glance of terror
+which made her anxious, she did not know why. She recognized her brother
+Gerrit most in Guy, who was tall, fair and broad, as Gerrit had been,
+but who had always been unmanageable, with not one serious thought in
+his head; he was nineteen years old now and as undecided about his
+future as Alex himself.... That was Constance' great care and not only
+hers but Addie's as well; and Van der Welcke often chaffed his son, that
+it was not an unmixed joy to be the father of nine children. If Alex was
+gloomy now, with that strange look, sometimes of sudden fright, in his
+eyes, Guy was undoubtedly attractive, was genial, pleasant, cheerful,
+foolish, a great baby and the favourite nephew of Van der Welcke, with
+whom he went cycling, as Addie never had time now: Addie the serious
+man, the young doctor with an increasing practice. Guy called Van der
+Welcke Papa; they got on so well, almost too well together: Van der
+Welcke, who had remained a child for all his fifty-one years delighted
+in that tall, fair-haired adopted son of Addie's; and, jealous as he was
+of all the earnestness, the labour and care displayed by Addie, who had
+hardly a moment nowadays to give his father, he was glad to have found
+Guy, as though to show Addie:
+
+"I've got another friend, you know, and I can do without you sometimes!"
+
+After Guy came Gerdy, the beauty of the family, an exquisitely pretty
+girl of eighteen, who with Guy was the light and laughter of the house;
+next, Constant, away at boarding-school. The two younger boys, Jan and
+Piet, were fortunately doing well at their lessons, whereas little
+Klaasje, twelve years old, had remained very backward and might have
+been a child of eight, at one time dull and silent, at another wantonly
+gay, but so silly that she was not yet able to read.... Yes, she had all
+of them there, all Gerrit's children; she and Addie looked after them;
+and poor Adeline had come to take it as a matter of course and never
+decided anything for herself and consulted Constance and Addie about
+everything....
+
+The wind outside roared and a violent rain beat down upon the windows,
+as though tapping at them with furious angry fingers. The drawn blinds,
+the closed curtains, the lighted lamps, Gerdy pouring out the tea with
+her pretty little ways: it all gave Constance, though she felt tired and
+would gladly have been alone for once, a caress of soft, homely
+satisfaction, a velvety sense of being in utter harmony with all around
+her, even though there was so much trouble, not only with the children,
+but also sometimes no little difficulty and misunderstanding with
+Mathilde, Addie's wife. Where was Mathilde now? Where were the two
+children? Gerdy, fussy and fidgety, pretending to be very busy, with a
+light clatter of her tea-things, had pushed an easy-chair nearer to the
+fireplace, where tongues of flames were darting. She now gave Constance
+her cup of tea, handed a plate of cakes; and Constance asked:
+
+"Where's Mathilde?"
+
+"Mathilde?... I don't know, but ... shall I go and look for her?"
+
+"No, never mind. Where are the children?"
+
+"In the nursery, I expect. Shall I send for them to come down?"
+
+"No, dear, it doesn't matter...."
+
+And Gerdy did not insist. With the wind and rain raging out of doors, it
+was still and peaceful inside; and, fidgety though Gerdy was, she felt
+that peaceful stillness and valued it, valued it as they all did. In her
+heart she hoped that Mathilde would not come down before dinner,
+because, whenever Mathilde did come down at tea-time, something
+happened, as though an imp were creeping in between Gerdy's nervous
+little fingers: she would break a cup or upset things; once indeed she
+had nearly set the house on fire, because she had tried to blow out the
+methylated spirit with a furious blast from her excitable little pouting
+lips.... It was very cosy now: if only Mathilde would remain upstairs a
+little longer.... And, while the wind and the rain raged outside,
+indoors there was but the sound of a few gentle phrases, uttered in the
+yellow circles of the lamps, which Gerdy had placed so that they shone
+with an intimate and pleasant cosiness.... Old Granny, over in her
+corner, sat quietly in her great arm-chair, which was like a throne; she
+did not move, did not speak, but was nevertheless in the picture,
+thought Gerdy: that waxen face of a very old lady, framed in the white
+hair; the woollen shawl over the shoulders; the motionless dark lines of
+the gown; and, in the lap, the fine detail of the fingers, quivering
+fingers, but for which she would have seemed devoid of all motion....
+Near the fire, Constance was talking with Mamma and Emilie; and Gerdy
+did not know why, but something about those three, as they sat talking
+together, made her feel as if she could suddenly have cried for no
+reason, because of a touch of melancholy that just grazed against her,
+like a trouble dating back to former years and things that were long
+past.... Then Gerdy made an unnecessary clatter with her tea-cups and
+spoons and could not understand why she was so sensitive. Marie was
+doing some needlework and Alex was gloomily reading a book; but Guy was
+playing backgammon with Adeletje, making constant jokes in between: the
+dice were rattled in the boxes and dumped into the board; the men moved
+with a hard, wooden sound over the black and white points; the dice were
+rattled again and dumped down again.
+
+"Five-three...."
+
+"Double-six.... Double-four.... One more: two-three...."
+
+And Klaasje had come and sat by Aunt Constance, almost creeping into her
+dress, with a very babyish picture-book in her hand. She pressed her
+fair-haired little head comfortably in Auntie's skirts, against Auntie's
+lap and had silently taken Auntie's arm and laid it round her neck.
+Herself unobserved, she noticed every single thing that happened: Guy
+and Adele's backgammon, Gerdy's fussing with the tea-things; and she
+listened to Auntie, Mamma and Emilie; but all the time it was as though
+she were outside that circle of homeliness, as though she were far away
+from it, as though she were hearing and seeing through a haze,
+unconsciously, in her slowly awakening little brains, the brains of a
+backward child. And, so as not to be too far away, she took Aunt
+Constance' hand, opened the palm with her fingers and pushed her little
+head under it: that made it seem as if she were much nearer....
+
+Suddenly, the door opened; and everybody gave a little start, soon
+recovering, however: Mathilde had entered and only Grandmamma, yonder,
+more in the background in her dark corner, had remained motionless, with
+quivering fingers in her lap, white and waxen, trembling in the dark
+shadow of her dress.... But, near the fire, Constance, Adeline and
+Emilie were silent and remained sitting, stiffly, Adeline and Emilie
+without moving. Constance alone forced herself to look round at
+Mathilde; Alex read on, nervously hunching his shoulders; but Guy
+rattled his dice and Adeletje had a sudden flush on her cheek and turned
+pale.... And Gerdy was the most nervous of all: she suddenly ducked down
+in front of the fire and began poking it desperately.
+
+"Do be careful, Gerdy!" said Adeline. "You'll set us on fire, the sparks
+are flying all over the place!"
+
+Mathilde had sat down in the arm-chair next to Constance, which made
+little Klaasje feel a bit squeezed, in between Auntie and Mathilde, and
+Mathilde's shadow fell across the child's book and prevented her from
+seeing the pictures, causing such a sudden outburst of temper that,
+before anyone could stop her, she put out both arms convulsively, pushed
+with her hands against Mathilde's chair and cried:
+
+"Go away!"
+
+So much enmity was apparent in the child's voice that they all started
+again: only Grandmamma, in her corner, noticed nothing. But Constance
+recovered herself at once:
+
+"For shame, Klaasje!" she said, in a chiding tone. "You mustn't do that,
+you know! What makes you so naughty?"
+
+But the child pushed against the chair with such force that she pushed
+it aside, with Mathilde in it:
+
+"Go away!" she repeated, pale in the face, with wide eyes starting from
+her head in hatred.
+
+"Klaasje!" cried Constance. "Stop that at once!"
+
+Her voice rang harsh and loud through the room. The child looked at her
+in alarm, understood merely that Auntie was angry and burst into loud
+sobs.
+
+"Oh, very well, I'll go and sit somewhere else!" said Mathilde,
+pretending indifference.
+
+She got up and sat beside Emilie.
+
+"Haven't you been out?" asked Emilie, gently, for the sake of saying
+something.
+
+"Out? In this horrible weather? Where would you have me go?" asked
+Mathilde, coldly. "No, I've had two hours' sleep. Gerdy, have you any
+tea left for me?"
+
+"Yes, certainly," said Gerdy, in a forced voice.
+
+She poked the fire once more, fiercely.
+
+"But, Gerdy, mind what you're doing!" cried Adeline, terrified, for the
+sparks were flying out of the hearth.
+
+Gerdy bobbed up from among her skirts and began clattering with her
+tea-tray. Klaasje had ceased crying, had stopped the moment that
+Mathilde had moved and was now looking up at Aunt Constance and trying
+to take her hand again.
+
+"No," said Constance, "you're naughty."
+
+"No-o!" whined the little girl, like a very small child. "I'm _not_
+naughty!"
+
+"Yes, you are. It's not at all nice of you to push Mathilde away. You
+must never do that again, do you hear?"
+
+"Oh, let the child be, Mamma!" said Mathilde, wearily.
+
+The child looked up at Constance with such an unhappy expression in her
+face that Constance put her hand on her head again; and, at once
+forgetting everything, Klaasje now looked at her book and even hummed
+softly as she showed herself the pictures.
+
+Gerdy was pouring out Mathilde's tea. There it was again: she had spilt
+the milk; the tea-tray was one white puddle! However, she mopped it up
+with a tea-cloth and now handed the cup to Mathilde.
+
+Mathilde tasted it:
+
+"Did you put any sugar in?"
+
+"Yes, one lump."
+
+"I never take sugar."
+
+"Oh!... Shall I give you another cup?"
+
+"No, thanks.... Your tea is weak."
+
+Gerdy's tea was her pride, always:
+
+"Tea gets bitter after standing three quarters of an hour," she said,
+aggressively, "or, if you pour water on it, it gets weak."
+
+"Then I must always come three quarters of an hour late, for your tea is
+always either bitter or weak."
+
+"Then make your own tea...."
+
+But Gerdy saw Aunt Constance looking at her and said nothing more.
+
+"Mamma," asked Mathilde, "do _you_ know when Addie is coming back?"
+
+"No, dear; to-morrow, I expect, or the next day."
+
+"Haven't you had a card from him?"
+
+"No, dear."
+
+"Oh, I thought he would have written to you!... I might really have gone
+with him to Amsterdam."
+
+"He had business to attend to...."
+
+"Well, I shouldn't have hindered him in his business...."
+
+She sat silent now and indifferent and looked at her watch, regretting
+that she had come down too early. She thought that it was six and that
+they would be having dinner at once. And it was not even half-past five
+yet.... Should she go upstairs again for a bit?... No, she was there now
+and she would stay.... She had slept too long that afternoon.... She
+felt heavy and angry.... What a place, what a place, Driebergen in
+November! Not a soul to talk to, except three or four antediluvian
+families.... When was she likely to see the Hague again? The children
+would be looked after all right: there were busybodies enough in the
+house for that!... And she remained sitting beside Emilie, without
+moving or speaking, weary, indifferent and heavy after her long
+sleep.... She knew it: as usual, her entrance had caused friction. That
+odious idiot child, pushing her chair away, with its "Go away!" She
+could have boxed its ears.... But she had controlled herself. Didn't she
+always control herself? Wasn't she always being insulted by her
+husband's relatives?... Why on earth had she married him? Couldn't she
+have married anybody at the Hague?... In her weary, heavy indifference,
+mingled with spiteful rancour, she felt herself a martyr.... Wasn't she
+a very handsome woman? Couldn't she have married anybody, though her
+father was a penniless naval officer, though there was no money on her
+mother's side either?... She was a handsome girl; and, from the time
+when she was quite young, her one thought had been to make a good match,
+first and foremost a good match, and to get away from the poverty and
+the vulgar crew that gathered in Papa and Mamma's house.... Oh, yes, she
+was very fond of her husband; but now it was all his fault: he ... he
+was neglecting her!... Wasn't she a martyr?
+
+Deep down within herself, no doubt, she knew that she had not married
+him for himself alone, that she had certainly thought it heavenly, she,
+a Smeet, plain Mathilde Smeet, to marry Baron van der Welcke ... plenty
+of money ... a smart match ... even though the family no longer lived in
+the Hague....
+
+Baroness van der Welcke.... On her cards: _Baroness van der Welcke_....
+A coronet on her handkerchiefs, a coat-of-arms on her note-paper: oh,
+how delicious, how delicious!... What a joy at last to order the gowns
+in Brussels, to get out of the poverty of her parents' home, which
+reeked of rancid butter and spilt paraffin, to shake it from her, to
+plunge and drown it in the past, that poverty, as you drown a mangy dog
+in a pond....
+
+Driebergen ... well, yes. But it wouldn't always be Driebergen. She
+would back herself to coax her husband out of that patriarchy, to coax
+him to the Hague, where he would be the young, fashionable doctor: a
+fine house, smart acquaintances, a box at the Opera, presentation at
+court, Baroness ... Baronne van der Welcke....
+
+She had two children now, a boy and a girl. It was irresistible; and yet
+she knew that she must take care and not let the nurse have too much of
+it:
+
+"Geertje, have you washed the jonker's hands?... Geertje, I want the
+freule to wear her white frock to-day?"[1]
+
+For she had noticed that the others never used the words in speaking to
+Geertje or to the maids, never said jonker or freule, always just simply
+Constant and Henriette, or even Stan and Jet; and so, when the others
+were there, she copied them and said, "Stan" and "Jet"; but oh, the
+joy, as soon as they were gone, of once more blurting out the titles to
+Geertje, the warm rapture of feeling that she was not only a baroness
+but the mother of a freule and a jonker:
+
+"Geertje, has Freule Henriette had her milk?... Geertje, let the jonker
+wear his new shoes to-day!..."
+
+No, she simply could not keep from it; and yet she had sense enough to
+know and perception enough to feel that the others thought it a mark of
+bad breeding in her, to refer to her babies of one year old and two as
+freule and jonker.... That was the worst of it, that she had married not
+only her husband but his whole family into the bargain: his grandmamma,
+his parents and Aunt Adeline with her troops of children whom Addie--so
+silly of him, because he was so young--regarded as his own, for whom it
+was his duty to care.... That was the worst of it; and oh, if she had
+known everything, known what a martyr she would be in this house, where
+she never felt herself the mistress--a victim to the idiot child's rude
+ways, a victim to Gerdy, who gave her sugar in her tea--if she had known
+everything, she might have thought twice before marrying him at all!...
+
+And yet she was wonderfully fond of Addie, might still be very happy
+with him, if he would only come back to her ... and not neglect her,
+over and over again, for all that crew of so-called adopted children
+with which he had burdened himself.... Oh, to get him out of it, out of
+that suffocating family-circle ... and then to the Hague: her husband a
+young, smart doctor, she at court; and then see all the old friends
+again ... and Papa and Mamma's relations ... and perhaps leave cards on
+them sweetly: Baronne van der Welcke!...
+
+She was not all vanity: she had plenty of common sense besides and no
+small portion of clear and penetrating insight. She saw her own vanity,
+indeed, but preferred not to see it. She would rather look upon herself
+as a martyr than as vain and therefore saw herself in that light,
+deliberately thrusting aside her common sense; and then, sometimes, in
+an unhappy mood, she would weep over her own misfortunes. Her only
+consolation at such times was that she was handsome, a young, handsome
+woman, and healthy and the mother of two pretty little children: a
+jonker and a freule.
+
+She now sat wearily, with very few words passing among them all; the
+dice in Adele and Guy's boxes rattled loudly and worked on Mathilde's
+nerves.
+
+Gerdy could stand it no longer: she had run out into the hall and almost
+bumped against Van der Welcke, who was just going to the drawing-room.
+
+"Hullo, kiddie!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon, Uncle!"
+
+"Where are you rushing off to?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Nowhere, Uncle. I don't know. I'm going to wash my hands. I upset the
+milk.... There's no tea left, Uncle."
+
+"That's all right, kiddie, I don't want any tea.... Shall we be having
+dinner soon?"
+
+"It's not six yet."
+
+"Anything from Addie?"
+
+"No, Uncle."
+
+"Has ... has Mathilde come down?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle."
+
+"I see. Well, I think I'll go upstairs again for a bit."
+
+"Oh, don't, Uncle!"
+
+"I may as well."
+
+"No, don't. Why should you? You're always putting her on us and clearing
+out yourself!"
+
+"I? But I have nothing to do with her!"
+
+"She's your daughter-in-law."
+
+"I dare say, but I can't help that."
+
+"Yes, you can."
+
+"How do you mean? How can I help it?"
+
+"Why, if you had stopped Addie at the time ... had forbidden it ... as
+his father."
+
+"You young baggage! Do you imagine that I can forbid Addie anything?
+I've never been able to prevent his doing a thing. He's always done what
+he wanted to, from the time when he was a child."
+
+"You _can_ help it."
+
+"Can I? Well, whether I can help it or not ... I'm going upstairs."
+
+"No, Uncle, you're not to. You must come in. Do be nice. Come along for
+our sake. You're fond of us, aren't you? You love all Addie's adopted
+children, Uncle, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, kiddie, I'm fond of you all, though I've lost Addie altogether
+through you."
+
+"No, Uncle, not altogether."
+
+"Well, what's the use of sharing him with the pack of you?"
+
+"But you can afford to share him a little bit. Tell me: you _are_ fond
+of us?"
+
+"Of course I am, you're a dear, jolly lot. But Mathilde...."
+
+"What about Mathilde, Uncle?"
+
+He bent over her and bit each word separately into her ear:
+
+"I--can't--stand--her.... I hate her as I have never hated anybody."
+
+"But, Uncle, that's overdoing it," said Gerdy, lapsing into
+reasonableness.
+
+"Overdoing it?"
+
+"Yes, she's not so bad as all that. She can be very nice."
+
+"You think her nice, do you? Well, she's like a spectre to me."
+
+"No, no, you mustn't say that. And she's Addie's wife and the mother of
+his children."
+
+"Look here, kiddie, don't be putting on such wise airs. They don't suit
+you."
+
+"But she _is_ the mother of his children and you're not to be so
+jealous."
+
+"Am I jealous?"
+
+"Yes, you're jealous ... of Mathilde and of us."
+
+"Very likely. I never see Addie. If I hadn't got Guy...."
+
+"Well, you've got Guy. And you've got Addie as well."
+
+"No, I haven't.... Do you know when he's coming back?"
+
+"No, I don't, Uncle. And now come along in."
+
+She drew Van der Welcke into the room with her; and, as usual, he went
+up to the old woman seated silently in her corner, rubbing his hands,
+trying to speak a few words to her. She recognized him and smiled....
+The wind outside raged with a deeper note.... The branches of the trees
+swished along the windows, the twigs tapped at them as with
+fingertips.... And amid the eeriness of it all Constance suddenly felt
+it very strange that they were all of them there, all strangers in the
+old, gloomy house, which had once belonged to Henri's stern parents. The
+old woman had forgiven her, but the old man had never forgiven. He had
+died, his heart filled with rancour. And now they were all there, all
+strangers, except the son, except the grandson; and he was not there at
+the moment.... They were all strangers: her mother, in her second
+childhood, imagining herself at the Hague and very often at
+Buitenzorg;[2] she herself and Gerrit's widow and their children;
+Emilie: all, all strangers, all with their manifold life and ceaseless
+bustle filling the once silent and serious house.... And Mathilde, a
+stranger.... And, so strange, even Mathilde and Addie's children, little
+Constant and Jetje, were two little strangers, though they bore the
+family name.... Why did she feel this? Perhaps because she still
+considered that the great gloomy house belonged to the old man. It was
+as though he lived there still, as though he still walked outside, in
+the garden. It was as though the great, gloomy house was still filled
+with his rancour towards her and hers.... Yes, she had been living here
+for ten years, but the old man still bore rancour because she was there
+and because so many of hers had come with her to the house in which they
+had no business, in which she herself was an intruder as were all who
+had intruded themselves along with her.... It was a feeling which had so
+often oppressed her, during those ten years, and which would always
+oppress her.... And she would not utter it to anybody, for Van der
+Welcke had given Addie free leave to bring the troop with him; and he
+himself loved the troop....
+
+Oh, how the angles between her and her husband had been rubbed smooth
+with the years, whether they passed slow or fast!... How they had learnt
+to put up with each other!... They were growing old: she fifty-six, he a
+little younger; it was true, no affection had come between them, but so
+much softening of all that had once been sharp and unkind between them,
+so that they had been able to go on living, in this house, and together
+with their child performing the task that seemed to be laid upon them:
+looking after Gerrit's children!...
+
+And Adeline took it as quite natural; but yet ... how grateful she was
+to them! How often she told them that she could never have brought up
+the children alone, that she would have had neither the strength for it
+nor the money!... Gerrit's death had broken her. She had always quietly
+done her little duties as a wife and mother, but Gerrit's death had
+broken her. She had remained among all her children as one who no longer
+knows. It was as if the simplicity of her life had become shrouded in a
+darkness wherein she wandered and sought, groping with outstretched
+hands. Ah, if Constance and Addie had not led her!...
+
+And Constance in her turn was grateful to Van der Welcke, for was it not
+his house in which she lived with her nephews and nieces, was it not
+with his money, for a great part, that she brought up those children?...
+Oh, if the old man would only cease spreading that rancour around them,
+filling the whole great sombre house with it because they had intruded,
+because they were living there on his money, though that money now
+belonged to his heir! At every guilder that Constance spent on her
+swollen household, she felt the old man's rancour. And it made her
+thriftier than she had ever been at the time when she and Henri, though
+their needs were far from small, had had to live on a few thousand
+guilders a year. Though she now lived in this big house, though twelve
+and often fifteen of them sat down to table, she was comparatively
+thriftier in her whole mode of life than she had ever been in her little
+house with her husband and child.... It was the old man's money, a
+large fortune, and it was Henri's money now, of course, but it was first
+and foremost the old man's money!... The curtains in the drawing-room
+were sadly faded, but she would not buy new, though Van der Welcke
+himself had begged her at least to buy some for the front room. Her
+everyday table was very simple, simpler than she had ever been
+accustomed to. And this gave her the remorse that she was feeding Henri,
+now that he was growing older, more simply than she had in his younger
+days. And she urged him daily to buy a motor-car....
+
+He was sensible, refused to do anything of the kind. Buying the
+"sewing-machine," well, yes, that was one big initial outlay ... but the
+most expensive part of it was the upkeep of it, the chauffeur, the
+excursions. He feared that, once he possessed the "machine," it would
+become a very costly joke.... And all those ten years, though he had
+often thought of a car, he had never bought the old sewing-machine. Then
+Constance felt so violently self-reproachful, at using Henri's money for
+her brother's children, that she discussed it with Addie. Those
+discussions about the motor had recurred regularly every year. Addie
+thought that Papa was right, that it was not the initial outlay that was
+so burdensome, but all the further expenses. Then again motor-cars were
+being so much improved yearly that, when once Papa had caught the fever,
+he would get rid of his sewing-machine yearly to buy a new and more
+modern one. No, it would be a very expensive story.... And Van der
+Welcke had never bought his sewing-machine, had barely, once in a way,
+hired one.... Constance felt a lasting self-reproach because of it....
+
+They were rich now; and yet ... what _was_ their fortune, with so many
+burdens! Burdens, moreover, which were not even the natural burdens of
+one's own children growing up! Burdens of Gerrit's children!... And so
+she economized more and more, wearing her gowns till they became shiny,
+till Addie said that Mamma was losing all her daintiness in her old age.
+He had always known his mother as a well-dressed woman and now she went
+about in blouses that shone like looking-glasses. He used to tease her;
+there was one which he always called the looking-glass blouse. Constance
+laughed gaily, said she no longer cared so much about clothes. Well off
+though she now was, she spent upon her dress not half of what she used
+to in the old days.... And Mathilde, who sprang from a poverty reeking
+of paraffin and rancid butter, Mathilde, who would have liked to be
+surrounded with luxury at every moment, Mathilde thought her
+mother-in-law above all things stingy, decided that stinginess was the
+outstanding feature of her character....
+
+
+[1] _Jonker_ is the title borne by the sons of Dutch noblemen until they
+come of age, when, as a rule, they bear the same title as their father;
+_freule_ is the title of all the unmarried daughters.
+
+[2] The governor-general's house near Batavia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+It was six o'clock. Constance and Marietje had taken Grandmamma
+upstairs, for she no longer had her meals with the rest, but went to bed
+very early in the evening. And they were now in the dining-room, sitting
+at the great dinner-table: a table, Constance considered, of
+strangers--her brother's children--gathered round her husband, who alone
+had any right to live there, in the old man's house, and to sit at his
+table.... And yet it seemed quite natural that Emilie should be sitting
+there, that Adeline should be sitting there with her four girls,
+Marietje, Adele, Gerdy and Klaasje, and her two big boys, Alex and Guy;
+it seemed quite natural that, after the soup, the parlour-maid should
+set the great piece of beef in front of Guy for Guy to carve: one of the
+few things that he did well, as Van der Welcke told him, without
+thinking, for there was some truth in the jibe. It was the same simple
+fare daily: soup, a joint, green potatoes, vegetables and a sweet, so
+that Van der Welcke sometimes said:
+
+"But, Constance, how Dutch you have grown in your taste!"
+
+"Well, if there's anything you fancy, you have only to say so!" she
+would answer, gently.
+
+And yet she was afraid that he would name something, some game or
+poultry, that would be much too expensive for so large a table and such
+appetites as the children's: wasn't she spending more than enough as it
+was, with that good, simple homeliness and wasn't the butcher's bill
+absurdly high, month after month?
+
+And Guy carved the beef in fine, heavy slices, falling neatly and
+smoothly one on top of the other, with a dexterity which he remembered
+learning when quite a small boy from his father, when he recollected
+very well indeed carving the meat in the little dining-room in the
+Bankastraat.... That was Guy's duty, to carve the meat neatly; and he
+would have gone on carving till it all lay in neat slices on the dish,
+if Constance had not warned him:
+
+"That ought to do, Guy."
+
+The boy was just handing the dish to the maid, for her to take round,
+when a carriage drove into the front garden.
+
+"Listen!" said Constance.
+
+"That must be Addie!" exclaimed Gerdy, joyously.
+
+"It's Addie, it's Addie!" cried Klaasje.
+
+"Yes, it must be Addie," said Van der Welcke.
+
+There was a loud ring at the bell; and at the same time a key grated in
+the latch.
+
+"It's Addie!" they now all cried, with cheerful, expectant faces,
+rejoicing that he was back.
+
+And Gerdy, in her restless way, got up. Mathilde would have got up too,
+but, finding Gerdy before her, she remained sitting. Gerdy's clear voice
+rang in the hall:
+
+"Addie, you're back, you're back! Oh, but how cold and windy it is!"
+
+The maids, likewise glad, fussed about, three of them to one handbag.
+Gerdy had left the door open and the draught penetrated to the
+dinner-table. But Addie was now in the room; and all their radiant faces
+were raised to his. They had done without him for five days.? They had
+missed him for five days.
+
+"Good-evening, everybody!"
+
+He flung off his wet great-coat: Truitje[1] caught it and took it out of
+the room. He gave a nod here and there, but kissed nobody and shook
+hands with nobody. He looked tired; and his collar was limp with the
+rain.
+
+"Won't you go and change first, Addie?" asked Constance, smiling with
+content, because he was there.
+
+"No, Mamma, I'd rather not. I'm hungry. Give me a glass of wine."
+
+They saw at once what was the matter. He was out of humour. All their
+radiant faces fell immediately; and they were silent. Guy, who was
+nearest to him, poured him out a glass of wine, without a word. Addie
+drank down the wine. His eyes glanced up wearily from under their
+lashes; his gestures were nervous and jerky. When Addie was out of
+humour, they were silent, subduing the sound of their voices and the
+light in their eyes. Nobody knew what to say. And it cost Constance an
+effort to ask:
+
+"How were things in Amsterdam?"
+
+"All right."
+
+He answered coldly, as though begging her to ask no more questions about
+Amsterdam. Nobody else asked anything: he would be sure to tell what
+there was to tell later. They began to talk among one another in
+constrained tones. They were sorry that Addie was out of humour, but
+they did not take it amiss in him. He must be tired; he had had a busy
+time. Yes, he must be tired. It was not only his collar: his coat also
+hung limp from his shoulders; his grey-blue eyes were dull. Oh, how
+serious his eyes had become, now that he was a man of twenty-six! How
+serious his forehead was, with those two wrinkles, above the nose,
+which seemed to unite with the tawny eyebrows! In face and figure alike
+he was older than his years, almost too old, as though bowed down with
+premature cares. He stooped over his plate; and they were all struck by
+his air of weary exhaustion. What was it that had overstrained him so?
+He did not speak, but ate on in silence and drank rather more wine than
+was his wont. Alex looked at him for a long time, with a touch of
+anxious surprise. And at last, glancing, almost in alarm, at their
+faces, he suddenly perceived how forced and confused they all were in
+their attitudes, sitting and staring in front of them or into their
+plates--even his father, even his mother--and he understood that they
+sat and stared like that because he had not returned in a cheerful mood,
+after his five days' absence. He had a feeling of remorse, did violence
+to his fatigue and his ill-humour, steadied his nerves. He smiled--a
+tired smile--at his mother; asked his wife:
+
+"How are the children, Mathilde?"
+
+It was at once evident to them all, from his tone of addressing
+Mathilde, that he was making an effort and no longer wished to be out of
+humour and tired. They were thankful that he was making this obvious
+effort, because, with Addie gloomy, a gloom fell over all. Even Alex
+seemed to breathe again. And they could none of them bear it when
+Mathilde just answered, coolly:
+
+"All right."
+
+Nevertheless his endeavour succeeded. He now spoke to his father; and
+Van der Welcke answered with a jest. There was a laugh at last; Gerdy
+led the outburst, about nothing; the voices broke into a hum....
+
+After dinner, Addie went upstairs; and, when he had changed his things,
+he found Mathilde in her own sitting-room. Constant and Jetje had gone
+to bed. Out of doors, the night seemed to be wilder and stormier than
+ever; and the house creaked, the windows rattled. Mathilde sat staring
+before her, her ears filled with the sounds of the night. Nevertheless
+she heard her husband come in; but she did not move.
+
+"Tilly...."
+
+There was now an undoubted tenderness in his voice, in his deep, earnest
+voice. She was certainly very fond of him, she thought, if only he did
+not neglect her. She just raised her head towards him, sideways. She was
+a handsome woman; and her young, healthy blood seemed to give her a
+complexion of milk and roses. Her features were not delicate, but they
+were pure; her eyes were gold-grey and large, clear and bright; her hair
+had a natural wave in it and was almost too heavily coiled. Beneath her
+black silk blouse her bust was heavy, with a low breast and a naturally
+wide waist too tightly laced. She had the full, spacious form of a young
+and healthy woman and lacked all the morbid distinction of finer
+breeding. Her eyes seemed to stare at a vision of physical delight; her
+lips seemed ready to salute that delight; the grip of her large hands
+was greedy and decisive. Her foot, in its substantial shoe, was large,
+too large for a woman of fashion. Nor was she that: she was rather a
+woman of health. She had no delicacy of wit: she had rather common
+sense; and the only morbid part of her intelligence was an irrepressible
+vanity. She had no delicate taste: she wore a simple black blouse and a
+black skirt, both from Brussels; and yet there was a coarse line and a
+heavy fold in both. The brilliant on her finger gleamed insolently,
+white and hard. It was very strange, but she saw this herself. Her
+mamma-in-law had given her that brilliant during her engagement, out of
+her own jewels, because she had once admired the ring on Constance's
+finger, where the stone seemed to throw out sparks of fire....
+
+"Tilly...."
+
+She smiled at him now, made him come and sit beside her. Twenty-six
+years of age, a young husband and father, he looked quite ten years
+older, had aged more particularly, she thought, during the three years
+of his marriage. Now, however, that he had washed and changed, now that
+he no longer looked tired and wet, now that he was laughing under his
+fair moustache, now that his grey-blue eyes were filled with laughing
+kindness, now his aging no longer struck her so much; and she knew him
+again and he was hers again, in this one moment when her husband and she
+were alone....
+
+"Tell me," he said. "How have you been getting on ... these five days?"
+
+She felt a kindly affection for him; and she loved this in him. She let
+her hand remain in his two hands; she allowed him to kiss her and
+returned his kiss. And she answered lazily, with a movement of her
+shoulders:
+
+"How have I been getting on? Oh, as usual!..."
+
+"You mean, all right?"
+
+"Yes, quite all right."
+
+"I believe, Tilly...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That you're telling a fib. Your voice is very abrupt."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and gave her little laugh, which meant that
+she couldn't help it.
+
+"You ought to talk candidly to me for once," he said.
+
+"Yes," she answered; and her tone was more intimate. "We don't do that
+too often."
+
+"I'm very busy sometimes."
+
+"You're always busy. Why did you have to go to Amsterdam suddenly? I
+hardly know the reason."
+
+"It was for Alex."
+
+"And did you succeed?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Oh, I'm not asking to know!" she said, at once, in a tone of piqued
+indifference which he appeared not to notice.
+
+"I have been thinking things over, Tilly...."
+
+"Thinking things over? When?"
+
+"At Amsterdam."
+
+"I thought you were so busy!"
+
+"I used to think in my room, in the evenings. About you."
+
+"About me?"
+
+"Yes. Tell me, wouldn't you rather have your own house? You might feel
+happier if you had a home of your own."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Well, what do you say?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Of course I would rather have a home of my own. I told you so at once
+... when we married."
+
+"Yes, but at that time...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I didn't see it so clearly ... that you would not be happy in this
+house."
+
+"Oh ... happy? I don't know."
+
+"You're not happy here."
+
+"I would certainly rather have my own house ... at the Hague."
+
+"At the Hague. Very well. But, if we move to the Hague, Tilly, we shall
+have to be very economical."
+
+"Very economical?"
+
+"Well, of course! I'm not making much yet."
+
+"And you're always busy!"
+
+"Yes...."
+
+"You have patients here, at Driebergen, and all around."
+
+"Yes," he said, with a laugh, "but they don't pay me."
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Because they can't."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders also:
+
+"It's very noble of you, Addie.... But we have to live too."
+
+"Yes. But don't we live?"
+
+"If we moved to the Hague, though ...?"
+
+"We should have to be very economical."
+
+"You're well off."
+
+"I'm not well off.... Tilly, you know I'm not. Papa has a pretty
+considerable fortune. But he has a good many calls...."
+
+"Calls!... why, you're his only son!"
+
+"He might give us an allowance ... until I was making more money.... But
+even then we should have to be economical ... and live in a very small
+house."
+
+She clasped her large, white hands:
+
+"I'm sick of economy," she said, coarsely, "sick and tired of poverty.
+I've never had anything in my life but poverty, decent, genteel poverty.
+I would rather be a beggar, simply; I'd rather be a poor girl in the
+street than go through decent, genteel poverty again."
+
+"It wouldn't be so bad as all that."
+
+"Not so bad, perhaps, but still a small house, with one servant, and
+seeing how far a pound of meat will go and watching every half-penny
+that the servant spends. No, thank you, it's not good enough."
+
+"Then, Tilly...."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Then I see no chance ... of moving to the Hague."
+
+"Well," she said in her dull tone of piqued indifference, "then let's
+stay here."
+
+"But you're not happy here."
+
+"Oh, what does my happiness matter?"
+
+"I should like to see you happy."
+
+"Why, you no longer love me!"
+
+"I do love you, Tilly, very much."
+
+"No, you don't love me. How could you love me? Do you think I don't see
+it? You love all of them here, all your relations: you don't love me.
+You hardly love your children."
+
+"Tilly!"
+
+"No, you hardly love your own children."
+
+"Tilly, you've no right to speak like that. Because I'm fond of Uncle
+Gerrit's children, is that any reason why I shouldn't be fond of you ...
+and of Stan and little Jet?"
+
+She had risen, tremulously. She looked into his grave eyes, which gazed
+at her long and almost sorrowfully, from under his heavily-knitted,
+tawny eyebrows. She had intended to overwhelm him with reproaches; but
+on the contrary she threw herself on his breast, with her arms around
+his neck:
+
+"Tell me that you love me!" she cried, with a great sob.
+
+"I love you, Tilly, you know I love you."
+
+He kissed her. But she heard it through his voice, she felt it through
+his kiss: he no longer loved her. All at once, suddenly, the certainty
+of it poured a coldness as of ice into her soul. She held him away from
+her for a moment, with her hand against his shoulders. She stared at
+him.... He also looked at her, with his sorrowful eyes, and he spoke,
+but she did not hear what.... Then she heard him say:
+
+"Are you coming downstairs, Tilly? They will be wondering what's become
+of us!"
+
+"No," she said, calmly. "I have a headache and I'm going to bed."
+
+"Won't you come down?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Do, Tilly! Please come down with me. I shall be so glad if you will."
+
+"I'd rather not," she said, softly and calmly. "I really have a headache
+... and I'm going to bed."
+
+She looked at him gravely, for one more moment, and he also looked at
+her, very gravely and very sorrowfully. But their souls did not come
+into contact. She kissed him first:
+
+"Good-night," she said, softly.
+
+He said nothing more, but he returned her kiss, very fondly. Then he
+left the room; and she heard his steps creaking softly on the stairs.
+
+"Dear God," he thought, "how am I to find her! How am I to find her
+again!..."
+
+
+[1] Gertrude, Gertie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Addie remained in the drawing-room for only a second:
+
+"I'll go and keep Papa company for a bit," he said.
+
+And he went and looked up his father in his room, where Van der Welcke
+always smoked his three or four cigarettes after dinner, alone.
+
+"Daddy, am I disturbing you?"
+
+"Disturbing me, my dear fellow? Do you imagine that you ever disturb me?
+No, you never disturb me.... At least, I can count the times when you
+have disturbed me."
+
+"But I've come to disturb you this time...."
+
+"Well, that's a bit of luck."
+
+"And have a talk with you."
+
+"Good. That doesn't happen often."
+
+Addie knitted his brows, which gave him an expression of sadness:
+
+"Don't be satirical, Father. How can I help it?"
+
+"I'm not being satirical, my dear boy. I accept the inevitable. I've
+been accepting it now for five days. After dinner I would come up here
+quietly and smoke my cigarettes in utter resignation. Of those five
+days, two have been windy and three have been stormy. And I sat here
+calmly and listened to it all."
+
+"And ...?"
+
+"And ... that's all. Life's an insipid business; and the older I grow
+the more insipid I find it. I don't philosophize about it very much. I
+never did, you know.... But I do sometimes think, nowadays, what a
+rotten thing life is, with all its changes. At least, I should have been
+glad to let it remain as it was...."
+
+"How, Daddy?"
+
+"As it used to be when you were a small boy. I have gradually come to
+lose you entirely ... and I have so little, apart from you."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!"
+
+"Yes, I have gradually come to lose you entirely.... In the old days,
+when you were a schoolboy ... then you belonged to me. Then came your
+time at college: that took a bit of you from me. Your eighteen months in
+the hospitals at Amsterdam: I never saw you. Your year, after that, in
+Vienna: I never saw you. I was lucky if I got a letter now and again.
+Then you came back, took your degree. And then ... then you went and got
+married."
+
+"And we have always remained with you."
+
+"And every year I lost a bit more of you. You no longer belong to me.
+There was a time when I used to share you with Mamma; and you remember
+that I used to find that pretty hard occasionally. But now I share you
+... with all the world."
+
+"Not with all the world, Daddy."
+
+"Well, with half the world then. With your wife, with Aunt Adeline and
+your nine adopted children, with all your outside interests."
+
+"Those are my patients."
+
+"You have a great many of them ... for a young doctor. And...."
+
+"Well, Daddy?"
+
+"Nothing, old boy. I only wanted to give you a piece of advice; but who
+am _I_ to advise _you_?"
+
+"Why not, Daddy?"
+
+"I don't count."
+
+"Now then!"
+
+"I never have counted. You used to manage me; and I just did what you
+told me to."
+
+"Give me your advice now. Haven't we always been pals?"
+
+"Yes, but you were the one with the head."
+
+"There's not much head about me just now. Give me your advice, Daddy."
+
+"You won't take it from me."
+
+"Out with it, all the same!"
+
+"Well, my boy, listen to me: keep something of your life for yourself."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You're giving it all away. I don't believe it can be done. I believe a
+man to stand as much in need of a healthy egoism as of bread and water."
+
+"I should say that I was egoist enough."
+
+"No, you're not. You keep nothing for yourself. You'll think it funny of
+me that _I_ should talk to you like this; but, you see, the older I grow
+and the more cigarettes I smoke the more I notice that...."
+
+"That what?"
+
+"That both your parents have never--considering your character--taken
+your _own_ happiness into account: Mamma no more than I."
+
+"I don't agree with you."
+
+"It is so, all the same. The years which you spent as a child between
+your two parents made you an altruist and made your altruism run away
+with you."
+
+Addie smiled and gazed at his father.
+
+"Well? What are you looking at me for?"
+
+"I'm looking at you, Father ... because I'm amused to see you so utterly
+wide of the mark."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I may have had a touch of altruism in me, but of late years...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I have thought a great deal of myself. When I got married ... I was
+seeking my own happiness. I wanted to find happiness for myself in my
+wife and children, for my own self ... and hang the rest!"
+
+"Ah, was that your idea? Well, it was a healthy idea too."
+
+"A healthy idea, wasn't it? So you were wide of the mark, Daddy. I
+wanted a wife who belonged to me, children who belonged to me: all
+forming one great happiness for myself."
+
+Van der Welcke wreathed himself in clouds of smoke.
+
+"So you see, Daddy, the advice which you gave me I followed of my own
+accord."
+
+"Yes, old boy, I see."
+
+"That's so, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes. Well, that's all right, then."
+
+"I'm glad to have had a talk with you. But now I must talk not about
+myself but about something else."
+
+"Of course. You can never talk for more than two seconds about yourself.
+However, you're right, I know now; and you had already followed my
+advice ... of your own accord. What else did you want to talk about?"
+
+"Daddy, I've been to Amsterdam."
+
+"For Alex. Well, is that settled ... about the Merchants' School?"
+
+"Yes, he can go up for his examination. But afterwards...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I went to Haarlem. Near Haarlem."
+
+"What took you there?"
+
+"Someone sent for me."
+
+"A patient?"
+
+"A dying man."
+
+"Who?"
+
+Suddenly, from the look in Addie's face, Van der Welcke understood. He
+went very pale, rose from his chair and stared in consternation into his
+son's sad eyes:
+
+"Addie!" he exclaimed, in a hoarse voice. "Addie, tell me what you mean!
+I had no idea ... that you knew anyone near Haarlem! I didn't know ...
+that you had a patient there!"
+
+He seemed to be trying to deceive himself with his own words, for he
+already understood. And Addie knew by his father's eyes and his father's
+voice that he understood; and, speaking slowly, in a gentle voice, Addie
+explained, as though the name had already been mentioned between them:
+
+"Six days ago ... I received a letter ... written in his own hand, a
+clear, firm hand.... The letter was quite short: here it is."
+
+He felt for his pocket-book, took out the letter and handed it to his
+father. Van der Welcke read:
+
+     "_Dear Sir_,
+
+     "Though I have not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, I
+     should consider it a great privilege if I might see you and speak
+     to you here at an early date. I hope that you will not refuse the
+     request of a very old man, whose days are drawing to an end.
+
+                       "Yours sincerely,
+
+                                           "_De Staffelaer_."
+
+Addie rose, for his father was shaking all over; the letter was
+fluttering in his fingers.
+
+"Daddy, pull yourself together."
+
+"Addie, Addie, tell me, _did_ you see him?"
+
+"Yes, I saw him. I was with him twice."
+
+"And ... and is he dying?"
+
+"He's dead. He died this morning."
+
+"He's dead?"
+
+"Yes, Daddy, he's dead."
+
+"Did you ... did you speak to him?"
+
+"Yes ... I spoke to him. He was very clear in his head: a clear-headed
+old man, for all his ninety-two years. When I arrived, he pressed my
+hand very kindly and nicely, made me sit beside his chair. He was
+sitting up, in his chair. That's how he died, in his chair, passing away
+very peacefully. He told me that he had wanted to see me ... because I
+was the son ... of my mother.... He asked after Mamma and made me
+describe how you two had lived ... at Brussels. I told him about my
+childhood. I told him of my later life. He took a strange interest in
+everything ... and then ... then he asked after you, how you had been,
+how you were ... asked if I was attached to my parents ... asked after
+my prospects ... asked after my aims in life.... I was afraid of tiring
+him and tried to get up, but he put out his hand and made me sit down
+again: 'Go on, go on telling me things,' he said. I told him about the
+Hague, told him how we were now living at Driebergen. He knew that Uncle
+Gerrit's children were here. He seemed to have heard about us.... When I
+went away, he said, 'Doctor, may the old man give you something?' And he
+handed me three thousand guilders: 'You must have patients, Doctor, who
+can't afford things,' he said. 'You won't refuse it, will you?' I
+thought it right to accept the money. It was an obvious pleasure to him
+to give it me.... Next day--that was this morning, when I went again--he
+was much less lucid. He just mentioned Mamma; and, when he spoke of her,
+I could see that he imagined that she was still quite young. Still he
+understood that I was her son.... Then he gave me his hand and said, 'I
+am glad, Doctor, to have seen you.... Give my regards to your mother ...
+the old man's regards ... and to your father too.' Then I went away;
+and, when I called again in an hour to enquire, the butler told me ...
+that he was dead...."
+
+Van der Welcke sat in his chair, motionless and bent, with his hands
+hanging between his knees. He stared in front of him and did not speak.
+The past, the times of bygone days rose tempestuously before his eyes.
+It was as though that which had once existed never perished, as though
+nothing could ever change in what had once begun.... Life slid on
+unbrokenly.... His eyes saw Rome, an old palace, a lofty room ...
+Constance fleeing down a back stair, himself standing like a thief in
+the presence of the old man ... the good old man, who had been like a
+father to him.... Now ... now the old man was dead.... And Addie had
+been at his death-bed! And Van der Welcke's son was bringing the dying
+man's message, his last message, his forgiveness!...
+
+Van der Welcke stared and continued to stare, motionless; and a sob
+welled up in his breast. His eyes, which were like a child's with their
+ever youthful glance, filled with great tears. Nevertheless, he
+controlled himself, remained calm; and all that he said, quite calmly,
+was:
+
+"Addie, does Mamma.... know?"
+
+"No, Daddy.... I wanted to tell you first ... and to bring you ... the
+old man's message and...."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"His forgiveness...."
+
+Van der Welcke's head drooped lower still; and the great tears fell to
+the floor. Addie now rose and went up to his father:
+
+"Daddy...."
+
+"My boy ... my boy!"
+
+"The old man sent you this message: 'Tell your father ... that I forgive
+him ... and tell your mother so ... too....'"
+
+Addie flung his arm round his father's neck; and Van der Welcke now
+sobbed on his son's breast. He could restrain himself no longer. He gave
+one great, loud sob, clutching hold of his own son, like a child.... Had
+it not always been like that, the child the consoler of his father? The
+son now his mother's consoler?
+
+The emotion lasted but a moment, because of the calmness of older years;
+but it was a moment full as the whole soul and the whole life of a small
+being. The older man felt all his soul, saw all his small life. Was
+_that_ coming for him: forgiveness? Was it coming to him through his
+son? Because of his son, perhaps ... mysteriously, for some mysterious
+law and mystic reason?... He felt it ... as an enlightening surprise ...
+though he merely said, after a pause:
+
+"I'm glad, Addie ... that you went. And now you must tell ... Mamma."
+
+"I'll tell her this very evening, Father."
+
+"This evening?"
+
+"Yes, I can't wait any longer. Those last words ... are lying like a
+weight ... on my heart: I must hand them on...."
+
+"To Mamma also...."
+
+"To feel relieved...."
+
+"Then go to her," said Van der Welcke, very calmly.
+
+And he remained sitting in his chair. His fingers mechanically rolled a
+fresh cigarette. But in his eyes, which had always remained young,
+there was seen a faint inflexion, of surprise, as though for the first
+time they had looked into the deeper life. His son kissed him, gently,
+went away, closed the door. And Van der Welcke's fingers continued to
+fumble with a newly-rolled cigarette. He forgot to light it. He stared
+in front of him....
+
+Outside the house the wind blew moaning along the walls and drew its
+tapping fingers along every window, as along a vast keyboard....
+
+Forgiveness, the very possibility of it, whirled before his staring
+eyes....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+When Addie came downstairs he met Constance. A gas-jet was burning with
+a small flame in the brown dusk of the oak wainscoting. She was
+obviously tired:
+
+"I am going to my room," she said.
+
+"I was looking for you, Mummy."
+
+"Come along with me then."
+
+"Perhaps you're tired, perhaps you want to rest ... and sleep."
+
+"I can rest as well when you are with me as when I am alone. Come."
+
+She put out her hand, took his and drew him gently up the stairs. She
+turned up the gas in her sitting-room. She changed quickly into a
+tea-gown; and he thought that he would not speak to her that evening,
+because she really seemed very weary.... While she was busy in her
+dressing-room, he looked round him and felt the years of his boyhood.
+The room was so exact a copy of the little drawing-room in the
+Kerkhoflaan that the past always came back to him here. And it brought
+with it the strange melancholy of all things that had been and no longer
+were....
+
+"Hark how it's blowing!" she said. "It reminds me...."
+
+"Of what, Mamma?"
+
+"Of an evening, more than ten years ago, at the Hague. It was after the
+death of Grandmamma van der Welcke. I had returned from here, from the
+room which is now Papa's bedroom. I had been to Grandmamma ... and it
+was stormy weather, like to-day, and, when I got home, I was fanciful
+and frightened: the wind seemed to me so gigantic and I ... I was so
+small.... Then you came home ... and I was so frightened ... I crept
+into your arms ... I looked into your eyes, Addie.... In those days, it
+was very strange, they changed colour, they turned grey.... Now they are
+sometimes quite dark-grey, but sometimes I see a gleam of blue in them.
+I used to feel so sorry ... that they changed colour.... Do you
+remember? It was not long before Uncle Gerrit died.... Oh, how
+frightened I felt ... for days and weeks before!..."
+
+"And why are you thinking of those days, Mammy darling?"
+
+"I don't know why. Perhaps only because it's blowing.... How small our
+country is by the sea!... It's always blowing, always blowing.... One
+would think that everything that happens is blown to us, across the sea,
+and comes down upon us, in heavy showers of rain...."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Oh, my boy, sometimes I feel so terribly heavy-hearted, without knowing
+why!..."
+
+"Is it the house?"
+
+"The house? No, no, it's not the house."
+
+"Don't you like the house even now?"
+
+"Oh, yes ... I'm pretty used to the house!"
+
+"Is it the wind, the rain?"
+
+"Perhaps both.... But haven't I known them for years?"
+
+"Then what is it that makes you heavy-hearted?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Come here, to me...."
+
+"Where, my boy?"
+
+"On my knees, in my arms...."
+
+She sat down on his knees and smiled, sadly:
+
+"It's an age...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Since I sat on your knee like this.... Do you remember? Do you
+remember? When you were quite a boy ... and I felt frightened ... I used
+to creep up to your little study and creep into your arms and look into
+your blue eyes.... I never do that now."
+
+He clasped his arms round her:
+
+"Then do it again. There, you're doing it now.... My lap's bigger
+now.... My eyes have changed colour...."
+
+"Everything, everything has changed!"
+
+"Has everything changed?"
+
+"Yes ... I've lost you!"
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+"I have lost you.... Hush, dear, it was bound to come!... Does a son
+belong to his parents?... Does a son belong to his mother?... A son
+belongs to everybody and everything ... but not to his parents, not to
+his mother.... It is a cruel law, but it is a law...."
+
+"You're regretting the past ... and there was not so much peace and
+quiet in the past, Mummie.... Do you remember, do you remember ... how
+you used to be ... you and poor Father?... Now everything is much calmer
+... everything has smoothed down so ... because life has gone on."
+
+"Yes, life has gone on.... I had you ... and I have lost you!...."
+
+She was sobbing on his shoulder.
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+"Dear, it was bound to be! Didn't I consider ... that it would be so ...
+years and years ago?... When you were a little boy, I often used to
+think, 'I've got him now ... but one day I shall lose him irrevocably?'
+Now it has come. ... I must accept it with resignation...."
+
+"But am I not living with you all? Have I ever been away ... except to
+college ... and sometimes on business?"
+
+"Dear, it's not that. It's the losing each other, the losing each other
+... out of each other's souls...."
+
+"But it's not that."
+
+"That's just what it is.... And it's bound to be so, dear.... Only,
+because I no longer feel any part of you in my soul, I no longer know
+anything about you.... I have known nothing about you for ages.... I see
+you going and coming--it's the patients, it's the children, occupying
+you ... in turns--but what do I know, what do I know about you?... It
+has become like that gradually ... and since ... since you got married,
+it has become irrevocable."
+
+"Mamma...."
+
+"I oughtn't to talk like this, dear. I mustn't. And I should be able to
+overcome this melancholy, if I knew ... that you were happy in
+yourself...."
+
+"Why should you doubt it?"
+
+"I don't know. There's something about you...."
+
+"Mother," he said, "how strange it is that you and Father...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Have never really found each other! You so often think the same
+things."
+
+"Did Papa also think ...?"
+
+"Just now ... almost the same as you."
+
+"We have learnt to bear with each other, darling."
+
+"But you have never found each other," he said, faintly; and his voice
+broke.
+
+She looked at him; she understood that he too had not found his wife.
+She saw it: he was not happy in himself. A sword seemed suddenly to cut
+through her soul; and she was filled with self-reproach as from a well.
+Was it not all her fault, that her son was not happy now?... Was it not
+the result of his childhood, the result of his up-bringing?... The
+melancholy that had come after the excessive earnestness of his first
+youth ... was it not her fault?
+
+But she merely answered his words mechanically:
+
+"No," she said, "we have never found each other."
+
+He would have wished to tell her now ... about his journey, about the
+old man, who had died, over there, near Haarlem. But he could not; a
+feeling of discouragement prevented him. And they remained sitting
+without speaking, close together, with her hand in his. After his
+father, after his mother had both, so soon after each other, spoken to
+him of his own happiness ... now that feeling of discouragement
+prevented him, because he saw life enveloping in clouds of darkness at
+his feet ... black darkness out of an abyss ... so that he did not know
+whither the first steps would lead him.... Black darkness and emptiness
+... because he no longer knew, no longer knew what it would be best to
+say and do.... He could no longer speak now of the old man who had died
+yonder, who had sent for him to tell him that he forgave the two of
+them--his father, his mother--who had once injured him: he could not do
+it. Whereas, at the time of his father's words, the black darkness had
+only whirled in front of him, now that his mother, so strangely, was
+saying the same to him ... it had suddenly become an abyss ...
+pitch-dark ... because he no longer knew anything.... He no longer
+possessed the instinctive knowledge by which he must tread his path,
+which, while still so very young, he thought that he knew how to tread
+in clear self-consciousness of a clear soul that felt its own vocation.
+Oh, how often of late years had he no longer known! He no longer knew
+what was right to do, because, whatever he had done of late years, the
+heaviness had sunk within him, as an insufficiency, giving him that
+feeling of discouragement.... He had felt that discouragement by the
+bedside of his needy patients.... He had felt that discouragement in
+between his cares for Uncle Gerrit's children.... He had felt that
+discouragement when he was with his wife, with his own children....
+
+Oh, world of feeling born just of the emptiness of self-insufficiency,
+because self, alas, was never sufficient, because something was always
+lacking and he did not know what!... And, when this came over him, this
+night of sudden chaos, the word died on his lips, the movement on his
+fingers, the deed on his will.... Oh, world of darkness, which then
+suddenly spread like the expanse of clouds outside over all the clear
+sky of himself!... He knew he wanted what was right; and yet the
+insufficiency swelled up.... He know his powers of alleviation and
+consolation; and yet it was the night without a smile ... as now, when
+he sat with his hand in his mother's, with no words after their first,
+save that she shuddered and said:
+
+"Hark ... hark how the wind is blowing!..."
+
+He drew her to him, until her head sank on his shoulder, and they
+remained like that, in the night.
+
+The gale outside was like a living immensity, a vast soul raging with
+world-suffering, thousand-voiced and thousand-winged, and under its
+raging agony, which filled all the air above the land, the house that
+contained the life of them all was small as some tiny casket....
+
+And that night he was unable to tell her....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Now at last, after days, he was himself again! Alone, all alone, in the
+night, in his study, while everyone in the house slept, while only the
+night itself was awake: the night and the immense wind tormenting itself
+and struggling, raging and tearing round the house. Now at last he was
+alone and himself again, after Amsterdam and after Haarlem, after the
+troubles and comings and goings, the excitement--needy patients, visited
+by stealth; the Merchants' School; the old man, the old man
+especially!--and, tired as he was, yet he could not make up his mind for
+bed. In the study which was now getting dusky-brown to his eyes in the
+light of the lamp, he sat in the low leather chair; and his head wearily
+drooped on to his hand. Now that he had no more need for action, waves
+of indeterminate darkness surged and floated all around and within him,
+bearing on their crests the mood of self-insufficiency. No one else knew
+him as he now knew and felt himself: not his parents, not his wife, not
+one of Uncle Gerrit's children, not one of his needy patients, who only
+saw him composed and steady of nerve, a little sombre-eyed, but so
+four-square and firm, so calm and confident in his knowledge, always
+sure what would be good for all of them, who were ill and wretched....
+No one knew him as he was now, weighed down with such despondency in his
+leather chair; and all who saw him four-square and firm, calm and
+confident in his knowledge, would never have believed that he knew
+nothing at all ... for himself. Oh, however much he might know for
+others, with that almost mystic knowledge which healed as though by a
+suggestive force deep down within himself, however much he might know
+what was good for their bodies and souls, for himself he knew nothing,
+least of all for his soul!... To them his young life seemed to move from
+one goal to another, always certain of itself through the windings of
+its course; yet that was all on the surface; and he knew nothing of
+himself!... His own disease was insufficiency; and of recent years he
+had felt it swelling within him fuller and fuller, eating into him
+deeper and deeper....
+
+He saw himself again as a child--his first recollection--between his two
+parents, his father taking him from his mother's lap, his mother taking
+him from his father's arms; and amid the unconsciousness of his earliest
+childhood he had always felt the jarring and jealousy between them. Very
+soon his blood made him speak, that calm unfevered Dutch blood; and his
+unfevered Dutch nature could be seen in his serious eyes; from the first
+his Dutch seriousness and steadying composure had been able to find, if
+not always words, at least sounds of consoling reconciliation, of riper
+tenderness for that mother, who hugged him in her arms, for that father,
+whom he came to regard so soon as a bigger and older brother. And this
+when he was still a little fellow. It had been like that ever since he
+could remember; from the time when he was a child in the nursery,
+stroking Mother's tearful eyes and bringing a laugh to Father's pouting
+mouth; and, as he grew older and bigger, he remembered, it had always
+been like that: he knew himself to have been their comfort.... It was
+small wonder that, when still quite young, he had begun to think of the
+comfort that he was and had then known for certain that he was their
+comfort.... He knew it then, as child and boy--no longer in
+unconsciousness but in assured, unshakable knowledge--and then it had
+become his destiny. So very early it had dawned on his consciousness and
+afterwards glittered before his eyes:
+
+"I must help them, I must be to him and to her what is dear to them and
+what comforts them."
+
+So naturally had he taken that destiny upon his young shoulders that it
+never became too heavy for him; and there had grown up with him an
+inclination to comfort and alleviate those who were not quite so near to
+him. Quite naturally he had spread his wing over all Uncle Gerrit's
+children, to care for them, to bring them up. Quite naturally, he sought
+what he could find to alleviate and comfort, whom he could cure, whom he
+could care for ... and this farther still from him, not close to his
+home, but in outlying villages and distant towns.... Thus had his nature
+grown and thus did he act, naturally, in obedience to his nature.... But
+the conflict between his parents, coming immediately, in the first,
+unconscious years of childhood, had made his tender nerves tremble with
+an incessant thrill, like a stringed instrument that is never silent....
+And under the calm, earnest glance, under the laugh of comfort or
+composure, under the sturdy breadth of his young and manly strength, the
+strings had always vibrated and never consented to betray themselves....
+They had betrayed themselves once, once only, when his very earliest
+childish pain had given him a violent shock, in a despair too great to
+be borne.... But immediately afterwards he had known within himself that
+he must be strong to overcome the cruelties of life.... Since then the
+cruelties had blown against him, like piercing winds ... without causing
+the sensitive strings to vibrate visibly or audibly to others.... Oh,
+did he not remember that suffering of his childish soul when he fancied
+that all his childish love had been wasted, because his parents in
+despite of it were going to separate, each grasping at the happiness
+that had smiled to him!... no one had seen that suffering and vibration.
+After the first suffering, no one had seen anything. And it was as if
+the too-great sensitiveness of the ever-vibrant strings had hardened in
+the robust young years of manliness; the god had stood before him so
+sharply defined: yonder!... Yonder!...
+
+He had felt young and robust; and that too-sensitive vibration had only
+developed his soul mystically, so that it should heal, wherever it
+directed its magic.... It had been very strange to him; but just with
+the medical studies, which should have made him a materialist, there had
+developed within him a conscious mysticism, enquiring into the essence
+of life, which the medical books failed to teach him. When he discussed
+it with his student friends, they answered with the scoff of growing
+positivism, the barren philosophy which clings to most men from their
+medical studies, because they ask only for the visible manifestations of
+the life which it is their business to tend and not for the invisible
+source, the holy well of life, whence everything flows in a radiance
+that grows gradually dim ... until the first radiance is no longer
+visible....
+
+So it had happened with his student friends; and theirs had become the
+common materialistic doctor's career. His eyes had always been set on
+the essence of life, the source of the radiant spring.... And, with his
+increase in practical science and positive knowledge, the strange,
+mystic certainty had increased in him, the certainty that he was able
+to heal if he wished ... that he could heal through sheer force of
+will.... It was not a matter for discussion, it was in him, a great
+instinctive knowledge.... Oh, that glorious certainty, which had shone
+out before him so early, sending its rays abroad.... Since he had felt
+it, very early, so clear and certain in himself, he no longer spoke
+about it; at most there was a very rare word to his mother, an
+occasional word to his father; but for the rest he would not touch his
+secret power with words: they were breath to dim a mirror's lustre!
+
+Oh, why had he not this knowledge for himself! Why, of late years, had
+he sunk deeper and deeper in the vagueness of that self-insufficiency!
+Why was the balance disturbed, why did he feel a consciousness of blame
+welling within him!
+
+He now sat on wearily; and, though everyone in the house was in bed,
+though the blowing wind, gigantic and plaintive, moaned up over distant
+heaths and slid along the walls and windows with its sombre, swelling
+howl, he could not make up his mind to go to bed, as though he knew
+that, if he did, he would not sleep. And, as if to know for himself how
+the discouragement could have overmastered him, he dived back into his
+memories, saw himself a boy again, healthy, strong and composed, loving
+his Dutch horizons and Dutch skies, with the deep, growing conviction
+that he had within himself the secret power which he could pour forth to
+heal all who suffered in body or in nervous soul.... He saw once more
+the disappointment of his parents, especially Papa, and of Grandmamma,
+because he would not enter the diplomatic service, because he wanted to
+become a doctor.... But he had carried his wish, backed up by Mamma, who
+seemed to understand him.... His rapid power of study, which allowed him
+to attain in feverish haste the aim which he saw so close before his
+eyes: matriculating out of the fifth class at school; putting in a short
+time at Heidelberg before he went to Leiden: he was so very young, only
+seventeen; passing his first examination in a year, his second in
+eighteen months, taking three intermediate courses in the next five
+years, during which period he also acquired practical experience with a
+demonstrator at Vienna; and lastly taking his degree at the age of
+twenty-six. His parents rejoiced when, after those nine years at the
+university and abroad, he settled down with them at Driebergen, when
+they had him back in their house, where, despite the presence of all
+Uncle Gerrit's children, he had left a feeling of emptiness.... A short
+spell of the tenderness of living with them all again; and his love for
+mankind had developed so quickly, making him find his patients
+inevitably among the poorest of the rural population, or sometimes in
+the villages, or even at Utrecht or Amsterdam.... He never spoke about
+them, maintaining an earnest silence about the things which he did, even
+as he was silent about the secret force which he so certainly knew
+himself to possess.... Never had he spoken to anybody over that poor
+little girl, a child of twelve, the daughter of two wretched labourers,
+a cripple since the age of five, whom, with the veriest trifle of
+material assistance, but more particularly through his sure power of
+will, he had gradually helped to raise herself from her bed of straw,
+enabled to move herself about, until she could now walk on her frail and
+yielding little legs.... He might have been ashamed of a cure so
+incredible, for he had never talked about it, not even to his mother,
+not even to his father....
+
+Oh, it lasted such a short time, the tenderness of that time when he
+lived with them all again, with his parents and the others!... When he
+reflected upon the strange double projection of his soul, when he was
+meeting the girl, who was now his wife, at the Hague: meeting her just
+now and again. A strange projection one of them? Perhaps not, after all;
+but, because of the stormy night wind, sombrely sending its howl over
+the sombre heaths, he was not able ... to read his own thoughts
+plainly.... Mathilde! The few meetings, at the Hague; then that feeling,
+when he chose her, of having been irresistibly compelled; and, combined
+with a vague wonder within himself, the pride also of introducing that
+good-looking and healthy young woman into his family.... He was proud
+that she did not belong to their class, especially on her mother's side,
+because it gave her an opportunity of triumphing over their arbitrary
+divisions; proud too that she was healthy, with her complexion of milk
+and roses, and above all did not suffer from "nerves," that all too
+common complaint among them all.... But they had not shared his pride;
+and after his marriage, some hint of antagonism seemed inevitably to
+arise between him and his father; his mother, too, for all the
+liberalism that had come to her late in life, remained antipathetic to
+this girl, whose gait and voice, whose movements and utterance all
+suggested a different environment from that to which Constance was
+accustomed; it was as if Aunt Adeline, Emilie, Uncle Gerrit's children,
+all their big household, had been unable to receive Mathilde in their
+midst without a certain supercilious mistrust.... They could none of
+them understand why he had married this woman.... And he had not failed
+to see how they always stirred themselves to be gentle and amiable
+towards her--because, when all was said and done, she _was_ his
+wife--stirred themselves especially not to let her see that they all
+thought her not _quite_, really not _quite_.... Her footfall was heavy,
+her voice not high-pitched enough; in everything that she did or said
+they marked that sometimes infinitesimal difference which betrays a
+difference of station. He had not failed to see it, but his pride had
+lain low and had never allowed them to notice that he saw it, because he
+thought it so small of them, so small-souled, that they could not blind
+themselves to that infinitesimal difference between Mathilde and
+themselves, yes, because he considered even their assiduous amiability
+small-souled. They showed it her so graciously sometimes, priding
+themselves, all of them, willy-nilly, upon their greater native and
+acquired distinction, all thinking themselves finer and better and
+higher than his wife, whom nevertheless they did not wish to wound....
+He saw this last even in his mother, in the boys, in Adeletje and in
+Gerdy--though Gerdy never succeeded--and he really preferred the
+undisguised aversion of little Klaasje, who clearly showed that she
+could not bear Mathilde....
+
+And he now saw that, in marrying this woman, who was not quite of their
+class, he had wanted to display pride in particular against the
+arbitrariness of those whom he called his people--his parents, his
+family--he had wanted to show that there was no longer any distinction
+of class, especially no distinction in those minor shades of class. If
+they were going to think about distinctions, she had the distinction of
+health ... while his own people were all sick, in body and soul, not, it
+might be, suffering severely, but all affected or tainted with those
+"nerves" of their time.... Perhaps his pride had just contained a desire
+to place his wife, Mathilde, before them as an example:
+
+"Look here now, here's a woman who is healthy and simple."
+
+For that was how he looked upon her soul and body. Because he looked
+upon her thus, he had felt for her the love that had driven him towards
+her, his soul taking that direction of positivism and materialism which,
+after his student days, had at that moment mastered the mysticism of his
+soul.... For he had known then, those moments in which he--tired of his
+text-books or hardened in the operating-room--had felt the mysticism
+within him temporarily fading; and it was especially during those
+intervals of materialism that the young doctor had experienced
+Mathilde's attraction, the attraction of a healthy, pink-and-white woman
+who would give him healthy children. At such moments he saw the world,
+all mankind, renewed by careful selection; the vigorous life-force of
+the future bursting into luxuriant rose-blossoms which would overwhelm
+the sickly lilies of these days of "nerves...." When, afterwards, the
+secret forces spoke more loudly within him, then he would suddenly feel
+himself far removed from his wife, as though he had lost her; and
+especially in his dark, vague self-insufficiency he lost her entirely,
+feeling himself nerveless and without power even to return her kisses
+with any warmth, while his voice in speaking to her remained dull and
+his grey glance cold, whatever he said and however hard he tried to
+force himself back into his healthy, positive love for the healthy
+mother of his two children....
+
+Then he would feel guilty towards her. And the inner conviction of his
+guilt increased. Was it her fault that he had been able only to give her
+one half of his soul, that he had it in his power to love her only with
+the positive half of his nature--however sincere it might be--while he
+gave her nothing of what worked and moved in him more profoundly and
+gloriously, the true web and woof of himself? Was it her fault and was
+he really entitled to take her, if he could not give her more than half
+of himself, while all that was higher--and he well knew what was higher
+in him--escaped her and always would escape her?... But often in his
+black insufficiency, even as now in his weary nocturnal mood, his
+consciousness of guilt, though it pained him, became suddenly too dreamy
+and unreal; and he now comforted himself tranquilly:
+
+"She is a simple woman. She has never thought of other than simple and
+uncomplicated things, has never lived among them; and she will never
+miss this, all that I do not give her, she will never know the lack of
+it, because she is simple, because she is simple: a healthy, normal
+mother, the handsome, healthy mother of my two dear children...."
+
+Then again, tired and undecided to go to bed, he was pricked by his
+consciousness of guilt, he thought of her unhappy in the house that was
+dear to him, and he knew that he was incapable to-day--and so often, so
+often!--of giving her that love, that positive half, that one half of
+himself.... Sinking and sinking in his self-insufficiency, he now
+listened to the wind howling round the house, the storm that had lasted
+for days, and he seemed to hear voices that came moaning up over the
+wide heath, as though the wind were alive, as though the storm were a
+soul, as though it concealed weeping souls, complaining souls, and were
+their one manifestation: souls blowing up again and again, souls which
+now, in the night, tapped with soul-fingers at the trembling panes....
+Round about this house, in which his grand-parents had lived so long and
+in such loneliness, until now life had come to fill all the empty rooms,
+it suddenly seemed to him as though he heard something of their voices,
+moaning plaintively through the storm ... accusing him first and then
+pitying him: the old man's voice, the old woman's voice. But what they
+moaned he did not understand in the ever shriller howl upon howl that
+floated despairingly along the swishing trees ... until suddenly the
+window, fastened only by the latch, blew open with a fierce tug, the
+Venetian shutter flapped to and slung open again, banging against the
+wall of the house.... The wind entered and with one breath blew out the
+lamp. The room now dark, the night luridly visible outside, the window
+so desperately pulled open took on new outlines.... Adriaan, groping,
+knocking against the chairs, moved towards the window, seized the
+flapping, banging shutter, closed it, closed the window, firmly this
+time, turning the old latch that was stiff with rust.
+
+The rain poured in torrents; the wind moaned and sobbed with sorrowfully
+entreating voices and tapped its fingers against the trembling panes.
+
+That night he did not sleep, tired as he was. And he kept thinking:
+
+"Am I at fault?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The old lady was sitting silently at the window--in the grey morning,
+which seemed spent and weary with the wind out of doors--and her
+thoughts were following a far course of their own in misty days of long
+ago. Klaasje came up to her. The child had two heavy books under her
+arm, bound volumes of _The Graphic_ and _L'Illustration_, and walked
+bent under them; then she dropped them, clumsily.... Cross with the
+weight of the books, she beat them angrily, but the hard boards hurt her
+little hand; and so she decided to drag them to Granny, the naughty
+books which refused to come: she dragged them by the open bindings which
+had hurt her so; she tore them a bit, but that was their own fault,
+because they wouldn't be carried.... Satisfied with her revenge in
+tearing the books, she closed the bindings contentedly; the books lay at
+Granny's feet, against her foot-warmer; and now Klaasje dragged up a
+hassock too, pushed it against Granny's dress and, kneeling on the
+hassock, asked Granny, in a motherly fashion:
+
+"Granny!... Granny!... Granny like to look at pictures?"
+
+The old woman, with a vague, misty glance, slowly turned her head
+towards the child, whose fair hair fell loosely round the rather thin,
+sharp little face, from which the over-bright eyes shone strangely, hard
+and staring. The voice--"Granny look at pictures?"--rang strangely kind,
+but too childish for a big girl of twelve, with a maturing figure. It
+was too maternal towards the old woman:
+
+"Granny!... Granny like to look at pictures?"
+
+The old woman, vaguely, fancied herself at Buitenzorg, in a large white
+palace among mountains, which stood out against a blue sky, and
+coco-trees, which waved gently like ostrich-feathers; and she thought
+that her little daughter Gertrude was kneeling by her and wanting to
+look at the books with her. Her old mouth wore a little puckered smile;
+and she put out her hands for the book, which Klaasje held up clumsily.
+But the old woman was too weak to pull the heavy book on to her lap and
+it slipped obstinately down her dress to the floor, against the
+foot-warmer. Klaasje grew angry:
+
+"Naughty books, naughty books!..."
+
+She flew into a temper and struck the books again; but her little hand
+was hurt and she suddenly began to cry.
+
+"Ssh!... Ssh!..." said Granny, soothingly.
+
+She bent painfully in her big chair and laboriously pulled up the heavy,
+obstinate book; and Klaasje, with her eyes still wet, pushed up from
+below, till at last it lay in Grandmamma's lap. Then Klaasje sighed,
+after the final victory:
+
+"Turn over," she said.
+
+She turned over the heavy, clumsy binding and said:
+
+"Klaasje will explain...."
+
+But the black pictures, the dark portraits held no story for her; and,
+pointing her finger at the picture or the portrait, she could not make
+one up, could not find her tongue:
+
+"Turn over, turn over," she repeated.
+
+She was longing for colours, yellow, blue and red; but the pictures
+contained black, all black stripes and black patches, and she thought
+them ugly.
+
+"Turn over, turn over, turn over," she kept repeating, excitedly
+yearning for them to become yellow, blue and red.
+
+The old woman, with her puckered smile, patiently turned over the
+pictures. For her too they held no story, because they were black and
+sombre; and she was already seeing colours for herself, the dead-white
+and deep-blue, the bright, lacquered green of houses, sky and trees in
+Java. Here, under the sombre oppression of the skies, here, in the
+sombre pictures, the old woman and the child found nothing to charm
+them.
+
+Then Klaasje became very angry and dragged the heavy book from Granny's
+lap and beat it, heedless of the pain, and scolded:
+
+"Ugly books ... ugly, black books!"
+
+"Ssh!... Ssh!" said the old woman soothingly, laying her veined hand on
+the girl's fair head.
+
+"Build a tower!" said Klaasje, with a gurgle of laughter suddenly
+beholding a beautiful vision.
+
+She sprang up quickly. On a table in a corner of the room she found a
+box of dominoes. She brought the box, beaming with delight, but the
+smooth lid slid out of the box and the dominoes rattled on the floor.
+Klaasje stamped her foot, but the beautiful vision still shone before
+her and hurriedly and passionately she scrabbled them into her little
+pinafore. Then she brought them to Granny, like a harvest, like so much
+booty, and rattled them down at her feet. With a great effort she again
+pushed one of the heavy books on to Granny's lap; and the old woman
+helped her, pulling while Klaasje pushed.
+
+"Build tower!" cried the child.
+
+Granny held the book, held it straight, while Klaasje placed two,
+three, four pieces on their narrow edges. Upon these she went on
+building the rickety black-and-white tower.
+
+"A door and two windows," the child explained, lost in her game.
+
+But the tower fell in with a crash.
+
+"Granny mustn't move!" she whimpered.
+
+Balancing the heavy book on Granny's knees, she went on building,
+hurriedly, so as to get very high.
+
+"Granny mustn't move again.... Tower ... with a wall round it.... Higher
+... the tower ... one more stone on the wall ... one more stone on the
+wall...."
+
+But the wall and the tower came down with a crash.
+
+"Naughty Granny!... Naughty Granny!"
+
+"Ssh!" said the old woman, soothingly.
+
+Addie had entered; and the child, dropping the book and the dominoes,
+crowed with delight and ran up to him. She called him uncle, not
+realizing that he was her cousin:
+
+"Uncle Addie!" she cooed.
+
+He opened his arms wide, lifted her a few inches from the floor:
+
+"Look in Uncle Addie's pockets," he said.
+
+"What have you got? What have you got?"
+
+She fumbled in his pockets.
+
+"No, that's Uncle's pocket-book.... No, that's his watch.... Here, look,
+what's this?"
+
+He now helped her find the little parcel. She tugged hurriedly at the
+paper and string; and he opened the parcel for her. It was a little
+kaleidoscope.
+
+"Look through it...."
+
+"Lovely!" said the child, gleefully. "Lovely ... blue, red, yellow!..."
+
+"Now shake it...."
+
+She shook the kaleidoscope: the colours, from a square, changed their
+figure into a star.
+
+"Green, blue, red!" the child cried.
+
+"Now shake again...."
+
+"Blue and yellow."
+
+"There, what do you say to that?"
+
+"Lovely!... Lovely!..."
+
+She sat down on the floor, suddenly quiet and good, peered and shook the
+little cylinder, peered and shook it again. In the gaudy star she
+suddenly beheld a paradise:
+
+"Green, yellow, blue."
+
+Addie relieved Grandmamma of the book, put it down and began to arrange
+the dominoes in the box.
+
+"It's been blowing," said the old woman, pointing through the window.
+"There are great branches lying in the garden."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Then Adeline came in, looking for Addie. He was so tired yesterday that
+she had not cared to ask him the result of his visit to Amsterdam, but
+now, while he was still playing with Klaasje, she glanced at him with
+questioning eyes. She was still a young woman, no more than forty, for
+she had married Gerrit early and then borne him a child every year; but,
+despite her gentle, round, fair face, she was no longer young in
+appearance. Her lines had become matronly; and, especially after the
+great sorrow, after her husband's suicide, which had plunged her and the
+children into perpetual shadow like an indelible twilight, she had
+become so spiritless in all her simple energies that she came like a
+child to Constance or Addie about anything that concerned any one of
+them: mostly to Addie, whom she had taken to regarding as her inevitable
+protector. She looked up at him with respectful confidence; she always
+did literally what he told her to; it was he who controlled their whole
+little fortune, investing it as profitably as possible for the children;
+notwithstanding his youth, she turned to him in all that concerned her
+boys; and the boys themselves accepted it, inevitably, that their
+cousin, who was only six or seven years older than they, should look
+after their interests with paternal earnestness. But Adeline was well
+aware that Addie was very angry that Alex had had to leave Alkmaar. At
+first, things had gone fairly well in the secondary school at the Hague;
+after the third form--he was seventeen by this time--he had just
+succeeded in passing his matriculation; but, when he took two years
+over his first examination and failed in the second, Addie himself had
+considered that Alex had better look out for something different,
+however much his mother, with her mind full of Gerrit, would have liked
+to see her eldest son an officer....
+
+By this time, he was nearly twenty; and it was so late for him to go to
+the Merchants' School at Amsterdam that Addie had decided first to
+obtain all the details for himself and therefore had gone to Amsterdam,
+to see the head-master.... That was why, this morning, Adeline came to
+talk to Addie, a little nervously, rather frightened of what he might
+say, because he had been exceedingly dissatisfied about Alex,
+discouraged, not knowing what to do with him next.... He would like to
+have a talk with Alex, he said; and Adeline, sad about her son and
+rather frightened of Addie, went to fetch Alex and brought him back with
+her. He was tall, slender, pale, fair-haired: he did not look strong,
+although he had resembled his father, especially as a child; every year
+his features seemed to become more and more fixed and his face became
+like a spectral mask of pallor, with the look in the eyes a little shy
+under the lashes, as with a timorous, bashful and at the same time deep
+inner concealment of invisible, silent things.... Now that his mother
+had come to fetch him from the room where he sat reading, he came in
+with her, evidently nervous about the coming talk with Addie. But Addie
+said:
+
+"I ought really to be going out, Aunt.... Alex, can you go with me part
+of the way? Then we can talk things over as we walk. The roads are too
+wet for cycling."
+
+Addie's eyes and voice set Adeline's mind at ease, as though he were
+telling her that it would be all right at the Merchants' School....
+
+The cousins left the house together. The trees dripped with water; and
+the swift and angry wind chased the great clouds farther in one
+direction; but the sky remained grey and lowering. The far-stretching,
+straight country-roads vanished at last in a melancholy drab mist; and
+the two young men at first walked along without a word.
+
+"Well, I went and enquired for you yesterday," said Addie, at last. "You
+can go in for your exam, Alex ... and you can go on working there for
+some time yet.... I hope things will go better this time, old chap....
+You're nearly twenty now.... If they don't...."
+
+He made a vague gesture; and Alex took his arm:
+
+"It's awfully good of you, Addie, to take so much trouble about me. I
+too hope ... that things will go right ... this time...."
+
+"Mamma would have liked to see you in the army."
+
+"Still, I'm really not cut out for a soldier.... It's a pity I didn't
+think of it before I went to Alkmaar.... But, when I was there I felt it
+at once: there's nothing of the soldier about me."
+
+"And in that way years were lost.... Well, I do hope that now, when
+you're at the Merchants' School, you won't suddenly discover ... that
+you're not cut out for a business-man ... that you're not fit for
+'trade.'.... You can become a consul, you know."
+
+"Yes ... perhaps...."
+
+"It's a pity, Alex, that you don't know things for certain in your own
+mind ... that you have no settled ideas...."
+
+"Yes ... that's just it!..."
+
+"But you must become something, mustn't you? You have no money, you
+fellows; and, even if you had ... a man must be something ... in order
+to do any or get any happiness out of life ... for himself and those
+about him...."
+
+"Yes, Addie...."
+
+"Promise me now, old chap, to do your best.... You see, I'm playing the
+father to all of you, even though I'm only six years older than you are.
+I feel a sort of father to you ... and I should like to see you all
+happy ... and prosperous.... But you must help me, Alex. Show a little
+energy. If you hadn't thrown up the sponge at once at Alkmaar, you'd
+almost have had your commission by now...."
+
+"Yes...."
+
+"Like your father. Mamma would have liked that. But we won't talk about
+it any more and we'll hope that things will go better at Amsterdam...."
+
+"Addie ... do you remember Papa well?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"So do I.... I was eight years old, when he died.... I even
+remember...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That evening ... though I didn't understand at the time ... why Mamma
+cried and screamed like that ... or why Aunt Constance and Uncle Henri
+were there.... It was not until later, oh, years later, that I
+understood!... But I saw.... I _saw_ Papa lying ... with blood all round
+him; and that's a thing which always ... always ... hovers before my
+eyes. _I'm always seeing it, Addie_!... Tell me, Addie, do you know why
+Papa did it?... There was nothing, surely, to make him so unhappy as all
+that?"
+
+"He was very ill."
+
+"He thought himself incurable."
+
+"Still, he was strong?"
+
+"Physically."
+
+"He was like Guy, wasn't he?"
+
+"Yes, Guy is very like him, to look at.... He was tall, broad,
+fair-haired...."
+
+"Yes, that's how I remember him. I was eight years old then."
+
+"You were a jolly little tribe."
+
+"And now we're nothing but a burden ... to you...."
+
+"Nonsense, it's not as bad as that!"
+
+"I hope things'll go better ... Addie ... at Amsterdam...."
+
+"Why aren't you more talkative, Alex?... You haven't been for a long
+time."
+
+"Haven't I?"
+
+"You never talk, at home ... to the others. Only once in a way to me ...
+when we are alone. It was after Alkmaar that you became so silent. It
+wasn't surely because I was angry at the time?"
+
+"Perhaps, partly...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I daren't tell you."
+
+"Tell me, Alex, if there is anything I can do for you."
+
+"You do so much as it is, Addie.... You do everything."
+
+"But speak quite openly. Perhaps there is something more that I can do
+for you."
+
+"No, what could there be?"
+
+"Something's upsetting you."
+
+"No...."
+
+"You're unhappy."
+
+"No...."
+
+"You're so reserved."
+
+"I ... never talk much."
+
+"Try and trust me, Alex."
+
+"I do trust you."
+
+"Well, then, talk to me."
+
+"But I ... I've nothing to tell you, Addie."
+
+"I know, Alex, that you must have something to tell me...."
+
+"No...."
+
+"I know it, Alex."
+
+"No, Addie, really.... I've nothing to tell you...."
+
+The lad tried to release his arm from Addie's, but Addie held him tight:
+
+"Walk a bit more with me."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I have a couple of patients to see.... Take me there, Alex ... and
+speak, speak openly...."
+
+"I can't speak."
+
+"Then try and find your words. I'll help you."
+
+"Not to-day ... not to-day, Addie, out here, in the roads.... Perhaps
+another time ... indoors."
+
+"Very well, then, another time, indoors. I'll keep you to your word. And
+now let's talk of nothing but the Merchants' School...."
+
+And, with Alex still hanging on his arm, he told him about the
+head-master, the staff, the lessons there ... making a point of holding
+out hopes to Alex that everything would go easily and smoothly. Did
+Addie not know, did he not diagnose that the boy was so terribly afraid
+of life, of the days to come, because a twilight had always continued to
+press down upon him, the twilight of his father's suicide?... It had
+given the child a fit of shuddering in so far as he had realized it at
+the time; and things had suddenly grown dark, about his child-soul; and,
+when the power of thought had developed in him later, there had always
+remained the fear in that darkness, because the unconscious life went on
+daily ... and because his father--why, why?--had torn himself out of the
+unconscious life and committed suicide.... That--though Alex had not
+spoken--was how Addie diagnosed him, that was how he really diagnosed
+his state, with that strange look of penetration, with that strange
+vision.... And, when he looked into another in this way, he no longer
+thought of himself, his self-insufficiency fell away from him and he
+seemed to know on the other's behalf, to know surely and positively, to
+know with instinctive knowledge ... as he never knew things for
+himself....
+
+While they walked on, arm in arm, he thought that the boy's heavy step
+was becoming more rhythmical and even, that his answers--now that they
+went on talking about Amsterdam and the master in whose house he would
+be--were becoming firmer, as though he were taking greater interest....
+There was no note of doubt in Addie's voice: his voice made the two
+years' schooling at Amsterdam, the whole subsequent life as a busy,
+hard-working man, stand out clear in the mist that hung under the trees
+and over the roads, made it all take on bright colours as a life
+spreading open, with unclouded horizons of human destiny, as though all
+the unconscious life would run easily along ordered lines.... He himself
+had never known that fear of the days to come, because he had seen his
+goal before him in the future. Yet why, then, that morbid sense of
+insufficiency?...
+
+He refused to think of it; and at once it passed from him like a ghost.
+Even after his sleepless night, he now felt the energy circulating
+strongly within him, felt the magic pouring out of him as vital warmth.
+He must make that boy by his side realize the life before him, he must
+take away his fear of the future. An unknown force inside him ordained
+that he should make the future shine with hope and promise for this boy,
+ordained that he should purge the days to come of their sombre terror.
+
+And, when he had taken leave of Alex, because he did not wish him to
+know where his patients lived, the lad went back easier in his mind,
+with his fears pressing less heavily upon him, with the sullen sky
+growing gradually brighter ... however much he might have to think
+always of his father, however much he had to see his father's
+blood-stained corpse daily more and more clearly before his eyes....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The household took its everyday course of a morning: the everyday life,
+driven indoors by the merciless winter, the grey skies and blustering
+wind, rolled on softly and evenly in the rooms and passages of the big
+house. Not much came from outside, where the great trees in the garden
+dripped with chill rain; nothing to stir the big house, which stood
+there like a great lonely block on the villa-road, amid the sombre
+mystery of its wind-blown trees. For the occupants of the big, gloomy
+house had made as few acquaintances as possible among their neighbours,
+though in the spring and summer Gerdy would take her racket daily to the
+tennis-club.... In the winter, it was a quiet life indoors, varied only
+by a walk, or a visit to a sick or poor neighbour, a quiet life between
+the walls of the big rooms, with the wind tapping at the
+window-panes....
+
+The old grandmother sat mostly in the conservatory and looked out into
+the garden, sagely nodding her silver-grey head. She no longer
+recognized all the children and as a rule thought herself back at
+Buitenzorg, in the midst of her own family; even when Klaasje sat
+playing at her feet, she would think that it was little Gertrude,
+Gertrude who had died, as a child, at Buitenzorg.... Constance, a
+zealous housewife, active despite her fifty-five years, moved about the
+house incessantly during the morning, with Marietje or Adeletje to help
+her. Twenty-two and twenty-one respectively, they were always with
+Constance: Marietje already full of unselfish consideration and
+Adeletje delicate, not speaking much, sitting with her needlework
+upstairs in their room; and, because of Alex' strange melancholy, it was
+only Guy and Gerdy that represented joyous, healthy youth in the house,
+that rich health and radiance which reminded Constance of their father,
+of her brother Gerrit, who had been so noisy, broad and strong until he
+fell ill, too ill to go on living....
+
+Klaasje was very troublesome in the mornings, very restless, full of
+freaks and cranks, always bothering the others to play with her or at
+least to make a fuss over her; and Constance was so sorry that Klaasje
+could not be upstairs in the nursery with Jetje and Constant, but
+Mathilde would not have her there. And the poor, innocent child, twelve
+years old by now, was jealous of Constant and Jetje and hated Mathilde,
+as though, unconsciously, she felt in the children a childishness that
+was natural and as though she knew that, after all, she herself was much
+too big to play about like that and build houses with cards and
+dominoes....
+
+Above the great sombre house, against the great sombre skies and inside
+the house itself there was always a strange melancholy of things that
+had been.... It floated through the passages and creaked in the
+furniture; it could be felt in the old grandmother's sitting at the
+conservatory-window, in the pale, unchangingly sad face of Adeline, who
+was so helpless; it appeared in the silent sorrow of Emilie, who was
+spiritless and never spoke much these days. In the sombre house they sat
+or moved in an atmosphere of bygone things which mingled with the
+atmosphere of the house itself, as though they were small, pale souls,
+broken by life and sheltering in the safe house, now that the winter
+seemed endless and the heavy clouds were so oppressive.... A cloud of
+recollection hung over the old woman, as she sat silently staring, as
+she played with Klaasje, who would never grow up; a last reflexion of
+sombre tragedy lingered around the simple mother of so many children, as
+though her husband's suicide still struck her with tragic wonder that
+life could strike so suddenly and fiercely and cruelly; it was as though
+a strange psychological secret slumbered in the sad eyes of Emilie, who
+was still a young woman; a secret which she would never speak....
+
+Sombre was the house and sombre the everlasting wind that blew around
+it; full of strange voices, of things of long ago; and they did not
+brighten the house, those three sad, silent women, so different in age,
+so sombre in their equal melancholy. They did not brighten the morning
+which they spent there together, in the house on the long, rain-swept
+road; and it was Constance herself, followed quietly by Marietje or
+Adeletje, who woke the house, stairs and passages to life with her
+active footfall and the shrill rattle of her keys.... The sound of a
+piano came harshly from Mathilde's sitting-room upstairs; and it had
+only to be heard to make the other piano in the drawing-room downstairs
+cry out in pain under Gerdy's furious little fingers, until Constance
+was startled at so much noise and hurriedly whispered to Marietje:
+
+"Do tell Gerdy not to play when Mathilde is playing upstairs!..."
+
+Marietje would then rush to the drawing-room and rebuke Gerdy; and,
+because it was Aunt Constance' request, Gerdy's piano suddenly fell
+silenced, leaving Mathilde's runs and flourishes to triumph overhead.
+
+The children drove out daily with their nurse in the governess-court,
+whatever the weather: it was Addie's principle and they throve on it;
+and their youthfulness, stammering its first words, was like a bright,
+rosy dawn of the future, as they went along the sombre stairs and dark
+passages and rooms, casting a sudden golden radiance in that atmosphere
+of the past, as though they were suddenly powdering through the brown of
+the shadows, as though they were sprinkling the sound of children's
+voices through the brown air, which had not caught a childish sound for
+so many years....
+
+When Addie was out, visiting his patients, Van der Welcke remained in
+his room, reading and smoking, Uncle Jupiter, as Gerdy called him,
+because he usually sat enveloped in the blue clouds of his cigarette;
+and Guy did a little work, for his examination as a clerk in the postal
+service, except when he went to Utrecht, where he was receiving private
+tuition in geography. But when he was working at home, in his little
+room, up on the third floor, his young, healthy restlessness constantly
+made him get up and run downstairs, to borrow an atlas of Van der
+Welcke, hang round Uncle Henri for a bit, smoke a cigarette with him,
+then go back upstairs. He would look at his books and maps for three
+minutes and then jump up again, stretch himself, take up his dumb-bells,
+feeling stiff from the long sitting, and go downstairs once more.
+
+Constance met him in the hall:
+
+"Aren't you working, Guy?"
+
+"Yes, I am, Auntie. Where are you off to?"
+
+"To the store-cupboard."
+
+He went with her and Marietje to the store-cupboard, conducted a raid
+among the almonds and raisins, talked a lot of nonsense and made
+Constance laugh, until she said:
+
+"Come on, Guy ... run along upstairs."
+
+But, because Adeletje looked after the flowers in the conservatory and
+he saw her carrying a watering-can, he assisted her and even sponged the
+leaves of an aralia, while Klaasje played at Grandmamma's feet, building
+houses with cards, which she loved for the shrill colours of the
+court-cards, and aces[1] and for the pretty figures of hearts and
+diamonds, clubs and spades. He built a house for her; he teased Gerdy,
+who was back at her piano, now that Mathilde had left off overhead,
+until Truitje came to lay the table for lunch and he raced up three
+flights of stairs, terrified, to work at all costs ... hang it all, yes,
+to work!... He sat with his hands to his ears, so as not to hear, and
+his eyes fixed on the maps; and, when the luncheon-bell rang, he
+deliberately waited a few minutes, pretended to himself to be annoyed
+because a morning passed so quickly and never came down to lunch less
+than five minutes late, making the excuse that he had been working so
+hard....
+
+Now, in the winter, the short days passed in peaceful, sombre
+domesticity: in the afternoon, Constance went for a walk or to see a
+poor person, generally with Adeletje; paying or receiving a visit was
+quite an event, which happened only three or four times during the
+winter; only Gerdy sometimes entertained her tennis-club and gave the
+members tea, upstairs in the girls' sitting-room, as though striving for
+a little sociability from the outside.... And, in the yellow circle of
+light shed by the lamps, the evening drowsed on gently after dinner,
+with the wind whistling round the house, with Gerdy's bustle amid the
+chink of her tea-things, with Guy and Adeletje rattling the dice:
+
+"Two and five...."
+
+"Double six.... Once more.... Imperial.... Once more.... Three and
+five...."
+
+And Mathilde sat with a book in her hands, her eyes expressing a weight
+of silent boredom, while the room seemed full of things of the past, and
+the voice of the wind outside and the mourning women--Granny, Adeline,
+Emilie--like three generations of dreaming melancholy depressed her
+until Addie came in, for a brief hour, before going upstairs again to
+his reading....
+
+
+[1] The aces in Dutch packs of cards are set in brightly-coloured
+pictures, usually town-views.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+It was raining on the morning when Adolphine alighted at
+Zeist-Driebergen and hurried to the tram which was on the point of
+leaving. She looked very weary and lean, with bitter lines round her
+thin, spiteful lips and a reproach in her sharp eyes; and suddenly she
+reflected that she was sorry that she had not put on a better cloak.
+
+"Conductor, will you stop at Baron van der Welcke's villa, please?"
+
+"We don't pass the villa, ma'am, but it's quite close to the road."
+
+"Then will you tell me where to get out?"
+
+The conductor promised; and Adolphine suddenly became very uncertain of
+herself. All those years, all the years that Constance had been living
+at Driebergen, she had never been once to look them up: really out of
+anger, because they had stolen Mamma, because Mamma had gone to live
+with them. In all those years, she had never seen her mother, had seen
+Constance only once and again, at Baarn, after Bertha's death; at the
+Hague, casually, exchanging a few words with her when they met, by
+accident, at Aunt Lot's; and Addie also she had seen but very seldom.
+She was sorry for it now, it looked so strange, to arrive like this, all
+of a sudden; and then she had not announced her coming, because she
+disliked writing the letter.... If only Constance wasn't out, or away,
+or perhaps gone to Utrecht or Amsterdam for a day's shopping ... which
+was possible.... She was coming quite like a stranger; and her heart
+was thumping; and she was almost sorry now that she had taken this step.
+There were plenty of other doctors besides Addie, who was still such an
+inexperienced boy, and yet ... and yet ... In her unstrung condition,
+the tears came to her eyes and she felt overcome with her sorrow, with
+all the bitterness of the last few melancholy years. It was all very sad
+at home: Van Saetzema, retired on a pension and now ailing ... with
+cancer in the stomach; the boys--Jaap in the Indian Civil, Chris in the
+army, Piet a midshipman--never writing home, now that they no longer
+needed the paternal house; Caroline soured by not marrying; and the
+youngest, Marietje, so weak lately, so queer, that Adolphine did not
+know what to do with her! Added to all this, because, notwithstanding
+her economy, they had lived on too lavish a scale in her striving after
+Hague grandeur, they had run into debt and were now living in a small
+house, really vegetating, without seeing a spark of grandeur gleaming
+before their eyes. It was all over, there was nothing left for them: it
+was all loneliness and dying off ... relations and friends; there was no
+family circle left at the Hague and it seemed as though such
+family-circle as had survived was now united--how strange!--in Van der
+Welcke and Constance' house at Driebergen.... Adolphine had long
+cherished a wonderful jealousy at this, as though, after Van Naghel's
+death and Bertha's, it ought to be her house which the family, however
+greatly dispersed, would look upon as the family-house.... It was not
+that she was hospitable by nature, but her vanity was injured; and to
+satisfy this she would not have objected even to taking Mamma to live
+with her, however doting and tiresome Mamma might have become. But there
+had never been any question of that. No, Mamma had at once gone to
+Constance; and Adolphine could feel, by the way in which Paul, Dorine,
+the Ruyvenaers and even Karel and Cateau spoke, that they all, with
+varying degrees of affection, looked upon Van der Welcke's house at
+Driebergen as still remaining the family-centre! A nice state of
+affairs! Adolphine was angry now, because she never succeeded in
+anything, because she never _had_ succeeded.... And now she had actually
+set out for Driebergen, with the very object of asking those two,
+Constance and Van der Welcke, to do her a favour, though she refused as
+yet to picture it so clearly as such....
+
+She was very nervous when the conductor, at a halt, told her to get
+down, showed her a road, pointed to a house distantly visible between
+the bare, dripping trees. The great block loomed massive-grey through
+the black boughs; the outline of the long, straight roof stood out harsh
+and unwelcoming against the grey winter sky. It was only the fancy of
+overstrung nerves; but in the windows of the front, with their
+reflecting panes and blinds half down, Adolphine seemed to feel reserve,
+repellence, pride, grudge, refusal.... It all shot very quickly through
+her, made her hesitate to go on ... and yet, now that she had come so
+far, now that she was approaching the gate of the front-garden, she
+realized that it was too late, that she must go on, round the beds with
+the straw-wrapped roses; and she rang at the great gloomy front-door.
+She rang shyly, too softly; the bell did not sound; and she stood
+waiting under her dripping umbrella. Her heart was beating as she pulled
+a second time, rather harder, in spite of herself.... Truitje now opened
+the door and she recognized her as the maid, the same maid, for whom
+Constance had rung, years and years ago, in the Kerkhoflaan, to show
+her the door, after their last private interview. She was surprised to
+see the girl, looking older, but still recognizable; and, because her
+thoughts were carried back to so many years ago, the sight gave her such
+a sense of hesitation that she could hardly speak, especially as
+Truitje, equally surprised, was also staring her in the eyes. Adolphine
+felt that she was going to stammer, now that she had to open her lips;
+but there was no way out of it; the question must be put:
+
+"Is ... is me-mevrouw ... is mevrouw at home?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am ... mevrouw's at home."
+
+Adolphine had entered trembling; and the maid closed the door behind her
+and took her wet umbrella from her. Standing on the mat, she saw the
+long hall before her, with the brown doors, the antique cabinet, the
+portraits and engravings. It gave her the impression of a very sober and
+serious Dutch house, but an impression, too, of reserve, repellence,
+pride, grudge and refusal.... And, with her eyes anxiously fixed on the
+open oak door at the end of the hall, she stammered once more almost
+imploringly, with an irresolution in her voice which she could not
+overcome:
+
+"I'm not ... I'm not disturbing her?"
+
+"Not at all, ma'am: pray come in."
+
+Then the door of the drawing-room opened and Constance herself stood
+before her:
+
+"Adolphine!"
+
+There was surprise in her voice, if not gladness: surprise at finding
+Adolphine there, Adolphine whom she had never seen at Driebergen, whom
+she had never seen lately, for the matter of that, except once or twice,
+casually, at the Hague or Baarn ... when poor Bertha had died.
+
+"Adolphine!"
+
+"I've come to see how you are getting on, Constance ... you and ... and
+Mamma...."
+
+Adolphine's voice wavered, jerkily, beseechingly, uncertain of itself;
+and it was so strange for Constance to see Adolphine, to hear her
+uttering such words, in so hesitating a voice, that she was put out for
+a moment and could not frame a phrase of welcome, could not even make a
+show of cordiality. But she saw that the door at the end of the hall
+stood ajar; and she said to Truitje, almost angrily:
+
+"Truitje, why is that door open again? You know I want it shut."
+
+"It opens sometimes with the draught, ma'am," replied the maid.
+
+Truitje closed the door and went back to the kitchen; and the two
+sisters were left alone.
+
+"Come in, Adolphine."
+
+"I'm not disturbing you?"
+
+"Of course not. I'm glad to see you again."
+
+She forced a note of geniality into her voice.
+
+"We haven't met for years," said Adolphine, in hesitating excuse.
+
+"Not for ever so long. I go to the Hague so seldom. Here's Mamma."
+
+The old woman was in the conservatory, gazing out of the window.
+
+"Mamma!" said Adolphine, with emotion. "Mamma!"
+
+She went nearer:
+
+"Good-morning, Mamma...."
+
+The old woman looked at her vacantly:
+
+"It's windy," she said. "The garden is full of big branches...."
+
+"Mamma," said Constance, "here's Adolphine come to see you."
+
+The old woman did not recognize her daughter. She looked at Adolphine
+vacantly and indifferently. Then she said:
+
+"It's not right for Gertrude to run about in the garden when it's so
+windy.... There are big branches falling from the trees."
+
+"No, Mamma, I'll go and fetch her in."
+
+"Gertrude?" asked Adolphine.
+
+"She means our poor Klaasje," whispered Constance.
+
+"But doesn't Mamma know me?"
+
+"Not ... just now. She'll recognize you presently.... Mamma, don't you
+know Phine?"
+
+"Phine?" repeated the old lady.
+
+"Adolphine, Mamma. Look, she's come to give you a kiss."
+
+"She's dead," said the old woman ...
+
+"Mamma! Adolphine _dead_? Look, she's _here_!"
+
+The old lady shook her head:
+
+"She's dead," she said, unshakably. "She died ... years ago."
+
+Adolphine turned her head away and began to sob.
+
+"She'll recognize you presently," said Constance, gently, consoling her.
+"She's sure to know you presently. Adolphine, I'm so glad to see you."
+
+But Adolphine was sobbing violently: "Mamma doesn't ... _know me!"_
+
+"My dear, she hasn't seen you for so long. I know she'll recognize you
+later on.... You're staying to lunch, of course...."
+
+"I ... should like to.... Constance, I've come to...."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"To ask something.... But presently, not now ... I'm too much upset...."
+
+"Let me help you off with your things."
+
+"I'm dreadfully wet ... it's raining so...."
+
+"You've chosen a bad day."
+
+"I didn't want to wait any longer."
+
+"Tell me, what is it, what can I do for you?"
+
+"I can't tell you yet."
+
+Gerdy peeped round the open door:
+
+"Is that Aunt Adolphine?"
+
+"Yes," said Constance.
+
+Marietje and Adeletje followed:
+
+"Is that ... Aunt Adolphine?"
+
+They came in and shook hands.
+
+"Is Klaasje out in the garden?" asked Constance.
+
+"I saw her running about just now."
+
+"You have a busy household ... Constance," said Adolphine, waveringly.
+
+"Yes," said Constance, smiling, "and yet I should miss them if they
+weren't there. All my daughters ... and my boys."
+
+The girls stood round her: Gerdy, looking very handsome; Adeletje, weak
+and pale; and Marietje, tall, lank and plain.
+
+"And then you've got ... Emilie ... and Adeline," said Adolphine,
+counting them shyly.
+
+"Yes," said Constance. "We all keep together now.... Children, Aunt
+Adolphine's staying to lunch."
+
+Something in her words seemed to ask the girls to leave her alone with
+Adolphine. In the conservatory, the old woman sat gazing up at the
+clouds, which came sailing along big and grey, and she heard nothing,
+paid no attention.
+
+"Adolphine," said Constance, when they were alone once more, "we have a
+moment before lunch. Come upstairs to my room, then we sha'n't be
+disturbed."
+
+She put out her hand. Adolphine took it; and Constance led her sister
+almost mechanically through the passages and up the stairs.
+
+"It's a gloomy house," said Adolphine, with a shiver at the sight of the
+oak doors.
+
+"Yes, it is rather gloomy.... Fortunately, it's large; there's plenty of
+space."
+
+"Really?" asked Adolphine, growing interested. "Have you many rooms?"
+
+"Oh, a great many!... When the old man was alive, they were all empty.
+Now they are nearly all full."
+
+"Nearly all?"
+
+"Very nearly.... This is my own sitting-room."
+
+They went in.
+
+"It's the furniture from your drawing-room at the Hague," said
+Adolphine.
+
+"Yes. I can imagine myself at the Hague here."
+
+"Do you like the Hague?"
+
+"I'd rather live there than here. But Henri and Addie are attached to
+the house: it's their family house."
+
+"They are fine, big rooms," said Adolphine, in humble praise. "I'm
+living in a _very_ small house now."
+
+"Ah, but there are so few of you!"
+
+"That's true."
+
+"How's your husband?"
+
+"He's not very grand ... Marietje neither."
+
+"Isn't she well?"
+
+"No. She's very full of nerves. I consulted Dr. Berens, to ease my
+mind."
+
+"What does he say?"
+
+"He ... he suggested that...."
+
+"That what, Adolphine?"
+
+"He said ... that Addie was beginning to make such a name ... as a
+nerve-specialist. He advised me to go to Addie ... and talk to him
+about Marietje. Perhaps one day, when he comes to the Hague, he might
+see Marietje.... Do you think he could be persuaded to, Constance?"
+
+"Certainly, Adolphine. Of course he will, gladly."
+
+"I hear such good accounts of him ... as a doctor."
+
+"Yes, he is getting a very big practice."
+
+"And making a lot of money...."
+
+"Well, not so very much, I believe."
+
+"Ah, perhaps he's right, as a young doctor, to be reasonable in his
+charges!... You see, Constance, that ... that's really why I came down."
+
+"You were quite right, Adolphine. Addie will be home presently and then
+you can talk to him yourself.... Poor Marietje: I'm sorry she's so ill.
+How old is she now?"
+
+"Twenty-six."
+
+"I remember: she's a year younger than Addie."
+
+"Who would have thought, Constance, that you would come and live here
+... with Mamma ... and Adeline ... and the children?... But Mamma always
+liked you best. _I_ should have been glad to have Mamma with me ... but
+it's better as it is; our house is so tiny.... Does Addie come to the
+Hague often? Would he be able to treat Marietje regularly?"
+
+"He would go specially."
+
+"He hypnotizes, doesn't he?"
+
+"Very often, I believe."
+
+"Do you like that?"
+
+"Addie often gets very remarkable results."
+
+"I don't very much fancy it. I shouldn't like him to hypnotize Marietje.
+But, if it's essential...."
+
+The gong sounded.
+
+"Is that for lunch?"
+
+"Yes. Will you come?"
+
+Van der Welcke and Addie were downstairs. They had just come in, but had
+heard from the girls that Aunt Adolphine was there; and Van der Welcke
+welcomed her conventionally. Oh, what fights they had had in the old
+days! But so many years had passed since those bygone times; and what
+did a pressure of the hand and a kind word cost? He had acquired a
+certain genial earnestness in his big house, filled with his wife's
+family. He would have missed them, all those big children ... even
+though Guy and Gerdy were the only cheerful ones.... But those two were
+the sunshine of the house; and the others still clung to him with
+sympathy: their gratitude created a sympathetic atmosphere round Uncle
+Henri....
+
+At the long luncheon-table, Marietje cut the bread-and-butter. Granny
+did not sit at the table; and Mathilde came down very late. No one had
+told her that Aunt Adolphine was there and she stood amazed in the
+doorway before bringing herself to offer a non-committal greeting. She
+was aloof in her manner, thought Adolphine, middle-class, put on airs as
+she sat down. It was striking how her personality failed to blend with
+that of the others, as though she remained a stranger among them. In the
+grey winter morning, hovering sullenly along the dark walls of the
+dining-room, she was a fresh, handsome woman; her full face was the
+colour of milk and roses; her lines swelled with health. Gerdy, beside
+her, was nothing more than a pretty little smiling thing; Marietje and
+Adeletje were very plain: Marietje so lank and yellow; Adeletje looking
+quite old with her sickly face. Klaasje was very tiresome, ate uncouthly
+and sat beside Constance, who kept on gently reproving her and cut up
+her bread-and-butter for her as though she were a baby. Guy carved the
+cold beef. All of them were silently wondering what Aunt Adolphine had
+come down for and their conversation sounded constrained; but Van der
+Welcke talked nonsense calmly with Guy and Gerdy. Adolphine, to keep the
+pot boiling, talked about the Hague: Uncle and Aunt Ruyvenaer and the
+girls had returned to India ever so long ago and were not coming back to
+Holland, now that Uncle and Aunt were older and preferred to live in
+Java; Louise was living with Otto and Frances; Frances always had
+something or other the matter with her; and Louise looked after the
+house and Hugo and Ottelientje, who were now thirteen and fourteen. Then
+there were Karel and Cateau, Ernst, Dorine, Paul....
+
+"We don't see much of one another nowadays," said Adolphine, sadly. "Ah,
+Mamma's Sunday evenings! They were very pleasant, say what you like. We
+didn't always agree, perhaps, but still...."
+
+She started, became confused, pecked awkwardly at her food. She felt
+that the illusion of an united family--Mamma's great illusion in the old
+days--was quite dispelled; and, older, more melancholy and still bitter
+as she was, she felt sad about it, sad about something which possibly
+she had never valued but which she now missed. And she could not help
+feeling acute envy that Constance was living in so big a house and
+harbouring so many relations; and suddenly she asked, sharply:
+
+"Your house is rather damp, isn't it, Van der Welcke?"
+
+"Well, it's mostly on the ground-floor," said Van der Welcke,
+good-humouredly. "And we've had a lot of rain."
+
+"One's feet get so chilly."
+
+"Guy, give Auntie a footstool."
+
+Guy fetched a stool; Adolphine let him push it under her feet.
+
+"There are so many trees round the house," she said. "_That's_ what
+makes it gloomy and chilly. You should have them thinned out.... It must
+be very lonely, living here."
+
+"Don't you see the others regularly?" asked Constance, trying to change
+the subject.
+
+"No. Karel and Cateau pay me a visit now and again. It's not much of a
+pleasure to anyone: it's never more than a visit!" said Adolphine,
+criticizing her brother and sister-in-law and forgetting that, in the
+old days, she herself never honoured Constance and Van der Welcke with
+more than a "visit." And she went on, "Paul one never sees; nor Dorine;
+and Ernst ... you know he has not been very well lately?"
+
+Constance gave a start:
+
+"No, I didn't know. I saw him only three weeks ago.... I wish he would
+come and live here, at Driebergen, say in a nice, bright room at a good
+boarding-house. I really think the country life would do him good and he
+probably feels rather lonely at the Hague.... But he wouldn't do it....
+He's been living all these years in the same room and seems so much
+attached to that room that he simply can't leave it ... and yet he is
+never satisfied with the landlady and her brother. That brother is his
+constant bugbear.... And yet I thought that he was living quietly
+enough.... Is he still always calm, however self-absorbed he may be? You
+say he hasn't been well lately?"
+
+"Well, he's not as bad as he was--how long ago is it?--ten or eleven
+years ago."
+
+"Eleven years."
+
+"He's not like that. But he looks very queer at times ... and...."
+
+"I'll go to the Hague to-morrow and look him up," said Constance, with
+decision.
+
+"My dear!" said Adolphine, in an aggrieved tone. "I assure you that he's
+nothing out of the way. Besides, _we_ are there ... if anything should
+happen."
+
+"He's living by himself too much. I've thought it for a long time. And I
+reproach myself...."
+
+"I've seen Uncle Ernst once or twice lately, Mamma," said Addie, to calm
+her. "He was just as usual; no worse. I pressed him then to come and
+live at Driebergen. He refused ... but he was quite calm about it."
+
+"He has _not_ been calm the last few days," said Adolphine.
+
+"I shall go to the Hague to-morrow," Constance repeated, tremulously.
+
+"Would you like me to go?" asked Addie.
+
+"Really, Constance," Adolphine resumed, in a superior tone of mock
+moderation, "you needn't get into such a fluster. If there should be
+anything wrong ... we're there ... and Karel ... and Dorine and Paul.
+You can leave Ernst to us quite safely. It's just as though we didn't
+count!"
+
+"It's not that, Adolphine ... but...."
+
+"But what?"
+
+"You don't trouble about him ... and I feel remorseful that I myself,
+lately.... But I am very busy ... and...."
+
+"Busy?" echoed Adolphine, in amazement. "Here, at Driebergen?"
+
+The atmosphere of the room was filled with a sudden tremor of nerves
+becoming too highly strung; the girls looked anxiously at Aunt
+Constance. She felt, she realized that she was losing control of herself
+and made an effort to keep calm. But her eyes and lips trembled. She
+saw, however, the concern overcasting the features of all of
+them--except Mathilde--and she now mastered herself entirely, though the
+tremor remained, very deep down within her.
+
+"Yes," she replied, in a gentler voice, "we are really rather busy here
+... all sorts of things, you know. Of course, Adolphine, it is
+comforting to feel that you are all there ... at the Hague ... in case
+anything should happen to Ernst."
+
+The tension was relaxed, the luncheon ended quietly; only Adolphine
+said:
+
+"Is this home-made jelly?... Why do you have it made so sweet,
+Constance?"
+
+In her secret heart she thought the sweet jelly delicious.
+
+"Aunt Adolphine wants to talk to you, Addie," said Constance, when the
+meal was over.
+
+Adolphine now felt very humble. Yes, she would like to talk to Addie;
+and she went out with him alone.
+
+"She's come about Marietje," said Constance, when Adolphine and Addie
+had left the room.
+
+"But why didn't she write," asked Van der Welcke, "instead of coming
+down?"
+
+Suddenly the sound of Adolphine's sobbing reached their ears from the
+next room.
+
+"Is Marietje really bad, Auntie?" asked the girls.
+
+And they sat expectantly. The voices of Adolphine and Addie sounded one
+against the other from behind the folding-doors. They listened in spite
+of themselves.
+
+"She must certainly change her present environment," said Addie.
+
+Adolphine sobbed:
+
+"That's what our doctor said ... and ... and Dr. Berens of the
+hospital," she hiccoughed through her tears.
+
+Constance did not want to listen any more; but, though she had
+controlled herself just now, her nerves were still on edge. Pretending
+that she was waiting for Adolphine, she went through the drawing-room
+and sat down beside the old lady in the conservatory.
+
+"Yes, yes," mumbled Mrs. van Lowe. "If it goes on raining like this ...
+we shall have floods again ... just as we did last year."
+
+Before her staring eyes she saw the tropical floods of Java.
+
+Half an hour later, Adolphine and Addie came to look for Constance.
+Adolphine was suffering under the influence of great emotion, with red
+eyes which she kept on wiping. Constance went up to her:
+
+"Adolphine, dear," she said, "you must have confidence in Addie."
+
+Motherly pride mingled with the pity in her voice.
+
+"I have, Constance," said Adolphine. "Only...."
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"What am I to do with the child? Change of environment, our doctor said.
+So did Dr. Berens, of the hospital. And yet we're very nice to her....
+Why this change of environment? And where's she to go to?... I haven't
+the money to ... to take her to the country for any length of time....
+In this season too ... in the autumn!... What ... what am I to do with
+the child?"
+
+"I was thinking...." said Addie.
+
+He looked at his mother.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If you and Papa approved ... I could observe and treat her best
+_here_."
+
+Constance suddenly stiffened.
+
+"I don't know, Addie," she said. "I don't know that Papa would agree to
+that."
+
+How tactless it was of him to say this in Adolphine's presence! She
+regretted that she had not told Adolphine, before lunch, in her
+sitting-room, that the house was full, quite full. But he continued,
+quietly:
+
+"I should like to ask Papa. Marietje could have Guy's room and Guy the
+little room next to it."
+
+"That's too small for Guy. You must remember, he's got work to do."
+
+He was conscious of the reluctance in her words. Nevertheless he said:
+
+"Guy could do his work in my study. I am never there in the mornings."
+
+"No, no," said Adolphine, joining in. "No, Addie, it wouldn't do. Your
+mother's busy enough as it is...."
+
+"It's not that I'm so busy," said Constance, "but...."
+
+"Well, Mamma?"
+
+"Our weekly books, you know...."
+
+He had never known his mother so hard or so cruel. And he now said:
+
+"Of course, Mamma, if you think it can't be done ... I'll see what I can
+do for Aunt Adolphine ... somewhere in the neighbourhood. Perhaps
+Marietje could go and live in a family at Zeist."
+
+"Do you think you know some one there?" asked Adolphine, mournfully.
+
+But suddenly Constance felt very yielding. She became so yielding
+because Addie had said this; all her hardness and cruelty melted away in
+remorse at her last words; and she said:
+
+"Addie ... go upstairs and ... and ask Papa...."
+
+Adolphine looked up with wonder in her red eyes. She was struck that
+Constance was altering so suddenly in tone, from reluctance to assent;
+and she was also struck that Constance did not apparently wish to decide
+and that she was leaving the decision to Van der Welcke.
+
+Addie went upstairs at once. The sisters remained silent and alone; the
+old lady was sitting in the conservatory.
+
+"Oh, Constance!" said Adolphine. "_Do_ you think that Van der Welcke
+...?" She did not complete her question, but went on, "Yes, I suppose
+your weekly books are very expensive?"
+
+"They _are_ heavy," said Constance. "You understand it's...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"It's my husband's money ... spent on _my_ relations."
+
+"But Gerrit's children have something."
+
+Constance shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"You know exactly how much they have. A couple of thousand guilders
+apiece."
+
+"Well, that's something."
+
+"We keep it for them ... and don't touch it."
+
+"Really?" said Adolphine, in surprise. "But then there's Mamma."
+
+"Mamma?"
+
+"Yes, you have her money too," said Adolphine, looking Constance in the
+eyes.
+
+Constance returned the look: "My dear Adolphine," she said, gently, "as
+Mamma is not fit to attend to her affairs, her money is in the hands of
+our solicitor at the Hague; and he controls it for her."
+
+"And the income ...?"
+
+"It's invested. We get none of Mamma's money. Surely you knew that?"
+
+"No, I didn't."
+
+"The books can be seen at the solicitor's by any of the brothers and
+sisters."
+
+"Why do you do that?"
+
+"Because we don't want to touch Mamma's money."
+
+"But why not? She's living with you!"
+
+"We want to avoid unpleasantness with any of the brothers or sisters."
+
+"But which of us would create any unpleasantness?" asked Adolphine, very
+humbly.
+
+"By _our_ way ... there's no question of any unpleasantness."
+
+"Yes," said Adolphine. "Still, I thought...."
+
+"That we received all the interest on Mamma's money?"
+
+"Yes. The money's lying there quite useless."
+
+"There will be all the more for her grandchildren later on."
+
+"Yes," said Adolphine, greatly surprised, remembering her long
+conversations during those many years with Saetzema, Karel and Cateau
+... because Van der Welcke and Constance at Driebergen were quietly
+taking Mamma's money for themselves. "I wonder the solicitor never told
+us!"
+
+"I thought you knew all about it."
+
+"No," said Adolphine, humbly, and did not add that the solicitor had
+once told Karel, but that they had all refused to believe it. "So Mamma
+... is really living at your expense!"
+
+Constance smiled:
+
+"Her needs are so small ... poor Mamma!"
+
+"But you keep a special maid for her?"
+
+"Yes, that's the only thing."
+
+"Still, it makes everything dearer, in food ... and taxes."[1]
+
+"Yes," said Constance, calmly.
+
+She heard Van der Welcke and Addie come down the stairs; they entered
+the room. And it was strange to see the father and son together: Van der
+Welcke with his irrepressibly young, bright face and his boyish eyes,
+though his hair was turning grey and he was becoming a little stout from
+his sedentary life; and Addie beside him, with his serious directness of
+mind, like a very elderly young man, his grey eyes filled with thought
+and care.
+
+"Addie tells me Marietje's not at all well," said Van der Welcke, by way
+of preamble.
+
+Adolphine gave a great sob that shook her whole body; she nodded and
+began to cry.
+
+"Well," said Van der Welcke, who was always moved by tears, "if Addie
+would like to have her here ... to keep her under better observation,
+you know ... let her come, Adolphine, by all means. We'll find a bed for
+her somewhere. It's the family hospital, after all!..."
+
+And, when Adolphine began to sob violently, he added, with a little pat
+on the shoulder:
+
+"Come, cheer up and hope for the best.... Addie's sure to make her all
+right again."
+
+
+[1] There is a tax on all servants in Holland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Ernst was still living in his rooms in the Nieuwe Uitleg, surrounded by
+his collections, surrounded by his hobbies. A man of fifty now, he led a
+silent, solitary life amid his books, his china, his curiosities; and
+the landlady looked after him and cooked his meals, because he paid
+well, paid too much indeed. He saw little of the family because the
+others really lived as secluded as he did, Paul in his rooms, Dorine at
+her boarding-house, though she was never satisfied and was constantly
+changing her boarding-house; and no family-tie drew him to Van
+Saetzema's house or Karel's. In this way a separation and estrangement
+had grown up among all of them; the bond between them had perished, now
+that Mamma was no longer at the Hague to gather them all around her on
+Sunday evenings in her big house in the Alexander Straat; and Constance,
+of late years, had often pressed him to come and live at Driebergen. But
+he obstinately refused; and yet, on the rare occasions when he saw her
+at the Hague, he would take her hand and sit knee to knee with her,
+unbosoming himself of all his stored-up discontent with the rooms, the
+meals, the landlady, that brother of hers: the brother especially, whom
+he could never stand, the vulgar bounder, as he called him. Constance
+then felt him to be an aging, always lonely man, who never uttered his
+thoughts and who, because of this continual silence, bottled up within
+himself the thousands of words which he now poured forth to her all in
+one torrent with a timid look, as if he were afraid that the landlady
+and her brother were standing behind the door, listening. When
+Constance, at such times, tried to persuade him to move to Driebergen,
+he shook his head obstinately, as though some part of him had grown fast
+to that room of his, as though he could not tear himself out of it; and
+his eyes would glance at his books and his china, as though to say that
+it was impossible to remove all that. And, because he was calm and no
+trouble and quiet in his behaviour, she let him alone, because this was
+what he preferred: to live within himself, among his hobbies, solitary,
+shy and eccentric. Five years ago, it was true, he had been ill again,
+had talked to himself for days on end, had wandered about in the Wood.
+Paul wrote to Constance and she had come over; but Ernst had soon grown
+quiet again, afraid no doubt that he would have to go back to Nunspeet,
+afraid of a change of residence, afraid of keepers, of nurses, of the
+things which he had never been able to forgive any of them, not even
+Constance. That was years ago, five years ago; and lately Constance and
+Addie too had never seen Ernst other than calm and peaceful, though a
+good deal of strange and silent brooding seemed to lurk behind the
+silent cunning of his dark, staring eyes. But then, months and months
+would again pass without their seeing him, without their hearing of him;
+they were all accustomed to his strangeness; and the months would drag
+past without the threatened crisis coming. No, nothing came, even though
+the man was strange, though he did talk to himself, though he was full
+of bottled-up grievances; and, when they saw him again after a lapse of
+months, they were struck by a certain artistic method in his rooms with
+their beautiful warm colouring, struck by some new arrangement of the
+furniture, by some new purchase; and he, as though conscious that he was
+on trial, would talk almost normally, terrified lest they should drag
+him from his rooms, to which he was attached even though the landlady
+and her brother always stood spying behind the door....
+
+Constance, feeling suddenly upset and filled with self-reproach at
+neglecting Ernst, went to the Hague with Addie the day after Adolphine's
+visit; and the two of them arrived unexpected in the Nieuwe Uitleg.
+
+"Meneer is out," said the landlady.
+
+"In this rain?" asked Constance.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, he went out early this morning."
+
+"How has he been lately?"
+
+"Pretty well, ma'am. As usual. Meneer is always odd, you know, but he is
+not troublesome. He is fairly well."
+
+"Not like ...?"
+
+"Some years ago? No, ma'am. Meneer has been talking to himself rather
+more of late, but that's all. Will you wait for him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He is sure to be back by twelve o'clock or so. He is very regular in
+his habits. Won't you come upstairs?"
+
+Constance and Addie went upstairs and waited in Ernst's room.
+
+"Poor fellow, poor fellow!" said Constance, with emotion.
+
+She did not know what was the matter with her, but she felt full of
+self-reproach. Oh, were they not leaving him too much alone, sunk in his
+solitude? How she wished that she could coax him to go back with her to
+Driebergen and to live there, not far from them, in a little villa, with
+some people who were in the habit of looking after invalids! Oh, not in
+their own house, not in their own house! She would never have dared
+suggest that to Van der Welcke; nor had Addie ever proposed it. No, not
+at home, not at home, but somewhere near, so that she could see him at
+any moment and not worry herself with the idea of his suddenly having a
+nervous breakdown with no one by him to take his piteous soul-sickness
+to heart.
+
+And, as she sat thinking, she looked around her and was struck by the
+manner in which the eerie lines of the old porcelain and new pottery
+curved against the sombre hangings and furniture. It was very strange,
+stranger than she had ever noticed. The setting enhanced the eeriness of
+it all. As the years passed, the vases had become more and more of a
+disease, blossoming in eerie lines and glowing glaze like some vicious
+orchid, high against the walls, rising to the ceiling, in a riot of
+exotic forms, like a vegetation reaching up, stretching up, stretching
+up necks and hands with the necks and handles of the vases, as though
+trying to rise higher and higher beyond the grasp of profane mortals.
+
+"Why does Ernst put his vases so high up?" Constance wondered, as she
+looked round the room.
+
+Suddenly he entered. The landlady below must have told him that his
+sister and his nephew, the young doctor, were upstairs, for the movement
+with which he turned the door-handle was abrupt, his glance as he stood
+and looked from the one to the other was laden with suspicion and his
+voice trembled violently as he asked:
+
+"What are you here for?"
+
+He stood before them an old, trembling man. His neglected clothes hung
+in old, slack folds about his angular limbs; his hair already almost
+entirely grey, hung long and lank around his lean, trembling features
+and dark, staring eyes, which looked with a martyred glance from the one
+to the other. And yet, however neglected and soul-sick this trembling
+man might be, who looked an old, old man though he was not more than
+fifty, a gleam of intelligence shone deep down in his suspicious glance;
+and his long, lean fingers were those of an artist: impotent to paint or
+model, in lime, colour, wood or sound, the fluttering, ever-present
+dream of a beauty only just divined.
+
+They both strove to reassure him, said that they happened to be at the
+Hague and so had come to look him up; and, after the first shock, he
+really did not strike them as strange or more ill than usual. Suddenly
+even a ray of sympathy seemed to shoot through him and he sat down
+between them, took their hands and delivered himself of his complaint:
+
+"Hush! They're always listening behind the door, the brutes!" he
+whispered, timidly. "The landlady and her brother! I can't call my soul
+my own; they're always spying.... When I'm undressing, when I go to bed,
+when I have my meals ... they're always spying. I can hear them
+grinning.... They're standing there now, to hear if we're talking about
+them.... And, when I open the door, they're gone in a moment ... so
+quickly, just like ghosts.... The other day, he lay under my bed all
+night. I'm getting used to it, I no longer mind.... But, properly
+speaking, I can't call my soul my own. Any one with less steady nerves
+than mine simply could not stand it, could never stand it...."
+
+"But, Ernst, why don't you move?"
+
+He knew the question well, he recognized the motive. He gave a kind and
+condescending little smile, because they did not know, because they were
+so coarse of fibre.
+
+"I can't very well move," he said. "You see ... I have everything here
+... everything here...."
+
+His glance and his gestures became very vague, as though he did not wish
+to say more. And Addie saw how it was: Uncle Ernst still believed, had
+always, all those years, believed in the souls that swarmed around him,
+the souls that had been conjured like spirits out of books, curiosities
+and old vases. But he never spoke of the souls now, because he
+remembered only too well how stupid and wicked his people had been in
+the old days. After that attack twelve years ago, he had gone on
+believing in these brain-and soul-phantoms of his, but he had learnt to
+keep silent about them, to talk as the stupid people talked. Or by
+preference he did not talk at all.... But this very silence had caused
+his mistrust to develop into a mania that he was being persecuted, a
+mania that made him constantly look round, timidly.... He would open the
+door, look into the passage.... And Constance knew that, in the street,
+he was for ever looking round, attracting the attention of the
+passers-by with this frightened, suspicious trick of his.
+
+Addie saw it: Ernst believed in the souls which lay crowding around him,
+which linked themselves with chains to his soul, which he dragged with
+him through the mud of the streets and the wretchedness of life, the
+souls that thronged in agony around him, until they weighed down his
+chest and stifled him so that he longed to run half-naked into the
+street to cool himself in rain and air, to gulp down the wind. And very
+deeply bedded in the sick soul Addie saw hypersensitiveness hiding as an
+adorable tenderness which, instead of turning to a disease, might have
+developed into the profoundest qualities of sympathetic feeling, not
+only to feel, but also to know and understand, because of the slumbering
+spark of intelligence, because of the knowledge so eagerly gleaned....
+And now these were wasted gifts, morbid qualities, now it was all
+useless and sick and had become more sick and more useless as the sick
+years of shadow drearily dragged on their misty-melancholy introspection
+and increasing distrustfulness. It was all, all lost. And, in his pity
+at this fatal waste, at this tenderness which had soured almost into
+madness and was devoted to shadows while the poor world stood in such
+real need of tenderness and feeling, Addie remembered how once, years
+ago, he had felt conscious of a longing with a single word to cure the
+sick man: but which, which word? It was as though he knew that one word
+to be hovering in the air around him, while he was still too young and
+ignorant to catch it as he might have caught a butterfly with his hat!
+And now, now he knew for certain--after all those years of
+misty-melancholy introspection and increasing distrustfulness--that it
+was too late and that the man could not recover and that he would die as
+he had lived in the almost proud hallucination which brought around him
+for protection the numberless oppressed, persecuted and martyred souls,
+suffocating him in the cloud of their frail tortured and complaining
+bodies. And it was not only the souls: the living who sought him out
+were also included in his proud illusion; they also needed his support,
+because he alone was strong and all of them were weak.
+
+It was too late for a cure; but still Addie longed, though he knew for
+certain that no cure could ever take place, to free that lost and
+impaired quality of noble feeling from everything that could shock or
+offend the silent, suffering man; and he swore to himself to get Uncle
+Ernst out of the Hague, out of these rooms, where he was taking root and
+at the same time being tortured. He happened that day to feel very
+restful, very calm, even though, deep down in the subsoil of his soul,
+black self-insufficiency lowered as usual. He would not know what to do
+for himself; for this sick man he did know what to do! For himself, he
+groped around in a dark labyrinth; for the man of stricken brain and
+soul he knew it all suddenly, with a bright ray of clearest perception,
+knew with a sacred, instinctive knowledge! And yet there was not a touch
+of joy, not a touch of ecstasy or fervour in his sombre, melancholy
+glance, in his deep, sombre voice, when, with his customary earnestness
+of words and manner, he said to his mother:
+
+"Mamma, you must leave me alone with Uncle Ernst."
+
+She looked at him. And, despite his quietness, his earnestness, his calm
+and sombreness, she knew her son too well not to feel, suddenly, that he
+knew.
+
+"Very well," she said, "you stay with Uncle Ernst. I'll go round to Aunt
+Adolphine and see Marietje. When and where shall I see you? This
+evening, at the hotel?"
+
+He shook his head:
+
+"No," he said. "You had better go back by yourself to Driebergen, with
+Marietje. As for me...."
+
+He paused, as though reflecting, passed his hand across his forehead:
+
+"As for me, you'll see me to-morrow," he said, "or the next day...."
+
+"At Driebergen? At home?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And ... your uncle?"
+
+He made a sign with his eyelids; and she understood him, partly, and
+asked no more. She took leave of Ernst and moved to go; but Ernst kept
+her for a moment at the door:
+
+"Constance...."
+
+"What is it, Ernst?"
+
+"If there's anything ... that I can do for you, you'll tell me, won't
+you? Tell me frankly.... It's very difficult for me, I know ... to look
+after all of you ... but, if I don't, nobody else will.... So tell me
+plainly if I can help you in any way...."
+
+"There's nothing at the moment, Ernst...."
+
+"But later on?..."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Then I shall be very glad to help. You must ask me straight out."
+
+"I will."
+
+"Look here ... you must be careful...."
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"Of the brother.... The fellow's a scoundrel. Take care, don't speak too
+loud: he's standing behind the door. You see, he can't reach so high."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"He can't reach up to my poor vases. He would have to take the steps ...
+and he won't do that in a hurry."
+
+"What used he to do to the vases, Ernst?"
+
+"Take them in his hands."
+
+"I dare say he admired them."
+
+"No, he used to break them ... on purpose. He ... he...."
+
+"What, Ernst?"
+
+"He used to throttle them. Hush! He used to wring their necks with his
+vile fingers."
+
+Then he realized at length that he was saying too much and he gave a
+loud, kindly laugh:
+
+"You don't believe that he used to throttle them. Well, at any rate,
+they're safer up there."
+
+"At least, he can't break them."
+
+"No. What's the matter with Addie? He's not looking well."
+
+"Nothing. He's staying on to talk to you."
+
+"Is there anything I can do for him?"
+
+"Perhaps there is, Ernst. Have a talk with him."
+
+"You people are a heavy burden on me...."
+
+"I must go now, dear."
+
+She kissed him good-bye.
+
+"Be careful," he whispered.
+
+Suddenly, he swung open the door:
+
+"There!" he cried, triumphantly. "Did you see? The scoundrel slips away
+so quickly. Just like a ghost. No, more like a devil."
+
+She gave a last glance at Addie; her eyelids flickered at him and she
+went away. Ernst closed the door very carefully.
+
+"He simply can't go on living by himself," thought Constance, as she
+hurried to the Van Saetzemas'.
+
+It was a very small house in a side-street at Duinoord; and she found
+Van Saetzema sick and ailing in a stuffy little sitting-room; she saw
+Caroline, too, bitter-eyed and bitter-mouthed, generally embittered by
+her dull existence as spinster of nearly thirty, with no prospect of
+marrying. Meanwhile, Adolphine kept her sister waiting. She had
+obviously run upstairs to put on a clean tea-gown. At the back of the
+little house, under the grey sky, which sent down a false, morning light
+through the heavy rain-clouds, the atmosphere seemed full of bitterness
+... bitterness because they were ill and poor and disappointed; and all
+this dreariness was scantily and narrowly housed between the father,
+mother and daughter, in the little room where they kept getting in one
+another's way. A melancholy born of pity welled up in Constance; and
+she tried to talk cheerfully, while Van Saetzema coughed and complained,
+Caroline, bitter-mouthed and bitter-eyed, sat silent and Adolphine
+suddenly, with no attempt at preamble, observed to Constance:
+
+"It's splendid air here, at Duinoord.... And the house is
+extraordinarily convenient...."
+
+But her boasting voice choked as she completed her sentence more humbly:
+
+"For the four of us."
+
+"And where is Marietje?" asked Constance.
+
+"Upstairs. She likes being upstairs, in her own little room...."
+
+"How is she to-day?"
+
+"Just the same."
+
+"May I see her?"
+
+Adolphine rose with some hesitation. But she took Constance upstairs and
+opened a door:
+
+"Marietje, here's Aunt Constance."
+
+The girl rose from her chair in the grey light of the little room. She
+was tall and pale and, in that light, seemed suddenly to blossom up like
+a lily of sorrow, with the white head drooping at the neck, a little on
+one side. The very fair hair hung limply about the temples. It was
+heavy--her only attraction--and was wrung into a heavy knot which she
+wore low at her neck. The movements of her long arms, of her long, thin
+hands betrayed a listless, lingering anaemia; and her blouse hung in
+folds over her flat bosom. She was twenty-six, but looked younger; her
+lacklustre eyes were innocent of all passion, as though she were
+incapable of ever becoming a woman, as though her senses were dying away
+like some fading lily on its bending stalk.
+
+"Good-morning, Auntie."
+
+The little room was grey and white as a nun's cell, with the cloistered
+simplicity of a hermitage.
+
+"I'm so glad to see you, Marietje."
+
+"Auntie, Mamma said that you and Uncle...."
+
+"Yes, Marietje, we'll be glad to have you with us. Mamma has told you,
+hasn't she?... Then Addie can...."
+
+"It's very kind of you, Auntie. But ... but I would rather not come."
+
+"What do you mean, dear?"
+
+"I would rather stay here.... There's not much about me to cure; and I'm
+not anxious to be cured. And in your house...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I should be so gloomy. I am never bright or cheerful, you know. And I
+hardly ever come downstairs."
+
+Adolphine's eyes filled with tears.
+
+"It's true," she said, softly. "She lives up here."
+
+"You would be cheerful enough with us, Marietje."
+
+"No, Auntie, I should feel uncomfortable with you ... because I am not
+cheerful. I should depress you all."
+
+"We are not so easily depressed. And the chief thing is that Addie could
+treat you regularly."
+
+Marietje gave a pale smile.
+
+"Why won't you go, dear?" asked Adolphine.
+
+The girl retained her pale smile. She seemed to be wrestling with a
+temptation that opened up soft and peaceful visions in her pale life as
+a constant invalid; but she did not wish to yield.
+
+"Come," said Constance, "you had much better, really."
+
+Suddenly Marietje felt herself grow very weak. She saw death, saw the
+end so very close before her eyes; and the soft, peaceful visions would
+never be more than a very brief hallucination, which after all she might
+as well accept. And, because she suddenly felt as though in a dream,
+she had no strength to resist the gently persuasive voices of her mother
+and her aunt, which were luring and luring her, like voices from very
+far away, voices which she seemed to hear through the haze of vague and
+enticing distance. Yet her own wan voice did not reveal what she felt,
+as she continued feebly objecting:
+
+"I should be too much trouble. An invalid is so depressing."
+
+"It would be very difficult for Addie to look after you here."
+
+"Besides, you have Grandmamma...."
+
+"She's no trouble."
+
+"And little Klaasje."
+
+"Yes, but that's different."
+
+"How are Marietje and Adele?"
+
+"Quite well, very well indeed. We'll go on calling her Marietje and, if
+you come down, we'll call you ... let's say Mary, to avoid confusion."
+
+"Mary...."
+
+"Will that do?"
+
+"But your house is so full as it is."
+
+"Guy is giving you his room."
+
+The girl uttered more faint words and phrases, but they were like little
+waves which carried her softly and tenderly towards the gentle vision
+and the dream.
+
+"Very well, Auntie," she said, at last. "You are very good to me."
+
+"It's only natural, as far as I'm concerned. But, when you're at
+Driebergen, you'll thank your uncle, won't you?"
+
+"Of course. It's his house."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Won't it be rather damp ... for Marietje?" asked Adolphine,
+hesitatingly.
+
+"I don't think so," said Constance.
+
+"Constance," said Adolphine, taking her hand, "it is so kind of you ...
+and I am so grateful...."
+
+Her voice trembled as she spoke.
+
+"My dear, what a fuss you make!" said Constance. "I'm your sister and
+Marietje is my niece. But...."
+
+"But what?"
+
+"It certainly is kind ... of Henri."
+
+"Yes, it's very nice of your husband."
+
+"You see, it's his house."
+
+"Yes ... and he had so many calls on him," said Adolphine, humbly.
+"Constance, won't you let me pay something ... for Marietje's keep? So
+much a month, I mean ... until she's a little better...."
+
+"You'd better not bother to do that, Adolphine."
+
+"You have so many expenses."
+
+"Yes, but you've plenty of use for your money too."
+
+"What I mean is ... it's your husband's money."
+
+"I know. But Henri would rather you didn't pay anything ... really."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. If you or Van Saetzema wrote him a line ... he'd like
+that."
+
+"Of course I shall. I shall thank him myself."
+
+"And you'll come and see the child whenever you like, won't you,
+Adolphine?"
+
+"Yes, Constance, I will.... What a pity it is that you don't live in the
+Hague!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, the Hague is so much _our_ town, our family town; and your house,
+now that Mamma is so old, is certainly _the_ house ... of the family,
+the centre, so to speak...."
+
+"It's Henri's house."
+
+"Yes, that's what I mean."
+
+Constance stood up to go:
+
+"Then will Marietje come down with me to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes, we'll pack her trunk."
+
+Marietje rose suddenly, threw her arm round Constance and sobbed
+excitedly:
+
+"Auntie ... Auntie ... I do think it so...."
+
+"So what, dear?"
+
+The rapture died out of her voice; and she concluded:
+
+"I think it so kind ... of Uncle ... of Uncle and you ... to have me ...
+to live with you, to live with you...."
+
+Van Saetzema downstairs had a violent attack of coughing; and Adolphine
+rushed anxiously out of the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Days had come of endless flaking snow; and the hard frost kept the snow
+tight-packed in the garden, alongside the house, the silent, massive
+building whose thick white lines stood out against the low-hanging
+snow-laden skies: one great greyness from out of which the grey of the
+snow fell with a sleepy whirl until it was caught in the grip of the
+frost and turned white, describing the outlines of villa-houses and the
+branching silhouettes of black and dreary trees with round soft strokes
+of white. The road in front of the house soon soiled its whiteness with
+cart-tracks and footprints; and with the snow there fell from the sky,
+like so much grey wool, the pale melancholy of a winter in the country,
+all white decay and white loneliness: days so short that it seemed as
+though the slow hours slept and, when awake, but dragged their whiter
+veils from grey dawn to grey twilight, so that dawn might once again be
+turned to night. And the short days were like white nights, sunless, as
+though the light were shining through velvet, as though life were
+breathing through velvet, velvet cold as the breath of death, the breath
+of death itself, striking down and embracing all things in its chill
+velvet....
+
+In the big house reigned the silent warmth of domesticity in big heated
+rooms and passages, with the rich browns of the heavy old carpets and
+curtains which had lived long and were beginning to grow worn in weary
+attitudes and folds of chamber contemplation, as though the dead stuffs
+looked down and dreamed and breathed in sympathy with all that lived
+among them, while in the snowy light reflected from outside the mahogany
+furniture also gleamed with its own life or cast back things of long
+ago, past sufferings of small people and past sentiments. The silent
+moods of old and lonely people seemed to rise up from the old, solemn
+furniture, which smiled good-humouredly because so much new life had
+come into the midst of it from the outside: the chair-springs moaned,
+the cupboard-doors creaked, the looking-glasses grew dull and bright in
+turns, the china became chipped, the silver became scratched, full of
+the serviceable humility of those very old, wearing things of daily
+life, which had long been used and were dying off slowly, while all
+around and about them blossomed the new movement of the new life from
+without. And yet, despite that new movement and that new life, a soul of
+the past seemed to hover through the long passages, up the brown stairs,
+to skim along the dark doors, even though these, when opened, gave
+admission to the rooms of the new life. Even in the rooms themselves,
+something still hovered of that soul of the past; and the furniture
+reflected that soul, as though it were vaguely clinging to material
+things, a soul catching at earthly things when itself had not yet died
+out entirely....
+
+In among these reflections of the soul-things of the past there lingered
+a remnant of biblical piety, because of the titles of certain books in
+the book-cases, because of certain old-fashioned engravings in the dark
+rooms; and at certain hours of silent twilight there passed through the
+house a sort of hover of prayer, which Constance sometimes felt so
+intently that, on Sunday mornings, she always insisted that the girls at
+least should go to church, as though they were almost bound to do so out
+of reverence for the old people who used to live and pray here ... and
+especially for the old man. And the thought that she herself did not go
+troubled her so greatly that, very occasionally, she accompanied the
+girls, though she continued insensible to any impression derived from
+liturgical religion. And the things of the past that flickered and
+hovered and formed the intangible atmosphere of the dark passages and
+the rich-brown rooms, in which the only gay note was struck by the
+blue-and-white of the Delft pots and jars: those things of the past all
+unconsciously harmonized with the mood only of Van der Welcke, because
+something of his childhood was wafted and reflected in them, and of
+Addie, because of his vague sense of inheriting not only the material
+but also the immaterial things with which the big house remained filled.
+Though he felt a stranger to the old man, he felt related to the old
+woman, with a strange retrospect of what he knew of her and remembered
+of her later, silent, mystic years, when liturgical piety was not enough
+to satisfy her.
+
+But for the rest the house remained as it were one great hospitality,
+though alien in blood to so many who had found a shelter in it and a
+sanctuary: the old, doting woman at the window, peering out at the
+snow-grey garden-vistas; the mourning and still young mother, with her
+grown-up children; and Emilie, full of silent mystery. And, the other
+day, in a drifting blizzard, Constance had brought home Marietje van
+Saetzema--Mary, as they decided to call her--and they had given her
+Guy's room, now that Guy worked in a corner of Addie's study, where he
+heaped up his books on a little table. The house gradually became very
+full. The daughter-in-law also remained alien to the big house; but the
+children, Constance and Jetje, were always like golden sunbeams,
+sometimes whirling in a sound of yet stammering voices of early
+springtime, as they went along the stairs and passages with their
+nurse--one already toddling on foot, the other still carried--to go for
+a drive in the governess-cart or to play in the conservatory, where the
+old great-grandmother, at the window, looked on with vague smiles at
+their playfulness, which was that of very small children.
+
+And, the day after Constance' arrival with Marietje in the grey-white
+blizzard, how surprised they all were when Addie telegraphed that he was
+coming, next day, with Uncle Ernst! Two or three words only in the
+telegram, with no explanation: how astounded they were that Addie had
+managed to get that done! Constance and Guy went at once to the little
+villa where they took in patients: yes, the doctor had already wired for
+the two rooms, they were told, and everything was being got ready, that
+was to say, the bedroom; for the gentleman would furnish the
+sitting-room himself. And on the next day Addie and Uncle Ernst actually
+arrived. Ernst's furniture was being sent on from the Hague; his china
+had been packed up under his own and Addie's supervision; and, though
+Ernst at first looked at the bare sitting-room with great suspicion,
+tapping at the walls, listening at the partition and declaring that the
+people--the man of the house, himself a male nurse, and the trained
+nurse, his wife--were spying behind the door, just like the landlady and
+her cad of a brother at the Hague, nevertheless he was pleased,
+surprised to find the room so large, though he missed the sombre canal
+in the Nieuwe Uitleg, which he loved for the gloom of its colouring and
+atmosphere. As he passed through the garden with Addie, leaning on
+Addie's arm, he thought it strange that he saw walking through the white
+snow, accompanied by the nurse, an old lady, the only patient at the
+moment, though there were several in the summer, and he looked at her
+with suspicion; but he was pleased again and surprised when Addie
+explained to him how very near he would be living to all of them; and,
+when Addie brought him to the house, Ernst stood by the garden-gate
+gazing at it and looked up at the snow-corniced gable, at the soft snow
+on the straight lines of the windows and above the door. The great house
+seemed to look down upon him benignly with all the eyes of its
+window-panes; and he went on, leaning on Addie's arm, through the garden
+and inside. He had never been there before. He took an immediate
+interest in the antique cabinet in the hall, the engravings, the Delft
+jars and nodded his head approvingly, admitting that this was beautiful.
+Constance welcomed him cordially; and, though he had not seen Mamma for
+years, he greeted her in all simplicity, as if he had parted from her
+only yesterday. She held his hand, looked him in the face, recognized
+him for a son of hers but did not know his name, imagined that he had
+come from Java, asked after things and mentioned names.... They did not
+understand each other; and Constance felt very sad, especially because
+of little Klaasje, playing at Mamma's feet with lovely coloured
+picture-books which "Uncle" Addie had given her:
+
+"Look ... a blue man ... yellow woman ... red! And outside ...
+everything white ... everything white.... everything white!..."
+
+And suddenly so heavy a melancholy arose in Constance that she could
+have burst out sobbing because of her mother, her brother, because of
+that child of her poor brother Gerrit! But she made a violent effort of
+self-control, put her arm round Ernst's shoulder and led him away from
+Mamma; and Adeline and Emilie came to speak to him. Oh, the things of
+the past--not the past things of which the atoms still hovered about
+this house, those of the old people, but the things of their own past,
+of the bygone dead years of all of them, years of a youth not so long
+ago--how they crowded in amongst them all, how they filled the
+atmosphere of the faintly sombre room, while the snow reflected its
+gleams indoors to water away brightly in the old mirrors!... How did
+they all come to be here like this, how did they all come to be here
+like this, as in a refuge, as in a sanctuary, a silent haven of simple
+love?... How nerveless she became, how nerveless, when she saw her
+husband and her son come in, those two who ...! She _could_ not pursue
+her thoughts of nervelessness and sadness any further. Alex also now
+entered; and in him, so young, so young, she also saw all the past,
+flashing at her suddenly out of his eyes, with the vision of his
+father's death.... But now the girls came in too, and, when Guy and
+Gerdy came, both laughing, she also laughed, because of their gaiety,
+their flaxen-haired joy in living, young and strong and healthy and
+simple, both of them.... How happy, how happy those two were! Oh, the
+more the past heaped itself up, the more the present was overcast with
+shadow; but those two, Gerdy and Guy, were young and strong and healthy
+and simple!... Happy, happy! And, with a laugh almost of happiness,
+however intensely she might feel all the things of the past, she asked
+Addie:
+
+"Isn't it too much for Uncle Ernst, now?"
+
+"Yes, I shall take him home," said Addie.
+
+"Can't he stay and dine one day?"
+
+"Perhaps later on; he must get used to it first. The great thing is not
+to force him."
+
+And he suggested to Ernst that they should go back.
+
+But Ernst said:
+
+"When will my packing-cases come?"
+
+"To-morrow, Uncle."
+
+"You see, if I'm to get everything in order...."
+
+"I'll help you."
+
+"Will you help me unpack?"
+
+"I'll help you too, Uncle," said Guy.
+
+"Yes," said Ernst, "that's right.... You see," he whispered to Addie ...
+
+"What, Uncle?"
+
+"It's not good ... for the vases to remain in the cases so long.... You
+don't believe it, of course, but...."
+
+He did not complete his sentence, would not say that the vases were
+suffocating in their cases, with all that paper and straw; he would not
+say it, because Addie was so kind, a kind-hearted fellow, really, but
+devoid of understanding, stupid, just as stupid as all the rest of
+them....
+
+"We shall unpack as quickly as we can, Uncle, and make the room
+comfortable for you."
+
+"Yes. I have only the bedroom at present."
+
+"The bedroom's all right, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes. Am I to have my dinner there to-night?"
+
+"If you don't mind ... as your sitting-room isn't ready...."
+
+"Yes. I don't care for dining in my bedroom. Can't I stay and dine
+here?"
+
+"Certainly, Uncle. We should like that above all things. Aren't the
+troop of us too noisy for you?"
+
+"They are a bit noisy, but ... no, they're very good. Tell me, Addie,
+they're all children of Uncle Gerrit, aren't they?"
+
+"Of Uncle Gerrit, yes."
+
+"Yes, yes, I remember. I should like to stay and dine, if I may. It's
+because the sitting-room isn't ready, you see."
+
+"Very well, Uncle. Then come upstairs now, to my study. Then you can
+rest a bit and read, or sleep if you like, on the sofa."
+
+"No, I never sleep by day."
+
+"It'll be quiet for you there."
+
+"Yes, it's quiet where you are."
+
+"Come with me."
+
+He took Ernst upstairs.
+
+"This is a nice, quiet room," said Ernst.
+
+"Then I'll leave you by yourself. You'll find books and papers.... Can
+you manage to occupy yourself alone?"
+
+"Yes, my dear boy; I want to be alone. You're kind, you're very kind.
+You understand me. I shall be glad to stay and dine."
+
+"Would you like your dinner up here?"
+
+"No, downstairs, with all of you. They're Uncle Gerrit's children,
+aren't they? You see, it's all family. I'd rather dine downstairs."
+
+"All right, I'll come and fetch you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+A few days' skating produced a sudden, unexpected lightness of heart;
+and Mathilde grew more animated. The members of Gerdy's tennis-club met
+again on the ice; Guy did nothing but skate these days, excusing himself
+to Constance and Addie for his idleness by saying that one had to make
+the most of the ice, which never lasted long; and even Van der Welcke
+was persuaded by Guy to fasten on his skates, remaining young as ever in
+his quiet way. It was indeed a sudden, unexpected lightness of heart
+after so many rainy days: the cold wind whipped up their blood; the snow
+crackled like powdered crystal under their eager, hurrying feet; young
+men and girls of Gerdy's little circle came to fetch her in the morning
+and again after lunch; and, when the skating was over, they would all
+meet round the tea-table, in the big drawing-room. And Addie taught
+Klaasje to skate on the pond in the garden; and, under the jovial
+influence of the frosty snow, he romped about the garden with his
+children, with little Jetje and Constant. And yet perhaps none of them
+sniffed up the healthy outdoor life of those cold days of east-wind and
+ice so greedily as Mathilde, suddenly quickened in her rich blood, her
+somewhat coarse build, her heavy tread and her loud, full, womanly
+voice. It had been no life for her, with the silent, dripping rain, in
+the noisy but yet sombre big house. She and the children had kept
+upstairs as much as possible in her own rooms, because she felt out of
+tune with the whole pack below, unable to coalesce with the big
+household: those sad women and all those children of Uncle Gerrit's,
+who daily monopolized Addie more and more, until he had hardly a moment
+to give to his own children and her. What was he to her now, always
+busy, always occupied, always away, always attending to the pack below
+or to poor people outside, poor people about whom she knew nothing? What
+was her life to her, the life in which she pined away in that musty
+atmosphere, in which she always remained a stranger, for lack of any
+sort of sympathy, because she did not--any more than any of them--wish
+for the establishment of any harmonious intimacy? Was it not really a
+terrible existence, for a young and spirited woman, in the country, in
+the winter, at Driebergen, with no friends, in a house with rooms so
+dark and gloomy that the servants declared that it was haunted; then
+downstairs, always at the window, the doting grandmother; Klaasje, half
+an imbecile; Adeline and Emilie, never cheerful, always melancholy; and
+those who were cheerful, Guy and Gerdy, never nice to her; her
+father-in-law much fonder of Guy and Gerdy than of herself, whom, as she
+well knew, he actually disliked; her mother-in-law, kind at times, it
+was true--had she not given Mathilde the beautiful brilliant which now
+sparkled on her finger?--but still cold, she thought, cold even to the
+children, just forcing herself to be kind because Mathilde happened to
+be her son's wife. No, she couldn't say who or what was to blame, but a
+stranger she remained, a constant stranger, half-forgotten, together
+with her two children, the children who alone, besides Papa and Addie,
+bore the name of the house, of Van der Welcke--Baron and Baroness van
+der Welcke--the children neglected, because the whole troop of Van Lowes
+made themselves masters of the house; of the affection of her
+father-in-law and mother-in-law, of every minute that Addie had to
+spare! Oh, it was just a hospital! Adeletje was always ailing; and now
+Marietje van Saetzema, really very seriously ill, had been added to the
+rest. Or wasn't it rather, with their exaggerated clinging to that
+family of semilunatics, a mad-house, now that, over and above doting
+Grandmamma and half-witted Klaasje, this Uncle Ernst, who was quite out
+of his mind, had appeared upon the scene? True, he did not live in the
+house, but he was there a great deal and would come in to meals
+unexpectedly, without a word of warning. She was frightened when she met
+him suddenly in the passages, always carrying on about the Delft jars;
+and then he didn't recognize her, didn't know who she was, what she was
+doing there, until he remembered: Addie's wife. Perhaps he only behaved
+like that from craftiness, from wickedness.
+
+A haunted house, a sick-house, a mad-house: that's what it was; and this
+was where she had to spend her life, for Addie's suggestion, that they
+should live by themselves, economically, at the Hague, did not attract
+her: she had had enough of economy, she had not married him for economy!
+She had not married him for his money or for his title either: she had
+really and truly married him because she loved him, loved his quiet,
+charming, serious face, his eyes, his mouth, loved having him in her
+arms, because she loved his voice, loved, strange though it might seem,
+his rather elderly, restful manliness, calmness and strength suggested
+by that rather short, sturdy, blond frame. She had looked upon him with
+love, had felt love for him; and no one could blame her for being
+sensible and for not being prepared to marry him if he had been quite
+without money. Of course she thought it nice to have a title: well,
+there may have been a little vanity in that; but weren't there hundreds
+like her? And did that make her bad and so contemptible that they just
+left her to her own devices, Addie himself just as much as the whole
+pack of them?
+
+All the little grievances accumulated within her breast, weighing her
+down and almost stifling her: the tea, which Gerdy purposely made not
+fit to drink; the half-witted child, which pushed against her chair; the
+imbecile man, who did not recognize her; the coolness of Papa, who
+_never_ spoke a kind word to her, not even when he was playing with his
+grandchildren, Jetje and Constant, who were just as much her children as
+Addie's.... The grievances accumulated within her: grievances against
+Papa, Mamma, the sick people and the mad people they had to live with
+them--all because they were relations--against the servants, against
+Truitje, against everything and everybody.... Oh, how gloomy that rainy
+winter had been, ever and ever raining, with the great wind blustering
+round the house, drawing such strange, moaning sounds from the creaking
+windows and shutters and bellowing down the chimney, till all the old
+wood of the house and the furniture came to life, took soul unto itself
+and squeaked and groaned, until the whole place was one eerie horror of
+inexplicable noises!... Those noises, oh, those noises! They all knew of
+them and not one of them spoke of them, because, in spite of it all,
+they clung to the old, creepy haunted house; they even denied their
+existence to her; and the best thing that Mathilde could do was not to
+speak about them, because they refused to hear them! But she was
+frightened, she had gradually become frightened, with that long keeping
+indoors: where could she go, with the rain, the wind, the storm, lashing
+for days and days? She had become frightened, frightened; and they, all
+of them, had one another, whereas she had nobody, with her husband
+generally out, visiting his patients: she had only her two little
+children; and she was frightened on their account too! And now, when she
+suddenly came upon Ernst on the stairs, she became frightened again; and
+she could see that the children also were frightened. No, she was not
+happy and she was angry with herself at not being pluckier and choosing
+poverty and economy--oh, how sick of it she was!--at the Hague rather
+than the so-called luxury of this haunted house. And such luxury: the
+furniture old, the carpets worn, the table very simple; really, a
+simple, middle-class life and one that cost thousands and thousands, as
+Addie would assure her on the first of the month, when handing her her
+allowance for herself and the children! With those thousands and
+thousands they could surely have had a more genuine luxury, if Papa and
+Mamma and Addie hadn't been such soft-hearted fools as to take in that
+pack of Uncle Gerrit's: you could do good and still think of
+yourself.... With those thousands--but without the pack--they could
+start and furnish the house in a better, less stuffy and more modern
+style; paint all those brown, gloomy doors a cheerful white and gold;
+have cheerful new carpets, curtains and furniture, with flowers and
+Japanese fans in the conservatory; make a summer-residence of the house
+and in the winter live at the Hague, keep their carriage, have their
+opera-box, go out and entertain.... They could have lived like that,
+Papa, Mamma and Addie, if they had wished, for the thousands were there
+to do it with; at the Hague, Addie, as Baron van der Welcke, could have
+acquired a smart practice, the good-looking, pleasant fellow that he
+was!... That was how they might have lived, deriving some enjoyment
+from their money; and even then they could very well have helped Aunt
+Adeline with the up-bringing of her children; and everyone would have
+thought it very handsome of them and no one would have thought that they
+were living or acting unreasonably or selfishly or inexplicably, whereas
+now!... Whereas now!... Locking themselves up in the dark haunted house,
+all through the long, long winter, with nothing but sick people, all
+through the long, long winter, with nothing but sick people, nothing but
+mad people about them!...
+
+Fortunately it had begun to freeze. It was as though this glorious ice
+had brought about a friendlier feeling: Gerdy was not so very horrid;
+Guy skated with Mathilde because she was a good, finished skater, fond
+of good, finished, unwearied skating; and the crisp crystal cold, after
+all the days of rain and storm, made everybody cheerful and indulgent.
+Oh, those skating-trips! First a short journey by train; and then along
+the waterways, endlessly, endlessly! And she was so grateful when Addie,
+one single morning, was able to escape going to all those sick, poor
+people, whom he had to visit daily--she hated the sight and the feel of
+him when he returned--and went with her, for half a day's skating! And
+she took possession of her husband, glad to have him with her, with
+crossed hands, swaying evenly and rhythmically with him, in the rhythm
+of hip to hip, in the swing of firmly-shod feet, while she cut through
+the broad blast of the wind with her swift, powerful movement, till her
+eyes and face shone and she was drunk with swallowing the ice-cold
+distance, shooting far ahead in canal-vistas between the snow-clad
+meadows, under the low-hanging skies, swept clean as with giant besoms
+of wind, while the horizons of skeleton trees dwindled and faded away,
+and the windmills, with the broad, black, silent gestures of their
+sails, loomed up and disappeared as she shot past.
+
+Fortunately it had begun to freeze. It seemed to her as if, suddenly, in
+these days of winter pastime, she had found her husband again, as if she
+half felt that he was finding her again! He did love her then? He was
+not quite indifferent to her? Through her glove, she felt his hand
+glowing in hers; she felt the swift rhythm of their hips as a
+voluptuousness; and she could have hung round his neck because he took
+her with him like that, rushing, rushing over the straight streaks of
+endless smooth ice!
+
+"Addie, Addie, you do love me, don't you?"
+
+Amid the swift movement she looked at him and laughed; and his eyes
+turned, with a little laugh, to her. Oh, how they knew how to laugh,
+those great, earnest eyes of his, with the often strange blue spark,
+like a flash of secret fire, which she sometimes did not understand but
+which she understood now! For what else did it mean, that flash, than
+that he loved her too, that he thought her pretty? And was he not
+telling her with his eyes as he had often told her in words that he
+loved her because she was so attractive, so palpably healthy and pretty
+and that it was this that attracted him in her: her pink-and-white
+complexion, her rounded form, her young and vigorous limbs? Then she
+felt him akin to herself, a young man, a man made young again, a man
+with a clear, materialistic soul; and in this man she read the young
+doctor, who loved her healthy body, her rich, healthy blood, weary as he
+must be of the morbid nerves of his mother's family! Oh, those Van
+Lowe's: she hated them all, she felt herself to belong to another race!
+And was Addie himself, like his father, not healthy, simply healthy and
+manly, a good-looking young fellow, a man, even though he was almost
+prematurely old? Was he, in the very smallest degree, a Van Lowe, with
+all their nerves, the morbidity, their semilunacy, so sickly in
+constitution one and all, that she could not stand any one of them? Bah,
+they turned her stomach: Adeletje, always ailing; Marietje, really very
+ill; Alex, so weak; Emilie, so crushed and melancholy: a Van Naghel,
+she, but still with Van Lowe blood in her: and Guy was a nice-looking
+boy, but so dull and sleepy; and Gerdy was a nice-looking girl, but full
+of eccentric ways, of course because she was a Van Lowe! Bah, they
+turned her stomach, that always ailing, half-mad family of her
+mother-in-law's, who had ensconced themselves in _their_ house; and it
+was lucky that in Addie she found simply a Van der Welcke, Baron van der
+Welcke, a healthy fellow belonging to a healthy, normal family. That was
+how she looked at it: normal. That was how she looked at it while she
+let her husband swing her along the endless, endless streaks of ice; the
+snow-fields flew past; the horizons of leafless trees approached,
+changed their aspect, disappeared; the spreading sails of the windmills
+loomed up, disappeared, loomed up, with the silent tragedy of their
+despairing gestures outlined against the sky. That was how she looked at
+it: normal. True, Addie employed hypnotism from time to time, but that
+was the fashion nowadays: he could not lag behind when medicine was
+making progress in all directions.... And, utterly blind to the really
+duplicate soul that was her husband's, she saw him merely single, simple
+and normal, because she remembered now, in the joy of their sport on the
+ice, the vigorous embrace of his arms, the hunger and thirst of his
+unsated kisses.... Normal, quite normal; and oh, she felt herself so
+strong now to win him, to bind him to herself, because she herself was
+comely and healthy and normal: his delight, when he was tired of every
+sort of ailment; his luxury, which already had given him two pretty
+children.... People were skating in front of her, behind her, like the
+pair of them; and she was proud that she was skating with her husband;
+she would not let him go; he was hers; he was hers....
+
+It was fortunate that it had begun to freeze. They had had three fine
+days and this was the fourth; and already--alas!--a touch of thaw seemed
+to slacken the crystal-clear firmness of the sky which had been so
+transparent at first. But still the ice was in no way impaired; a trip
+was planned and Mathilde felt sure that Addie would come. And great was
+her disappointment when he said:
+
+"Not to-day, Tilly. I must go to my patients this morning."
+
+"You managed with the afternoon yesterday."
+
+"I can't wait so long this time: there's an old woman who expects me.
+And Marietje isn't so well to-day: Mary, I mean, as Mamma calls her."
+
+"Then I sha'n't go either," she said, crossly.
+
+"Why shouldn't you go?" he persisted, gently. "You enjoy it so."
+
+"With you."
+
+"I can't come this morning."
+
+"Yes, you can ... to please me."
+
+"No, I can't come this morning, Tilly. But you would please me by
+going."
+
+"I like skating with you."
+
+His eyes laughed.
+
+"And do you imagine that I don't enjoy it?"
+
+"You don't love me."
+
+"You know better."
+
+"Then come."
+
+"Not this morning."
+
+"You're always so self-willed."
+
+"Because I mustn't go this morning.... Be sensible now and go without
+me."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"All right, I'll go, I'll go."
+
+It was just after breakfast; and the children were still downstairs. He
+played with them: Constant toddled to him on shaky legs; Addie held
+Jetje on his arm and rubbed his moustache against her milk-white little
+face, to make her laugh and crow. A soft feeling of bliss welled within
+him, because he was pressing against him a life that was his life, a
+small shrine of frail and tender child body in which flashed an atom of
+soul that laughed and crowed and lived. And the baby was so ordinary, a
+baby just like other babies, when he looked at it as a doctor; and the
+baby was so mystic when, as a father, he pressed it to himself. What was
+more mystic than a little child? What was more mysterious and higher in
+divine incomprehensibility than a little child, a little child born just
+ordinarily a few months ago? What was more divinely mysterious and
+mystic than birth and the dawn of life? Where did it come from, the baby
+with its tiny atom of soul, the baby which his wife had borne him? As a
+doctor, he laughed at his own naive question; as a father and man, he
+grew grave in awe of it.... He felt two beings within himself, more and
+more clearly every day; two beings long maintained in a strange
+equilibrium, but now trembling, as at a test. He felt two within
+himself: the ordinary, normal, practical, almost prematurely old,
+earnest young scientist and doctor; and within that soul his second
+soul: a soul of mystery, of divine incomprehensibility; a soul full of
+mysticism; a soul full of unfathomable force, a force which unloosed a
+magic that was salutary to many.... And, when that magic passed out of
+him, salutary to many, he would feel himself normal, practical and
+serious, but suddenly blind for himself, as though he knew nothing for
+himself, because he was two souls, too much two souls to know things for
+himself.... Oh, what was more incomprehensible than the essence of life,
+what more incomprehensible than himself, what more incomprehensible than
+this little baby and that little toddling boy!... And it was born so
+simply, in the womb of a healthy woman, and it grew up so ordinarily;
+and that very ordinary growth was as great a riddle as anything or
+everything.... Oh, who knew, what did anyone know?... And the strangest
+thing of all was that he knew, with a strange consciousness for others,
+what to do, what to say, how to act; that he had known, unconsciously,
+as a child, when he had spoken words of consolation to his father, to
+his mother; later, consciously, with a salutary and sacred knowledge,
+not alone for father and mother but for others, for so many, for so
+many!
+
+Now he handed her back to the nurse, his little Jetje, his little riddle
+of birth and the dawn of life, his little atom of soul; now he stroked
+the silky curls of Constant, who was clinging to his legs, and went
+upstairs, knowing. How strange that was in him, that calm, quiet
+knowledge, that certainty of his will, which would shine forth in a
+setting of calm speech!... He went up the stairs, to the top floor, to
+what used to be Guy's room, where Guy had generally sat in the morning
+bending over his books and maps, until, in an impulse of youthful
+restlessness, he would wander through the house, looking for his sisters
+or aunt. Marietje now occupied the room, or Mary, as she was usually
+called.... Addie knocked and she asked who was there, kept him waiting
+for a moment in her modesty as she nervously tidied something in her
+room and put away her clothes. When he entered, she was sitting in a big
+arm-chair, looking very pale....
+
+But Mathilde, angry that Addie had refused to come skating, suddenly
+felt a violent jealousy, a violent, dagger-sharp jealousy in her soul,
+because Addie had spoken of patients who expected him and because he had
+spoken of Marietje. And, in her room, undecided whether to go or not,
+whether to stay indoors and sulk or to seek her amusement without her
+husband, she suddenly felt an irresistible impulse to follow her husband
+upstairs. She went; and, in order to keep in countenance should she meet
+anybody, she resolved that she would pretend to be fetching a coat
+hanging in a wardrobe-closet next to Marietje's room. The wardrobes were
+used for clothes that were not worn every day. Entering the closet, she
+softly closed the door and held her keys in her hand: if she were
+surprised, she would quietly open the big wardrobe. Meanwhile she
+listened at the partition. And she heard the voices of her husband and
+Marietje as though they were sounding across a distance and an obstacle:
+
+"How did you sleep, Marietje?"
+
+"I haven't slept at all."
+
+"What was the matter?"
+
+"All night long I had a buzzing in my ears.... It was a roaring and
+roaring like the sea.... I wanted to get up and come downstairs ... to
+Auntie, but I was afraid to ... and I didn't want to disturb the
+house.... It was just like waves.... I didn't sleep at all.... And then
+I dream, I dream while I lie awake.... All sorts of things flash out
+before me, like visions.... And it makes the night so long, so
+endless.... And I feel so tired now and above all so hopeless. I shall
+never get well."
+
+"Yes, you will."
+
+"No, Addie. I have always been ill."
+
+"You must have a quiet sleep now."
+
+"I sha'n't be able to."
+
+"Yes. Come and lie here on the sofa. I'll draw the blinds."
+
+"Addie!"
+
+"What is it, Marietje?"
+
+"Do you know what I should like?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I should like, when you have put me to sleep, as you did yesterday and
+the day before, I should like never to wake again, to remain asleep
+always. I should like your voice to lull me to sleep for ever and ever."
+
+"And why don't you want to go on living? You're young and you will get
+better."
+
+"Tell me what's the matter with me."
+
+"Don't think about that."
+
+"My body is ill, but isn't my soul ill too?"
+
+"Don't think about that; and lie down ... keep very still ... give me
+your hand.... Hush, sleep is coming, peaceful sleep.... The eyelids are
+closing.... The eyelids feel heavier and heavier.... The eyelids are
+closing.... Heavier and heavier the eyelids.... You can't lift them, you
+can't lift them.... The hand grows heavier and heavier; you can't lift
+the hand.... The whole body is growing heavy, heavy, heavier and heavier
+with sleep, peaceful sleep, coming, coming...."
+
+Mathilde listened breathlessly at the partition. All was silent now in
+Marietje's room; Mathilde no longer heard Addie's soothing voice
+summoning sleep, the magic of peaceful sleep. And suddenly, as she
+listened, she grew frightened, she, Mathilde, grew frightened of things
+which she did not understand, grew frightened as she was frightened
+when; in the evening, late, she went along the dark passages and the
+dark staircases. And yet it was morning now and the wintry reflexion of
+the snow, a little faded by the first touch of the thaw, fell shrill
+into the narrow closet, without any shade of mystery....
+
+She trembled where she knelt, frightened of what she did not understand.
+She trembled and in her trembling became conscious of a fierce jealousy
+not only of Marietje but of all Addie's patients, those outside, whom
+she had never seen, living in their poor little houses, which she did
+not know. But she was most jealous of Marietje. Was the girl asleep
+now?... She heard Addie's footstep, heard his hand on the handle of the
+door, heard him go out. He was going out ... Marietje was no doubt
+asleep.... She waited a few seconds longer, heard the stairs creak
+lightly under his feet as he went down; and now, after her fears and
+jealousy, she was seized with curiosity. She left the wardrobe-closet,
+listened in the passage outside Marietje's door. And suddenly, grasping
+the handle firmly and carefully, she opened the door and saw Marietje
+slumbering peacefully in the darkened room, her face white and relaxed
+on the sofa-cushions. Then she closed the door again and went
+downstairs. She was no longer frightened, no longer curious; only her
+jealousy burnt fiercely within her, like an angry fever. She had just
+time to put on her things and pick up her skates: Guy, Gerdy and their
+friends were waiting for her downstairs....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+That evening Gerdy said to Constance:
+
+"Auntie, Mathilde carried on like a lunatic to-day."
+
+But Constance refused to listen. She well knew that there was no love
+lost between Mathilde and the rest of them; and it always upset her
+that, on the one hand, Mathilde always remained a stranger and that, on
+the other, one of the children always had some remark to make about
+Mathilde. She, on the contrary was always glossing over Mathilde's
+shortcomings and nearly always took her side.
+
+"Honestly, Auntie, Mathilde carried on like a lunatic this
+afternoon...."
+
+Gerdy was in a great state of excitement and she determined to tell her
+story. It was after dinner, tea had not yet been served and Mathilde was
+upstairs, putting the children to bed. The others in the room were
+Adeline, Emilie and Guy; Granny was sitting in her corner. And Constance
+refused to listen:
+
+"You mustn't always be so intolerant ... about Mathilde," said
+Constance, by way of reprimand.
+
+"Intolerant? Intolerant?" echoed Gerdy, excitedly. "But you didn't see
+her, the insane way she behaved.... We were on the ice ... and...." She
+lowered her voice to a whisper, though Granny was not likely to
+understand. "We were on the ice ... and there were others: the Erzeeles
+from Utrecht and Johan Erzeele from the Hague, you know, the one who's
+in the grenadiers.... Yes, I know, Mathilde and he are old
+acquaintances, she used often to dance with him ... but that's no reason
+for carrying on with him as she did."
+
+"I say, it wasn't as bad as all that," said Guy, in a tone of
+palliation.
+
+"Not as bad as all that, not as bad as all that?" repeated Gerdy, very
+angrily, because Guy, Constance and everybody were making excuses for
+Mathilde. "Not as bad as all that? Well, if I was married, or even
+unmarried, I should be ashamed to carry on like that with any man,
+though I'd met him at a hundred dances!"
+
+"Do let Mathilde enjoy herself," said Constance. "Really, she has so
+little...."
+
+"So little what?" said Gerdy, almost impertinently. "She has everything,
+she has everything she could wish for! She has a darling of a husband,
+she has the sweetest of children ... she has everything...."
+
+"But she sometimes feels ... a little neglected and strange ... among
+all of us," said Constance, still taking Mathilde's part. "So, if she's
+a little irresponsible once in a way, I don't grudge it her for a
+moment."
+
+"But it was more than being irresponsible, it was much worse: she was
+simply carrying on!"
+
+"For shame, Gerdy! You mustn't be so spiteful."
+
+Gerdy shrugged her shoulders angrily. She simply doted on Aunt
+Constance; nothing on earth would induce her to quarrel with Aunt
+Constance: Aunt Constance, who was so kind to all of them; and so she
+preferred to say nothing. But her dear, eager little soul was up in
+arms; she was very angry indeed; she pitied Addie. She was so angry, she
+felt such pity for Addie that really she did not quite understand her
+own feelings. After all, this was not the first time that Mathilde had
+annoyed her; she had never liked Mathilde; it was enough to make her
+spill the tea or the milk if Mathilde entered the room unexpectedly; and
+so she really could not quite understand why she was so very angry and
+thinking so much of Addie, simply because Mathilde had carried on so
+with Johan Erzeele, why it should irritate her so that Constance--on
+principle, she could understand that much--was taking Mathilde's part,
+why it should irritate her that Mamma and Emilie were sitting so sad and
+silent, that Granny was sitting so feeble and silently trembling in her
+far corner, why it should irritate her that Adeletje and Guy should keep
+on playing backgammon:
+
+"Three and four...."
+
+"Two and five.... Imperial.... Once more...."
+
+She was very much overwrought; and, when Mathilde came in for tea--the
+children were now asleep--Gerdy's little face quivered; she could hardly
+contain herself; but she made the effort, because Constance was looking
+at her in such surprise. And, to keep herself in countenance, she went
+in search of Uncle Henri, found Van der Welcke in the passage, on the
+point of coming in, and asked him:
+
+"Uncle, are you coming to play a rubber?"
+
+"If you like, dear. Who's going to make up?"
+
+"Marietje, I dare say, and Alex."
+
+"Is the other Marietje, Mary, downstairs?"
+
+"No, Uncle, she's up in her room."
+
+"This house of ours is a regular hospital, eh?"
+
+"Oh, it's not as bad as that, Uncle!... I think it's a very nice house."
+
+"You do, do you?"
+
+Gerdy, usually so cheerful, suddenly became very nervous, cross and
+angry, very limp; and she didn't understand herself, couldn't understand
+herself....
+
+"Well, come and have a rubber."
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm coming.... Don't hustle your uncle: he's getting old."
+
+But Gerdy laughed, shrilly, though she had to keep back her tears:
+
+"You'll never be old."
+
+"You think that?"
+
+"No, never."
+
+"Ah! Then I shall remain a scapegrace to my dying day?"
+
+"No, a dear, kind uncle.... But come and have a rubber now."
+
+She dragged him into the room. Constance grumbled mildly:
+
+"Gerdy, you're just like a naughty child. Every time you run out of the
+room, you leave the door open."
+
+And Gerdy, from being limp, became filled with poignant self-pity.
+Aunt Constance had ceased to care for her, cared more for her
+daughter-in-law, Mathilde.... Everybody, everybody cared more for
+Mathilde.... Addie, Johan Erzeele: they all cared more for Mathilde....
+She, Gerdy, was misjudged by everybody ... everybody except Uncle Henri,
+who was nice and kind....
+
+She made a great effort, mastered herself, mastered her volatile
+emotions. Alex had come over that Saturday from Amsterdam, where he was
+now boarding with a tutor at the Merchants' School; and he and Marietje
+soon got the bridge-table ready. And it became quite a serious rubber,
+in the still, pale-yellow atmosphere of the big living-room, where the
+lamps shone sleepily through their yellow-silk shades, just bright
+enough to light the books or crochet-work in the hands of the silent
+women, Constance, Adeline, Emilie.... At about nine o'clock there was a
+certain movement in those intimate, silent, almost melancholy indoor
+lines and colours, when Adeline took Klaasje to bed and Constance and
+Adeletje helped Grandmamma upstairs: the child and the old woman at the
+same hour, the one never outgrowing her first childhood, the other
+relapsing into her second, after so well knowing the many sad things
+that were to come, that had come, that had already faded away, even as
+all life, that comes and goes, fades away in the faded pallor of the
+past.... And, when Constance and Adeline returned downstairs together,
+they seemed to hear the wind getting up around the house; and Adeline
+said, on the stairs:
+
+"Listen, the wind's getting up."
+
+"There's a change in the weather," said Constance.
+
+"That means thaw; it's a westerly wind and we shall have rain."
+
+On entering the room, they found Ernst there. He often came round in the
+evenings. He watched Gerdy's cards and sat very still, never spoke much,
+feeling that they never understood what he said and that it was better
+to talk to them as little as possible, even though there was some good
+about them, even though they were not utterly depraved, even though they
+meant the suffering souls no harm, although once in a way, all of them,
+they would trample on them unconsciously, because they did not see and
+understand and because they were so stupid and so innately rough....
+Nevertheless, rough and stupid as they were, they were his relations and
+he came and looked them up, feeling at home in the house of his sister
+Constance and her husband, in the house also of Addie, who was the
+cleverest of them all and who, he felt certain, did hear and see the
+souls, for he often spared them.... He now stared at the cards and
+thought of the rubbers at Mamma's in the Alexanderstraat, when he used
+to go there on Sundays in the old days.... Strange, that everything
+changed, that nothing remained, he thought.... It was no longer the
+Hague now: it was Driebergen; it was Van der Welcke's house and Gerrit's
+children: Gerrit, how rough, how very rough he used to be, but even so
+not exactly wicked and depraved! And the cards as they were played one
+after the other fell from the fingers of Van der Welcke, Gerdy, Alex and
+Marietje. The same game; only life changed; the game did not change nor
+did the souls, the poor souls, ever and ever suffering around him,
+linking themselves to his soul with dragging chains.... He sat in
+silence and followed the play of the hand, understood it, nodded his
+approval of Van der Welcke's careful game....
+
+Mathilde had come in; so had Addie, for a moment, before going upstairs
+to work; and they met as husband and wife who, after dinner, in a
+bustling house, seek each other out for a moment to exchange a word or
+two. Mathilde's eyes were red, Addie looked serious; and they all
+noticed it; it struck them, it saddened them, while they heard the wind
+flapping like a sagging sail and the panes lightly creaking and the
+windows lightly rattling in their frames.... Constance wondered what had
+happened and thought that it must be Mathilde, always urging him to move
+to the Hague; and Addie would be quite willing, for his wife's sake, but
+then the money-question would crop up and remain insoluble, because
+Mathilde would not be economical.... And that indeed was how it was;
+and they had lost each other, Addie and Mathilde; and they would find
+each other again in a rebirth of desire, when Addie reflected:
+
+"What a beautiful, healthy woman she is! And we have to be healthy in
+our bodies and normal in our longings if we would be healthy of soul, in
+the life of our bodies and our physical being."
+
+On the evening after the excursion on the ice, they found each other
+again. The wind had lashed their blood to a warm glow, the exercise had
+sent it coursing through their veins. Love was reborn of their embrace
+until drowsiness overtook them. And Mathilde thought that she had found
+him again and Addie thought that he had found her again, because their
+kisses had sealed one to the other, because their arms had clasped one
+to the other, but they lost each other again at once, as ever and
+always, because Mathilde just did not know him in his two-sided soul and
+he never knew things for himself, whatever he might know for others, in
+the clarity of his knowledge; in any of the manifestations of the
+instinctive knowledge which he knew silently and blissfully in his
+soul's soul: the hidden spark, from which treasure shone.
+
+Mathilde sat down quietly in a corner, sitting a little way from the
+others, to catch the light of a lamp on her book; and Addie remained for
+only a moment, saying that he had work to do. And, as he went out of the
+door, there was a sudden draught, so that the lamps flickered and smoked
+and nearly went out.
+
+"There's something open," said Constance. "Where can that wind come
+from?"
+
+"I'll look," said Addie, closing the door.
+
+"You see," said Gerdy, pursing up her mouth and turning to Aunt
+Constance, "you see it's not always _my_ fault when there's a draught."
+
+Silence fell; there was not a sound but the hard tap of the dice on the
+backgammon-board and the rustle of the cards as they were played, while
+Constance, Adeline, Emilie and Mathilde read or worked, and the evening
+hours in the soft light of the sitting-room dozed away as with
+soft-trailing minutes and quarters, dull reflexions in the mirrors,
+faint lamplight on the furniture and the rhythmical ticking of the clock
+in the almost entire silence, broken only now and again by an occasional
+word, at the card-table, or when Guy said:
+
+"It's blowing ... and thawing.... There'll be no skating to-morrow...."
+
+A piercing scream rang through the house; and the scream so suddenly and
+unexpectedly penetrated the silence of the stairs and passages of the
+great house, outside the room in which they were sitting, that all of
+them started, suddenly:
+
+"What's that?... What's that?..."
+
+They all sprang up; the cards, thanks to Gerdy's fright, fell on the
+floor, and lay flat with their gaudy pictures. When Van der Welcke
+opened the door, there was no longer any draught; the maids were running
+into the hall, anxiously, through the open door of the kitchen.
+Everybody asked questions at once. They heard Addie come down a
+staircase; and the hurried creaking of his firm step on the stairs
+reassured the women. They called out to him, he to them; and, amid their
+confusion, they at last heard his voice, clearly:
+
+"Help me!... Here!..."
+
+"Where?..."
+
+"On the stairs."
+
+They ran up the stairs.
+
+"On the back-staircase!" they heard him call.
+
+And Constance saw that the partition door was standing ajar at the end
+of the long passage. She gave a cold shiver and she heard Mathilde
+suddenly say:
+
+"Oh, nothing ... nothing will induce me to go up that staircase!"
+
+But she forced herself and went; and the others followed her.
+
+They found Addie on the small, narrow back-staircase; and he was
+carrying Marietje, Mary, in his arms. She hung against him unconscious,
+like a white bundle of clothes, with her nerveless arms hanging slack
+and limp.
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"I heard her call out.... The staircase-door above was open.... I expect
+she meant to go downstairs ... to fetch something ... and was taken ill
+on the stairs.... Help me, can't you?" he said, almost impatiently.
+
+The women helped him carry Marietje upstairs. They all went up now, to
+their rooms; the maids, still pale and trembling, put out the lamps in
+the sitting-room; and silence and darkness fell over the house, as they
+went creaking up the stairs, with candles in their hands.
+
+The wind outside increased in violence; and the dripping thaw pattered
+against the panes.
+
+The three sisters were together in their bedrooms: Marietje and Gerdy in
+their room, Adeletje in her own room, with the door open between them.
+And they spoke very low, in whispering voices:
+
+"I'm getting used to it," said Marietje, sensibly; "I'm no longer
+frightened."
+
+"I heard it quite lately," said Gerdy.
+
+And Adeletje answered:
+
+"Yes, I hear it nearly every evening."
+
+"Uncle and Aunt don't speak about it."
+
+"No, it's better not to."
+
+"It's always the same sound: like the dragging of heavy footsteps, in
+the garret, under the roof...."
+
+"And then it goes downstairs."
+
+"Yes ... then it goes downstairs."
+
+"Uncle had the garret examined."
+
+"Addie has been up there, with Guy."
+
+"They found nothing."
+
+"It can't be a rat."
+
+"It's quite unaccountable."
+
+"I'm getting so used to it," said Marietje.
+
+"It sometimes comes down the little staircase."
+
+"Aunt Constance is afraid of the little staircase."
+
+"She doesn't like the house at all."
+
+"But Uncle does and Addie does."
+
+"Mathilde was so frightened!"
+
+"Uncle and Addie wouldn't like to leave the house."
+
+"And it's a nice house," said Gerdy. "I ... I'm frightened myself lately
+... and yet I'm fond of the house."
+
+"I love the house too," said Adeletje. "It's so brown, so dark ... like
+something safe and something very dear ... around us all. I should be
+very sorry to leave the house. I shall never marry--shall I?--because
+I'm ugly and delicate ... and I shall always remain with Uncle and
+Aunt...."
+
+Gerdy took her in her arms.
+
+"_You_ won't," Adeletje went on. "You'll marry one day, Gerdy ... and so
+will Marietje."
+
+"Oh, stop!" said Gerdy. "Do stop, Adeletje!... What are you talking
+about marriage!... I'm ugly as well; nobody likes me!"
+
+"Listen!" said Marietje.
+
+"What did you hear?"
+
+"The sound ... I thought."
+
+"I hear nothing."
+
+"Listen!"
+
+"Yes, listen!"
+
+"It's trailing up the stairs."
+
+"Oh, I'm frightened, I'm frightened!" said Gerdy.
+
+The sisters all crept together.
+
+"I'm not frightened," said Marietje. "I often hear it, like that."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"The maids say...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That it's...."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The old man...."
+
+"Hush!"
+
+"Listen, listen!"
+
+"They say the house is haunted."
+
+"It may be nothing at all," said Marietje. "It may be the wind, making a
+draught."
+
+"But everything's shut."
+
+"Old houses have queer draughts sometimes, for all that."
+
+"The furniture's old too."
+
+"Listen, it's trailing!"
+
+"That's the wind."
+
+"There's the same trailing sound in the wind sometimes, blowing round
+the house. I'm getting used to it," said Marietje.
+
+"Yes," said Adeletje, "one gets used, one gets used to everything.... I
+shall always remain in this house, with Uncle and Aunt. I love them."
+
+"They never talk about it."
+
+"That's by far the best way."
+
+"Mathilde, how frightened _she_ is!"
+
+"Listen, listen! It's going upstairs!"
+
+"It's the wind ... taking the draught upstairs."
+
+"In an old house ... it's as though the old wood were alive."
+
+"And the furniture."
+
+"What can have been the matter with Mary?"
+
+"Can she ... have seen anything?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"She wanted to fetch something.... She fainted.... She's very ill, I
+believe, very weak."
+
+"Addie says that she's not so very ill."
+
+"Listen!"
+
+"Could it really be ... the old man?"
+
+"And, if it were the old man ... what then?" said Adeletje. "I ... I
+shall remain in the house. I shall die, here, I think, at Uncle and
+Aunt's."
+
+"Oh, do hush, Adeletje!" said Gerdy, limply, nestling in her sister's
+arms.
+
+"I'm not afraid of dying."
+
+"Oh, Adeletje, do hush, do hush! You mustn't talk of dying."
+
+"Listen! I hear it again!"
+
+"But now it's trailing away."
+
+"Like a draught sucking in the air."
+
+"Yes," said Adeletje, "I expect it's the old man."
+
+"Why should it be he?"
+
+"He can't tear himself away from the house."
+
+"He was always implacable...."
+
+"To poor Aunt Constance."
+
+"The old woman was different."
+
+"Yes, she was different."
+
+"No, it's the draught, it's only the draught.... And the house,
+creaking."
+
+"It's nothing."
+
+"It's nothing."
+
+"But perhaps we imagine ... because we hear...."
+
+"We all feel ... a sort of fear ... because we hear."
+
+"Mary saw something, I expect."
+
+"Come, girls, let's go to bed."
+
+"Do you dare sleep alone in your room, Adeletje?"
+
+"Yes, Gerdy ... but leave the door open between us."
+
+"Yes, that's nicer."
+
+"Good-night then, darlings."
+
+"Adeletje ... you won't think any more of dying, will you?" said Gerdy,
+moist-eyed. "Perhaps I shall be dead before you are."
+
+"Hush, darling! How can you talk like that?... I'm delicate and ugly....
+You're strong, you're pretty."
+
+"I may be dead first, for all that!" said Gerdy, sobbing.
+
+"Gerdy, don't excite yourself so," said Marietje. "That's because we've
+been talking about it. Now you won't sleep all night."
+
+"I dare say I shall be frightened to-night," said Gerdy. "If so, I'll
+wake you, Marietje, and creep into bed beside you."
+
+"Very well, do.... And don't worry...."
+
+"Good-night, then...."
+
+"Good-night...."
+
+"Good-night...."
+
+Round the house the thaw wept; and in the night the sinewed grain of the
+ice broke and melted in weeping melancholy, with the added melancholy of
+the west wind blowing up heavy clouds, the west wind which came from
+very far and moaned softly along the walls and over the roof, rattling
+the tight-closed windows of the night....
+
+Inside the house reigned the darkness of repose and the shadow of
+silence; and the inmates slept. Only Gerdy could not fall sleep: she lay
+thinking with wide-open eyes, as she listened vaguely to the wind
+blowing and the thaw pattering, thinking that she hated ... and loved
+... that she hated Mathilde ... and loved ... him ... Johan....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+"Yes," said Paul, as he followed Constance out of her own sitting-room,
+while she, with her key-basket over her arm, went down the stairs with
+Marietje and Gerdy, "yes, I'm not ashamed to confess it: I've come to
+see how the country suits me. The Hague is becoming so dirty that I
+can't stand it any longer. What a dirty place a town is! It's much
+cleaner in the country.... You're fortunate, you people. But I daresay I
+should have stayed on at the Hague--I'm not really a man for the
+country--if my landlady wasn't getting so old, if she wasn't always
+changing the servants, if those servants weren't so unspeakably slovenly
+and dirty.... She produced such specimens lately that I gave her
+notice.... I'd had those rooms fourteen years.... It'll be a great
+change for me.... But I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to see to
+everything myself; and I'm getting too old for that.... Yes, I still do
+my wash-hand-stand myself.... But look here, Constance, when it came to
+making my bed--because the servant's hands were dirty and my sheets one
+night smelt of onions--you know, that was really too much to expect. I'm
+no longer a young man: I'm forty-six. Yes, that's right, you young
+baggages, laugh at your old uncle! I'm forty-six, forty-six. Lord, what
+a lot of dirt I've seen in those years!... As the years go by, filth
+heaps itself around you like a mountain: there's no getting through it.
+Politics, people, servants, bedclothes, everything you eat, everything
+you touch, everything you do, say, think or feel: it's a beastly
+business, just one sickening mass of filth.... The only pure, unsullied
+thing that I have found in the world is music. Ah, what a pure thing
+music is!..."
+
+"Paul, I must just go down to the store-room and have a talk with my
+cook about the filth which I'm to give you this evening," said
+Constance; and the girls laughed.
+
+"All right, I'll come with you ... I sha'n't be in the way. Ah, what a
+pure thing music is!" he continued, in the store-room, while the cook
+opened wide eyes. "Look at painting, for instance, how dirty:
+oil-colours, turpentine, a palette, paint-brushes, water, all equally
+messy. Sculpture: clay and damp cloths; literature: what's more
+loathsomely dirty than ink, the oceans of ink which an author pours
+forth?... But music: that's tone, that's purity, that's sheer
+Platonism.... Oh, no, since they've taken to building public
+conveniences at the street-corners in the Hague, I can't go on living
+there!"
+
+"_Paul_!" said Constance, warningly; but he was too much worked up to
+understand that she was rebuking him. "Run away now, with the girls and
+leave me with Keetje.[1] Look at her, staring at you and not minding a
+word I say.... Keetje, listen to me, I want to order the dinner; and
+you, Paul, ajo,[2] be off!"
+
+"Come away, Uncle!" said Marietje, "Keetje, at Driebergen, isn't
+accustomed to hear everything called so dirty."
+
+"Keetje's proud of her kitchen, aren't you, Keetje?" said Gerdy.
+
+"Oh, well," said Keetje, "I expect meneer doesn't mean all he says."
+
+"Not mean all I say!" Paul shouted at the servant, who stood calmly
+with her arms akimbo. "Not mean all I say!"
+
+"One can do a lot with scrubbing, sir, to keep things nice and clean."
+
+"And I tell you," Paul blazed out, "that everything's dirty, except
+music...."
+
+"And except my kitchen!" said Keetje, greatly offended. "I don't know
+what sort of servants meneer's had. But we're good cleaners here, aren't
+we, ma'am?... Yes, I know, old Mie[3] is very old and mevrouw only keeps
+her on out of kindness ... and we've got young help besides.... But
+dirty!" shaking her head energetically. "There's no dirt here ... though
+it is an old house ... and a big family...."
+
+"Girls! Paul!" cried Constance, in despair. "I've no time to stand in my
+store-room arguing about what's dirty and what not in the world or in
+Keetje's kitchen.... Get out of this!... And you, Keetje, listen to _me_
+and answer _me_."
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Uncle, come along!" said Gerdy. "We'll show you Keetje's kitchen."
+
+"Well, meneer can inspect that with pleasure!" said Keetje, by way of a
+last shot.
+
+The girls dragged Paul off to the kitchen, where they were joined by
+Adeletje and even by Marietje van Saetzema; and they screamed with
+merriment when Paul examined the pans one after the other:
+
+"But look, Uncle ... they're shining like silver and gold!"
+
+"Well, we _can_ have our dinner out of them to-night.... Still,
+children, music, music is the only pure thing in the world!"
+
+"Provided it's not false."
+
+"Of course it mustn't be false.... Have you a good piano here?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle, Mathilde has hers upstairs and here's mine, in the
+conservatory," said Gerdy. "I'm the only one who plays."
+
+Paul sat down at the piano, struck a few chords:
+
+"The tone is fairly good.... Ah, music, music!..."
+
+And he played. He played _Wotan's Farewell,_ followed by the _Fire
+Magic_.... He played very well, by heart: his pale, narrow features
+became animated, his long fingers quivered, his eyes lit up. In the
+conservatory the old mother listened, heard merely a flow of soothing
+sound. At her feet, Klaasje listened, playing with her toys. Mathilde
+came from upstairs; after her came Guy, deserting his books. Paul
+played, went on playing ... he had forgotten all about them. Suddenly he
+stopped:
+
+"You mustn't think," he said abruptly, "that I am an unconditional
+Wagner-worshipper. His music is delightful; his poetry is crude,
+childish and thin; his philosophy is very faulty and horribly German and
+vague.... Proofs? You ask for proofs?... Take the Rheingold: did you
+ever see such gods? With no real strength, no real marrow in their
+coarse thieves' souls, their burglars' souls full of filth.... Is that
+the beginning of a world? No, a world begins in a purer fashion.... And
+so childishly and crudely: the world's treasure, the gold, the pure gold
+guarded by three dirty Lorelei, with their hair full of sea-weed, who,
+the moment they set eyes upon a dwarf, start giggling and making fun....
+Are those the pure guardians of the pure gold? But the music in itself,
+the purity of tone: oh, in that purity of tone he is a master!..."
+
+And he played the prelude to the Rheingold, played it twice
+consecutively. Suddenly he stopped once more:
+
+"Oh, Gerdy, how dusty your piano is!... Does no one ever wipe the
+keys?... Where can I wash my hands?"
+
+"Uncle dear, do go on playing!"
+
+"And my fingers black with dust? No, look here, Keetje's pans may shine
+like silver and gold, but your piano is a sounding-board of dirt. Where
+can I wash my hands?"
+
+"Here, at the tap."
+
+She led him to the hall.
+
+"Well, first find me a clean towel."
+
+"The towel is clean, sir," said Truitje, who happened to be passing.
+
+"No, I want a towel fresh from the wash, folded in nice, clean folds."
+
+And it was great fun: Marietje ran hunting for Constance, to get the
+keys of the linen-press.
+
+"So you've come to live here?" said Van der Welcke, who came down while
+Paul was washing his hands.
+
+"Yes, I had a sudden, irresistible impulse to move to Driebergen. I was
+feeling a little lonely at the Hague," he confessed. "I am growing old
+and lonely. And it's cleaner in the country; the air is less foul,
+though I'm not lucky with this thaw. The road outside was one great
+puddle. But I have found two airy rooms, in a villa.... It's strange, I
+should never have believed that I could ever come and live at Driebergen
+... and in the winter too!..."
+
+He inspected his hands, which were now clean:
+
+"Imagine," he said, "if there were no water left! I should be dead next
+day!"
+
+Paul really brightened up. He was a great deal at the house, very soon
+got into the habit of dining there every evening and, because he felt
+scruples at always taking his meals at Van der Welcke's expense, he made
+handsome presents, as a set-off for his sponging, he said, so that in
+the end it cost him more than if he had dined every day at home. He
+ordered fine flowers and fruit from the Hague; on Van der Welcke's
+birthday, he gave him a case of champagne; on Constance' birthday, a
+parcel of caravan tea, because he came and had tea with them every
+afternoon. In this way he contributed generously to the house-keeping
+and relieved his scruples. He brightened up considerably, after his
+recent years of loneliness, talked away lustily, broached his
+philosophies, played Wagner; and even Mathilde accepted him as a
+pleasant change, with a touch of the Hague about him.
+
+Constance would rebuke him at times and say:
+
+"Paul, I won't have you constantly ordering that expensive fruit for me
+from the Hague."
+
+"My dear Constance," he would answer, "I'm saving the cost of it on my
+ties; for my dandyism is gradually wearing away."
+
+In the evening, in the great sitting-room--while the wind blew round the
+house and the dice fell hard on the backgammon-board and the gaudy
+colour of the cards flickered in the hands of the bridge-players--Paul's
+music came as a new sound, driving away the grey melancholy, tinkling in
+drops of silver harmony. He played everything by heart; and the only
+thing that his attentive audience couldn't stand was his habit of
+suddenly breaking off in the most delightful passages to defend some
+philosophical thesis which no one at that instant was thinking of
+attacking, with which everyone agreed at the time. Nevertheless, despite
+his playing and his new-found cheerfulness, he felt old, lonely and
+aimless. Whenever he had an opportunity of talking quietly to Constance
+for a moment, without having to run after her downstairs, to the
+store-room, he would say, sadly:
+
+"I? I'm an old bachelor, an old boy. I'm a typical old bachelor."
+
+"You ought to get married, Paul," she said, one day.
+
+He gave a violent start:
+
+"Constance," he said, "if ever you try to lay a trap for me, I swear
+I'll run away and you shall never set eyes on me again!... Where should
+I find a wife who would be as tidy as I? And then I'm so difficult to
+please that the poor child would have a terrible life of it....
+Sometimes, yes, sometimes I do cherish the illusion ... of marriage with
+a very young girl, one whom I could train according to my ideas, my
+philosophy, my ideas and philosophy of purity ... of which the loftiest
+is the idea of purity in soul and life...."
+
+"That's a regular old bachelor's idea, Paul: getting married to a very
+young girl, training her in your ideas. A fine woman of thirty or over:
+that's better."
+
+"As old as that!" exclaimed Paul.
+
+"A woman of thirty is not old for a man of forty-six."
+
+"No, Constance, don't trouble your head. Marriage is a desperate affair.
+No, it's a good thing that I never got married.... But I do feel lonely
+sometimes. I'm glad I came to live here.... It's you who are providing,
+the family-picture now.... Poor Mamma! She still knows me quite well.
+But she thinks that I am still very, very young.... Yes, the
+family-picture is with you now, not on Sunday evenings, but every day of
+the week.... Now that I'm growing old, I feel myself becoming more
+pastoral than I used to be. Do you remember how I used to abuse the
+family and deny family-affection and how angry poor Gerrit used to get?
+Now I'm growing very idyllic and I'm throwing back and longing for the
+family in the desert.... I'm glad that your house has become a centre
+for the family, Constance. But for that, there would be nothing to keep
+us together. Oh, it's a melancholy thing to grow so old, lonely as I am!
+What have I to live for? Nothing.... Well, with you, I am still at least
+a sort of rich uncle, one from whom the children may have expectations:
+I dare say I shall leave each of my nephews and nieces a trifle. I must
+have a talk with my solicitor one day. It won't be much for them, but
+I'll leave them enough to buy a clock, or some other ornament for their
+mantelpiece..... And your old friend Brauws is back at the Hague, you
+know.... Oh, didn't you know? Hasn't he written? He's sure to soon.... I
+met him the other day: the fellow's grown old. He always had an old
+face: wrinkles are things that need looking after; they want massage....
+I used to massage mine, but I've given it up: my personal vanity has
+gone. As you see, I wear the same tie always. I'm fond of this tie. I
+have it steamed from time to time: that keeps it fresh. It's a nice tie;
+but I no longer have such a collection as I used to.... Yes, the family
+no longer cling together at the Hague. Karel and Cateau still do nothing
+but eat good dinners by themselves. For years and years they have done
+nothing but eat good meals together. Lord, Lord, what a disgusting pair
+to find their pleasure in that!... Saetzema and Adolphine: that's a sad
+case; you people have been very kind to Marietje.... Otto and Frances
+have a heap of children now and that good Louise looks after them, while
+Frances makes a scene one day and embraces her the next with a great
+display of emotion and loads of tears. And that has lasted for years
+too.... Yes, the years pass. I simply couldn't bear it any longer,
+especially with those sluts of servants whom my landlady started
+engaging lately. I yearned for cleanliness and ... for my family. It's a
+sign that I'm growing very old, Constance. _My_ dotage is always marked
+by that idyllic longing.... That's why I take so much pleasure in
+immersing myself amid you all in family-affection. It's a great thing
+that none of you quarrel; even you and your husband don't quarrel any
+more. It's become the golden age."
+
+
+[1] Kate, Kittie.
+
+[2] Malay: clear out!
+
+[3] Mary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+And the hard-braced north-east winds, which had brought the nipping
+frost with them, came no more; they had passed; and it was no longer the
+strong, boisterous winds, but the angry winds, the winds that brought
+with them the clouds of grey melancholy, in eternal steady-blowing
+sadness, as though in the west, yonder, there were a dark realm of
+mysterious sorrow, whence blew huge howling cohorts of gigantic woes,
+titanic griefs, overshadowing the small country and the small people.
+The sky and the clouds now seemed bigger and mightier than the small
+country and the small people; the sky now seemed to be the universe; and
+houses, roads, trees and people, horizons of woods and moors, lastly,
+human souls all seemed to shrink under the great woes that drowned the
+small country and the small people from horizon to horizon. Curtains of
+streaming water cloaked the vistas and a damp fog blurred the distant
+wavering line of trees; a rainy mist washed out the almost spectral
+gestures, the silent, despairing movements of the windmill-sails; and
+the low-lying world, feeble, small, sombre and bowed down, endured the
+crushing, oppressive force of rain and wind lasting night and day and
+all day long.
+
+Constance and Brauws were sitting once more in her own sitting-room,
+which was a replica of the little boudoir in the Kerkhoflaan at the
+Hague. Along the curving folds of the curtains, through the grey,
+clouded panes, they watched the grey rain falling, now in vertical
+streaks, now aslant, driven by the raging wind.
+
+"I so well remember this weather," he said, "in the old days, when I
+used to sit chatting with you at the Hague, in your room which was so
+like this room."
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"I would come late in the afternoon, find you sitting in the dark and
+scold you because you had not been out; and we used to talk about all
+sorts of things...."
+
+"It's a long time ago."
+
+"The years fly past. Do you remember, we used to fight a little, both of
+us, against the years that were overtaking us, against the years that
+would make us old?"
+
+She laughed:
+
+"Yes," she said. "We no longer fight against them now. We are old now.
+We have grown old."
+
+"We are growing old. And yet what an amount of youth a human being
+possesses! As we grow older, we always think, 'Now we are growing old.'
+And, when we are older than when we thought that, we feel ... that we
+have always remained the same as we were from a child."
+
+"Yes ... a person doesn't change."
+
+"Only all his joys and all his sorrows change and become blurred; but we
+ourselves do not."
+
+"No, we don't change. Then why should there be joy and sorrow ... when,
+after many years, we have remained the same as we were from childhood?"
+
+"Because we remain the same ... and yet do not remain the same."
+
+"Yes," she said, smiling. "I understand what you mean. We remain the
+same from childhood ... and yet ... yet we change. It is like a game of
+riddles. I ... I am the same ... and I am changed."
+
+"I too. My soul still recognizes in itself my former child's soul ...
+and yet ... yet I am changed.... Tell me: I believe things are running
+smoothly with you...."
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Not always?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I am so glad to see ... that things are going well as between you and
+Henri."
+
+"We are growing so old ... Everything gets blunted."
+
+"No, it's not only that."
+
+"No, not only."
+
+"You have grown used to each other...."
+
+"Without talking about it."
+
+"You set store by each other by now...."
+
+"Perhaps.... Gradually...."
+
+"Hans is a good sort."
+
+"Yes, he's just simply that."
+
+"And you appreciate this now."
+
+"I think I do."
+
+"You both have full lives."
+
+"Yes. Who would ever have thought it?"
+
+"You have so much to make you happy: Addie always with you...."
+
+"My poor boy!"
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"I am frightened...."
+
+"What of?"
+
+"I don't know. On days like the last few days, I am sensitive to every
+sort of fear, I always have been."
+
+"Have the fears been justified?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"What are you afraid of?"
+
+"I have sad thoughts."
+
+"That is sheer melancholy."
+
+"A melancholy which is a presentiment ... on days like these...."
+
+"And everything is well."
+
+"Only the material things."
+
+"Be happy in that your life is so richly filled, both yours and
+Hans'.... It's a life of the richest security ... with all that you do."
+
+"With all that we do? We do nothing!"
+
+"You do a great deal ... for people who are small!" he smiled.
+
+"For small souls!... Do we do enough?"
+
+"You do a great deal."
+
+She shook her head:
+
+"I don't.... Hans does: he is good."
+
+"Just simply good.... Tell me, is it merely because of the weather that
+things don't seem to run smoothly?"
+
+"No, material things aren't everything."
+
+"Is it because of Addie?"
+
+"Perhaps. I can't say. I feel an oppression, here." She put both her
+hands to her heart. "It's always liable to come, a day...."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A day of sorrow, illness, wretchedness ... of misfortune ... of
+disaster."
+
+"Why should you think that?"
+
+"I often think it: now there's a misfortune coming, a disaster.... I sit
+and wait for it.... Oh, I've been waiting for it for months!... The
+children look at me, ask me what's the matter, whether anything has
+happened ... with Mathilde.... No, nothing ever happens.... There is no
+sympathy between us ... but I, I am calm and I wish her every good ...
+my son's wife...."
+
+"You must get over that oppression."
+
+"It can't be argued away."
+
+"You must be happy. I have been here for some days now. I see nothing
+but love all around you."
+
+"From her side?"
+
+"Well, perhaps not from hers."
+
+"She always remains a stranger."
+
+"Then win her to you."
+
+"It's very difficult, when there is no sympathy."
+
+"But, apart from that, there is nothing but love around you. Really, you
+are wrapped about with silent happiness."
+
+She shook her head:
+
+"They are fond of me ... but there are things slumbering...."
+
+"There are always slumbering things. Happiness without shadow doesn't
+exist. And one even doubts whether it ought to."
+
+"No, perhaps not ... for later, for later. But ... there are things that
+slumber, silent, sorrowful things."
+
+"I see you can't overcome it."
+
+"No. I am glad to see you again."
+
+"After so many years. And I too am glad to see that things are going so
+well with you ... even though there are sorrowful things that slumber."
+
+"There are many good things."
+
+"There is much love ... and much living for others."
+
+She laughed softly:
+
+"So simply ... with no great effort!"
+
+"When we are not great ... why should we act as though we were? We are
+small; and we act accordingly. If we do good in a small way ... isn't
+that a beginning?"
+
+"A striving...."
+
+"For later."
+
+"Yes, for later."
+
+"I, I can't even say ... that I am doing good in a small way."
+
+"Tell me about yourself."
+
+"There is nothing to tell. Thinking, living, seeking ... always
+seeking.... There has been nothing besides."
+
+"Then do as we do," she laughed, softly. "Do good in a small way ... as
+you say that we do."
+
+"I shall try.... But I am disheartened. I admire you and I envy you."
+
+"I ... I am disheartened. I am sometimes quite dejected. I should like
+to live quietly, with a heap of books around me. I ... I'm giving it
+up."
+
+"The struggle?"
+
+"Yes, the struggle to seek and find. Little by little, it has conquered
+me. Can you understand me? You ... you have conquered it."
+
+"What have I conquered?"
+
+"You understand."
+
+"You rank that conquest too high.... And you, why are you conquered?"
+
+"Because ... because I have never achieved anything.... I may sometimes
+have found, but never, never achieved.... And now I want to rest ...
+with a heap of books around me ... and, if I can, follow your example
+... and do good in a small way."
+
+"I will help you," she said, jesting, very sadly.
+
+They were silent; and between her and him the room was full of bygone
+things. The furniture was the same, certain lines and tones were the
+same as years ago.... Out of doors, the unsparing night of the
+clattering rain and raging wind was the same as years ago. Life went on
+weaving its long woof of years, like so many grey shrouds. They both
+smiled at it; but their hearts were very sad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+And the melancholy of bygone things seemed to swell on the loud moaning
+of the wind during the following days, when the rain poured down; the
+house these days seemed full of the melancholy of bygone things. They
+were days of shadow and half-light reflected around the old, doting
+woman in the conservatory; Adeline, the silent, mournful mother; Emilie,
+a young woman, but broken ... like all the greyness exuding from human
+souls that are always living in the past and in the melancholy of that
+past; and now that Brauws also saw it as a thing of shadows and twilight
+round Alex--because the boy could never forget the horror of his
+father's death--he also understood within himself that bygone things are
+never to be cast off and that they perhaps hang closer in clouds of
+melancholy, around people under grey skies--the small people under the
+great skies--than in bright countries of mountains and sunshine and blue
+sky. And that there were sorrowful things of the soul that slumbered:
+did he not see it in Addie's knitted brows, in ailing Marietje's dreamy
+stare, in Mathilde's glances brooding with envy and secret bitterness
+and malice? Did he not see it in the sudden melancholy moods of Gerdy,
+usually so cheerful? And did he not understand that in between their
+young lives there was weaving a woof of feelings that were most human
+but exceedingly intense, perhaps so intense because the feelings of
+small souls under big skies can be deeply sorrowful between the brown
+walls of a house, between the dark curtains of a room, which the grey
+daylight enters as a tarnish of pain, mingling its tarnish with the
+reflexion which lingers from former years in dull mirrors, as though all
+feeling and all life were quiveringly mirrored in the atmosphere amid
+which life has lived and palpitated?
+
+Brauws was now living at Zeist and he had collected his heap of books
+around him and lived there quietly, conquered, as he said. But he was
+with them a great deal and was hardly surprised when, one morning,
+intending to come for lunch, he heard unknown children's voices in the
+hall, saw in the hall a young woman whom he did not know at first, heard
+her say in a very soft voice of melancholy, with a sound in it like a
+little cracked bell of silvery laughter:
+
+"Don't you recognize me, Mr. Brauws?"
+
+She put out her hand to him:
+
+"Do you mean to say you really don't know me? Aunt Constance, Mr. Brauws
+doesn't know me; and yet we used to have so many disputes, in the old
+days!"
+
+"Freule ... Freule van Naghel ... Freule Marianne!" Brauws stammered.
+
+"Mrs. van Vreeswijk," said Marianne, correcting him, gently. "And here
+are my children."
+
+And she showed him a little girl of eight and two boys of seven and six;
+and he was hardly surprised, but he felt the melancholy of the past
+rising in the big house when Van der Welcke came down the stairs and
+said:
+
+"Ah, Marianne! Is that you and the children?"
+
+"Yes, Uncle, we have been to Utrecht to look up Uncle and Aunt van
+Vreeswijk: they are so fond of the children.... Charles may come on
+this afternoon ... but he wasn't quite sure."
+
+And, turning to Brauws, she continued, very, easily:
+
+"We are living near Arnhem. Won't you come and see us in the summer?
+Vreeswijk would be very glad, I know."
+
+She spoke quite easily and it was all very prosaic and ordinary when
+they all sat down round the big table in the dining-room and Marianne
+quietly chatted on:
+
+"And Marietje--Lord, what a lot of Marietjes we have in the
+family--_our_ Marietje is soon coming to introduce her young soldier to
+you."
+
+"Is it settled then?" asked Constance. "I thought Uncle van Naghel
+didn't approve."
+
+"He's given in," said Marianne, shrugging her shoulders. "But the dear
+boy hasn't a cent; and we none of us know how they're going to live on
+his subaltern's pay. And Marietje who always used to swear that she
+would only marry a rich man! ... And we have good news from India: Karel
+is really doing well...."
+
+How prosaic life was! How prosaically it rolled along its steady drab
+course, thought Brauws, silently to himself, as he looked on while Guy
+carved the beef in straight, even slices.... And, prosaically though it
+rolled, what a very different life it always became from what any man
+imagined that his life would be, from the future which he had pictured,
+from the illusion, high or small, which he had gilded for himself, with
+his pettily human fancy ever gilding the future according to its pettily
+human yearning after illusions.... Oh, if the illusion had come about
+which, in the later life reborn out of themselves, he and Constance had
+conceived, without a word to each other, in a single, brightly
+glittering moment, oh, if Henri's illusion had come about and that of
+this young woman, now the little mother of three children, would it all
+have been better than it now was? Who could tell? Who could tell?...
+And, though the dreamy reflecting upon all this brought back all the
+melancholy of the past, yet this melancholy contained an assurance that
+life, as it went on, knew everything better than the people who pictured
+the future to themselves.... There they all were, sitting so simply
+round the big table at the simple meal for which Constance apologized,
+saying that Marianne had taken her unawares; and Brauws was but mildly
+astonished to find that Marianne was married to Van Vreeswijk: he had
+not heard of it and it was a surprise to him to see her suddenly
+surrounded by children; he was but mildly astonished to see her and Hans
+talking together so simply, as uncle and niece, as though there had
+never been a shred of tenderness between them; he was but mildly
+astonished when he himself talked to Constance so simply, while he felt
+depressed about Addie, whose eyes looked so dark and sombre. When Addie
+was still a child, he had conceived an enthusiasm for him, perceiving in
+him a certain future which he himself would never achieve. And he had
+also suffered, because he felt Addie's jealousy for his father's sake,
+when he, Brauws, used to sit for hours with his mother in the half-dark
+room, whispering intimate words so quickly understood, so
+sympathetically felt....
+
+Now the years had passed; sorrow had faded away and sorrow was being
+born again perhaps, for life cannot exist without sorrow, laid up as an
+inheritance for one and all; and yet sorrow was so very little and
+became so small in the measureless life entire. There was nothing for it
+but to smile, later, much later, at all the disappointment, even that
+of seeking and not finding and not achieving....
+
+It was very noisy because of the children: the three little Vreeswijks
+after lunch playing with Jetje and Constant; and, as the girls were
+staying with the children, Constance, with her arm round Marianne's
+waist, went upstairs to her own room:
+
+"Let's sit here quietly for a bit," she said.
+
+Marianne smiled:
+
+"You've always got your hands full, Auntie."
+
+"I don't know why, dear.... We live so quietly here, at Driebergen ...
+and yet ... yet my hands are always full. I do sometimes crave to be
+quite alone.... But the craving never lasts long ... and it seems
+impossible.... However, it's all right as it is...."
+
+"What awful weather, Auntie!... I remember how often it used to rain
+like this when I came to see you in the Kerkhoflaan.... How long ago it
+is, years and years ago!... Here, among all your old knicknacks it looks
+to me suddenly and strangely as though everything had remained the same
+... and yet changed. Auntie ... Auntie...."
+
+Obeying a sudden impulse, she dropped on her knees beside Constance and
+seized her hand:
+
+"Do you remember, do you remember?... I used to come and see you in this
+sort of rain and stay on ... and I could not bear that you should be
+unhappy with Uncle..... And, you know, I talked about it ... I said
+tactless things ... I asked you to try and be happy with Uncle ... Do
+you remember, do you remember?... And now, Auntie, it appears to me as
+if a great deal has been changed, though much has remained the same, and
+as if things had become much better ... between you and Uncle ...
+between you and Uncle Henri...."
+
+"Dear, we have grown older; and everything has become more mellow; and
+Uncle ... Uncle _is_ very good."
+
+"Yes, he is good."
+
+"He is just simply good."
+
+"You see that now."
+
+"Yes, I see it now, I admit it."
+
+"Oh, I am so glad!... Yes, we have grown old."
+
+"Not you."
+
+"Yes, I too," she said, laughing softly. "I am young, but I am older
+than my years.... And, Auntie, tell me, do you remember before we went
+to Baarn, you came and called one day--we were just busy moving--and you
+sent for me and asked me ... you told me ... that Charles was fond of me
+... and I refused him ... do you remember, do you remember?"
+
+"I should think I did remember, darling!... And now you've got him after
+all; and it's all for the best, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, Auntie, we get on very well indeed.. and I have my children.... Do
+you remember, do you remember how you came to Baarn one day? I was very
+low-spirited; and you took me in your arms and pressed me to you and
+told me ... a fairy-tale, about the small souls ... which passed through
+vanity ... to ecstasy. Do you remember?... And, when the ecstasy died
+out ... then the little soul found a grain ... a mere grain ... which
+was big enough, however, because the soul itself was so small. Do you
+remember, Auntie, do you remember?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I remember.... It was just a few tiny words to console and
+cheer you a little ... And now the little soul has found the grain,
+hasn't it?"
+
+"I think so, Auntie ... but under ... under all these small, everyday
+things ... a great deal of melancholy remains.... Perhaps it's wrong;
+perhaps it oughtn't to be so...."
+
+"But, if there are things in one's past, if we have lived before, dear,
+then there is always a certain melancholy and we all have our share of
+it ... just because we feel deeply, very deeply perhaps, under our dark
+skies ... and because our feeling always remains ... and our melancholy
+too...."
+
+"Perhaps so, Auntie.... And so it goes on and we drift on.... You see,
+there are good things in life.... Tell me, doesn't it occur to you that
+you have found...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"What you came to look for, years ago, in Holland ... after you had been
+abroad so long, Auntie, and felt so home-sick for your own country and
+for warmth ... the warmth of family-affection.... Tell me, Auntie,
+doesn't it occur to you that you have found it _now_: the country, our
+grey, dark country ... and everything that you used to long for?... Are
+we not all round you: even we, though we live some way off?... Are we
+not all, nearly all of us around you?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"And are you happy now?"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"I hear something in your voice that contradicts your words. Tell me,
+what is it?"
+
+"I'm frightened ... I'm frightened."
+
+"And you have found so much, you have found everything! What ... what
+are you frightened of?"
+
+"I'm frightened ... I feel so anxious...."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"About things ... that may happen."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In our house."
+
+"What can happen?"
+
+"Things, sad things."
+
+"Auntie, this is nonsense!"
+
+"I can't help it, dear.... I'm frightened ... I'm frightened...."
+
+"Tell me, Auntie, you don't like the house, do you?"
+
+"It's not that."
+
+"But the house oppresses you."
+
+"No, it's not that, child.... Uncle and Addie like the house.... And I'm
+getting used to it...."
+
+"Tell me, Auntie: they say...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That the house is...."
+
+She looked at Constance meaningly.
+
+"Darling, darling, it's not that.... It's an old house.... We never talk
+of that...."
+
+"But it may be just that that depresses you."
+
+"It did at first ... but I'm getting used to it.... Addie is so very
+calm and communicates all his calmness to us.... What appears
+inexplicable ... is perhaps quite simple.... But that's not it.... I'm
+frightened ... frightened of...."
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"Of what I fear ... will happen."
+
+"And what do you fear?"
+
+"Things that I can't put into words ... some great sorrow."
+
+"Why, Auntie? Why should it happen?... And then, if sorrow comes, won't
+you be strong?"
+
+Constance suddenly gave a sob:
+
+"I shall be weak!"
+
+"Auntie, Auntie, why are you so overwrought?"
+
+"I shall be weak!"
+
+"No, Auntie, you won't. And you mustn't be so frightened. There is
+nothing but love all around you ... and they will all of them, all of
+them help you."
+
+"I am frightened ... and I shall be very weak...."
+
+"No, Auntie.... Oh, Auntie, do stop crying! ... What are you afraid of?
+And what could happen now?... For whom are you afraid?"
+
+"For Addie ... for my boy ... for Mathilde."
+
+"But why, Auntie, why?... Oh, don't be so frightened!... Everything's
+all right between them ... and Addie ... Addie is so calm, so practical,
+so simple in his way of acting and thinking...."
+
+"Perhaps.... Oh, if he is only strong!"
+
+"Isn't he always?"
+
+"Perhaps he is.... Oh, my dear child, I am so frightened!..."
+
+"Hush, Auntie, hush!... Don't cry any more.... Lie still, now; lie still
+in my arms.... Even if we have sorrow to go through, even if we have sad
+things to experience, even then you should remember that everything ...
+that everything comes right again ... in the end.... If we all have our
+share, why shouldn't they have theirs?... And perhaps--who knows?--your
+anxiety is exaggerated, Auntie ... because you have been a little
+overwrought ... lately."
+
+"It may be that."
+
+"Is it all ...a little too much for you sometimes?"
+
+"I am so seldom alone."
+
+"I dare say you feel tired sometimes."
+
+"It may be that."
+
+"You mustn't think about it any more Tell me, Auntie: Gerdy isn't very
+well...."
+
+"What makes you say that?"
+
+"I thought she looked pale ... and rather sad."
+
+Constance passed her hand over her forehead:
+
+"Oh, Marianne," she said, "I wish that I could talk it all away, think
+it all away!... But I can't.... I'm frightened, I keep on being
+frightened...."
+
+And she sobbed gently on Marianne's shoulder, while the younger woman
+knelt beside her.
+
+The rain fell in vertical streaks. The carriage took Marianne and her
+children to the station through a deluge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Since that first time, Mathilde was pricked with continual jealousy; and
+in the mornings, when Addie went upstairs to Marietje van Saetzema's
+room, she always followed him and stole into the wardrobe-closet next
+door, always with her keys in her hand, so that, if she happened to be
+caught, she might appear to be looking for some article of dress in one
+of the presses. She listened at the partition and understood what they
+were saying sometimes but not always, because Marietje spoke very low
+and Mathilde could not always hear what she answered. But, as her eyes
+glanced mechanically along the big flowers that formed the pattern of
+the wall-paper, she suddenly noticed a broad crevice, where the wood had
+split and the paper cracked and torn; and, with her heart leaping to her
+throat, she peeped and peeped.... She had to squeeze between two
+cupboards, she banged her head against the partition and was terrified
+lest they had heard; but they heard nothing or else the noise did not
+strike them, for the sound of their voices went on.... Mathilde now put
+her eye to the crevice and was able, though with difficulty, to see into
+the room, saw Marietje sitting with Addie sitting beside her, saw her
+hand resting in his:
+
+"Why does he hold her hand so long?" she thought. "Need he feel her
+pulse as long as that?"
+
+But he did not let go of Marietje's hand; and Mathilde became impatient,
+also because she could not catch what they were saying:
+
+"How softly they are talking and how confidential it all is!" she
+thought.
+
+And, when Marietje lifted her head a little, as with the movement of a
+lily on its slender stem, Mathilde saw her smiling, saw her eyes
+gleaming softly, saw the words taking birth as it were smiling on her
+lips; and it seemed as though those words added a touch of colour to the
+pale lips and a blush to the pale cheeks....
+
+"How very much better she looks than when she came!" thought Mathilde,
+though she wanted to call out to Addie and tell him to let go Marietje's
+hand. "They are about the same age," she thought. "I am much younger
+than she is."
+
+And yet Marietje, though twenty-six, had a certain youthfulness, as of a
+very young girl; and Mathilde could not get rid of the thought:
+
+"They are--very nearly--the same age. It's ridiculous: a young doctor
+like Addie ... with a young woman, a young girl like her. It's
+ridiculous.... Why is he wasting his time on her now?"
+
+She now saw the smile fade from Marietje's lips, saw the girl, on the
+contrary, look very serious, tell a long and serious story:
+
+"What can she be telling him?" thought Mathilde.
+
+And she saw their faces come nearer to each other: it was as though
+Addie were reassuring Marietje, explaining things; and now, now he laid
+his hand on Marietje's head and she ... she lay back on the sofa.
+
+"It's absurd," thought Mathilde, "this hypnotizing ... and that they
+should be alone together for so long."
+
+Soon the hypnotism took effect. Marietje fell asleep and Addie quietly
+left the room. Mathilde waited a few minutes and also stole away,
+meeting no one on the stairs....
+
+What she had seen through the slit in the wall-paper was nothing; and
+yet ... and yet she could not help constantly brooding over it.... She
+now also noticed, at lunch, that Marietje was much more cheerful, that
+her movements were much less languid, that she laughed with the other
+girls; and she noticed that, after lunch, she helped Adeletje with the
+plants in the conservatory, that she was beginning to join in the life
+of the others, that she no longer went straight back to her room as she
+used to do at first.... And constantly too, downstairs, in the
+conservatory, she was struck by an intimacy between Marietje and
+Addie.... Mathilde was quite sensible, though she was jealous of her
+husband; she was jealous of all his patients; she was quite sensible and
+thought:
+
+"A certain affection between a young girl and a doctor, a young doctor,
+who obviously has a good influence upon her, as Addie has, is easy
+enough to understand."
+
+And she wanted to go on thinking so sensibly, she, a woman of sound,
+normal sense, but it was difficult, very difficult.... For Addie went
+out and she at once saw Marietje's smile disappear, saw her happy
+vivacity sink as it were ... and Marietje soon went upstairs, until she
+came down again with Aunt Constance and Adeletje to go for a walk, as
+they did every afternoon when the weather was not too bad.... Mathilde
+remained upstairs, played the piano, looked out upon the sad, misty
+road.... Oh, she loved her husband, she even loved him passionately and
+she was living here for his sake; but wasn't it awful, wasn't it awful?
+In Heaven's name wouldn't it be better just to move to a small house at
+the Hague ... and accept the pinch of poverty?... She went to the next
+room, to her children: they had been out and were playing prettily,
+while the nurse sat at the window sewing; and now she did not know what
+to do next.... What an existence, in the winter, in a village like this,
+in a big house, a house full of sick people and mad people! As it
+happened, through the window she saw Uncle Ernst walking along the road,
+with his back bent under his long coat, talking to himself as he
+returned to his rooms in the villa where he was being looked after: what
+an existence, oh, what an existence ... for a young and healthy woman
+like herself! She was never susceptible to melancholy; but she felt a
+twilight descending upon her from the unrelieved sky overhead. She could
+have wept.... And yet she could have stood it all, if only she had
+possessed Addie entirely.... If only she could win him entirely, she
+thought, suddenly; and suddenly it occurred to her that she did possess
+him ... but not entirely, not entirely.... He escaped her, so to speak,
+in part.... They had love, they had fervour in common; they had the
+children in common; they had bonds of sympathy, physical sympathy
+almost. She felt happy in his arms and he in hers; but for the rest he
+escaped her. Something of his innermost being, something of his soul,
+the quintessence of his soul, escaped her, whereas she gave herself
+wholly to him and did not feel within herself those secret things which
+refused to surrender themselves.... She felt it, she understood it now;
+suddenly, under the grey melancholy of the skies, as though she suddenly
+saw clearly in that twilight; she understood it: their love was merely
+physical! Oh, he escaped her; and she did not know how she was ever to
+win him entirely, so as to have him all to herself, all to herself!...
+Perhaps if she began to take an interest in his patients, to share his
+life in them? But she was jealous of those patients, who took Addie from
+her for hours and days together; and she was jealous, very jealous of
+Marietje.... But what then? How was she to win him?... And in this
+rich-blooded woman, whose senses bloomed purple and fierce, there shot
+up as with a riot of red roses the thought of winning him more and yet
+more with her kisses, with her whole body, with all that she would give
+him, with all that she would find for him, to wind tendrils round him
+and bind him to her for ever and for ever.... And then, then also to
+make him jealous of her, as she was jealous of him, by disturbing his
+unruffled calm, the calm of a young, powerful man, with painful
+suspicions, which would yet bring him wholly to her, so that she might
+win him entirely....
+
+Oh, wasn't it awful, wasn't it awful? As it was, she sat here the
+livelong day and possessed her husband only in the evening, only at
+night, as though she were food for nothing else. It went against the
+grain; and suddenly, intuitively, she felt her jealousy of Addie's long
+talks with Marietje more sharply than before. What need had he to talk
+to her at such length? Oh, he ought not to neglect his wife so, he ought
+not to think her good only for that: he ought to talk to her also, for
+hours at a time, earnestly, strangely, gazing into her eyes, as he
+talked to Marietje! Why did he not talk to her, his wife, like that?
+What were these talks? What had those two to talk about? It was not only
+about being ill and about medicines and not even only about hypnotism:
+of that she was convinced. There existed between the two of them secret
+things, about which they talked, things which they two alone knew....
+Oh, how she felt her husband escape her, as though she were stretching
+out her fingers at him covetously and as though she did indeed grip him
+in her hot embrace ... only to lose him again at once!...
+
+Her days passed in constant monotony. She was a healthy, superficial,
+rather vain, very young woman, with a few vulgar aspirations; and she
+suffered in her surroundings because she had an undoubted need for
+healthy and superficial affection. She would have been happy leading a
+simple, very carnal, very material married life, with plenty of money,
+plenty of enjoyment, with children around her; and then she would have
+laughed with pride and been good, as far as she was able. As it was, she
+felt that, except physically, she was hardly the wife of her husband
+and, despite her children, hardly accepted by his family and hardly
+suffered in their house. And she peevishly blamed them all, thinking
+that they were not kind to her, and she failed to perceive that what
+separated her from them all was a lack of spiritual concord, of harmony,
+of sympathy, because she had nothing that appealed to them and they had
+nothing that appealed to her, because the emanations from her soul and
+theirs never reached each other but flowed in two directions, because
+everything that they understood in one another, even without words, she
+did not understand, even though it were explained to her in words,
+because she looked upon them as sick, mad, egoistical and nerve-ridden,
+because they looked upon her as shallow and vulgar. It was an antipathy
+of blood and of soul: nobody was to blame; and even that she did not
+understand. The only one to blame, perhaps, was Addie, because, when
+taking her for his wife, he had not listened to the soul within his soul
+and had allowed himself to be led only by instinct and by his material
+philosophy of regeneration:
+
+"She is a healthy, simple woman. I want healthy, simple children. That's
+how we ought all to be: healthy and simple as she is."
+
+Were those not the ideas which had made him introduce her into the midst
+of them all, as an object lesson, without listening to the still,
+slumbering voices of his soul's soul?... And scarcely had those voices
+awakened before he had been roused out of himself with the thought:
+
+"After all, I found her. Why should I lose her now? Who am I, this one
+or the other? And, if I am both those whom I feel within me, how can I
+unite them and compel them into a single love for my wife, for the woman
+who gives me healthy, simple children?"
+
+And, every day that passed, he had known less for himself, whatever he
+might know for all of them whom he approached and benefited by strange
+influence, knowing less and less daily, until he saw himself plainly as
+two and gave up the struggle, let himself go, allowed his soul to drift
+at the will of the two streams that dragged him along, in weakness and
+surrender and lack of knowledge for himself, whereas he sometimes knew
+so clearly for others. Self-knowledge escaped him.... And, if Mathilde
+had been able to see this, in her husband, she would have shrunk back
+and been dismayed at what, all incomprehensible to her, existed secretly
+in the most mystic part of him. She would have been shocked by it as by
+a never-suspected riddle, she would have turned giddy as at a
+never-suspected abyss down which she gazed without knowing where it
+ended, a bottomless depth to her ignorant eyes and quite insusceptible
+instincts. She would not have understood, she would have refused to
+understand that there was no blame but only self-insufficiency and
+inconsistency of soul, in silent antagonism and antipathy, because
+Addie felt himself to be two. She would have wanted to blame ... them,
+all of them, because "they were not nice to her," but not her husband,
+for she loved him because of his sturdy young manliness, because of his
+older earnestness and thoroughness, in which she failed to see the soul
+of his soul. And she now wanted, unhappy as she was, to continue feeling
+like that, neglected, offended, underrated, by all of them in that
+large, gloomy house, in which everything, down to the dark oak
+doorposts, was hostile and antagonistic to her, until she felt
+frightened of mysteries in or upon which they hardly ever touched in
+speaking, mysteries which were even almost welcome to the others and not
+too utterly unintelligible in their communism of soul, from which she
+was irrevocably excluded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+That night, Marietje van Saetzema had a dream which was like a
+nightmare. She was running down a sloping mountain, deep as an abyss;
+she rushed and rushed and Addie came rushing after her and Mathilde
+after Addie, rushing with delirious screams. After Mathilde, Johan
+Erzeele came rushing and, last of all, Gerdy; and before any one of them
+reached the other, Marietje, who was running in front, plunged into the
+deep abyss; and they all plunged after her. The echoing fall, in the
+black depths, made Marietje wake with a start to find the darkness of
+her bedroom quivering all around her, the strange inner darkness of the
+night; and she was cold and clammy and sat up wide-eyed, while the wind
+blew fiercely outside. Her first impulse was to get up and run out of
+the room for help, to Aunt Constance, to Addie. But, growing calmer,
+though her head and heart were still throbbing, she let herself fall
+back upon her pillows and controlled her fears. She would stay quietly
+in her room.
+
+A month ago, she would never have done as much; at the Hague, after this
+sort of dream, she would utter cries, go running through the house,
+scream aloud. Now she did not scream, but lay where she was and drove
+the feverish thoughts in front of her. Yes, feverish she was; but she
+speedily recovered a sense of calmness, as soon as she began to think of
+Addie. Hadn't he said so himself:
+
+"Marietje, when you feel overstrung ... think of me!"
+
+And she thought of him; and things began to smile and to grow very calm
+around her.... She gave a deep sigh.... She recalled the words which he
+used when hypnotizing her:
+
+"The body is growing heavy.... The hand is growing heavy.... You can't
+lift your hand...."
+
+And, though she did not fall asleep, she became very quiet and smiled
+contentedly. True, she knew that he said the same thing to all the
+patients whom he hypnotized:
+
+"Think of me, whenever you feel your nerves give way."
+
+But she, when she thought of him ... was she in love with him? Perhaps;
+she didn't know: perhaps she did love him, deep down within herself, in
+the chastest recesses of her soul; perhaps she had been in love with him
+for years, ever since he used to talk to her so kindly--he a small boy,
+she a rather bigger girl, but about the same age--when her brothers were
+so rough to her and Mamma, Floortje and Caroline used to snub her, as
+they always did. In the noisy, uproarious, vulgar house, she had grown
+up quietly, like a little pale plant, humble, oppressed, as it were
+hiding herself, until suddenly some impulse in her blood had made her
+scream the house down with neurotic cries. They all asked whether she
+had gone mad; and she had locked herself up since, hidden herself, in
+her room.... And, after these attacks, she would remain behind as in a
+dream, seeing nothing, hearing nothing around her, just staring. And,
+when she saw that her condition at last made an impression, she at once
+became proud of that impression, lifted herself out of the Cinderella
+humility, became the interesting figure at home, now that she aroused
+her father's fears, her mother's pity, her sister's annoyance. And she
+had grown proud of her neuroticism; she let father, mother and sister
+feel fear, pity and annoyance, with a sort of vindictive satisfaction.
+Yet she had a vague feeling of deep unhappiness, because her soul was
+sinking as into an abyss, her hands groping vaguely in the terrible
+void.... She would spend days in tears. Then Aunt Constance had come, so
+kind, so gentle, so sensible; and she had resisted, because perhaps she
+was very fond of Addie and always had been, in obedience to some modest
+dread, did not wish to live where he lived. But Aunt Constance had
+insisted and she had yielded; and Addie, Addie was now curing her: oh,
+he cured her when he merely pressed his hand softly on her forehead! And
+she confessed to him the wicked, arrogant pride in her illness, which at
+last created an agitation in the paternal house where Marietje had never
+counted....
+
+He had listened so earnestly, telling her that this was very wrong, that
+it was the worst of all and that, with such wicked feelings she would
+never get well. And, after that, he talked for days, oh, so earnestly!
+And she listened to him in ecstasy, as though her soul were rocking on
+his deep, soothing voice. And gradually, gradually, she had discovered
+in him--oh, no affection for her, no ordinary affection or love, for she
+was plain and thin and without charm, while Mathilde was so handsome: a
+beautiful woman!--but a real harmony between some of his feelings and
+views with what she, in her silent life as a lonely, down-trodden little
+girl, had thought about all sorts of people, animals, things, about
+everything which had aroused her compassion in her youthful earnestness
+and hypersensitiveness: about the wind lashing the leaves; about a
+driver ill-treating a horse; about Aunt Adeline, Granny, Emilie, little
+Klaasje; about poor people whom she would sometimes go and visit with
+Aunt Constance and Adeletje. And thus, slowly, out of all these small,
+simple feelings something had thrilled in unison with his feelings, had
+roused kindred feelings in him, until they had talked of all sorts of
+strange presentiments and dreams, of existence before life and after
+death, of an invisible world and life crossing their threads with the
+visible world and life. And, when sometimes she had been a little
+fanciful, Addie had always understood her, but at the same time, with
+all his restfulness and strength, his seriousness and smiling
+earnestness, had quieted her in her hypersensitiveness and
+hyperimagination, in her dread and surmise, until she now discussed all
+those questions with him so quietly, in words that quickly understood
+one another, so that, even in these conversations, which might easily
+have made her more neurotic, he satisfied her and lulled all the anxious
+thrills of her sick girlish nerves and soul. There was a mystic force in
+his voice, in his glance, in the pressure of his hand, so that, even
+after these conversations, she remained lying in a deep and blissful
+sleep and, after half an hour, woke from it as though rising refreshed
+out of a wide, still bath on strangely rarefied air, like cool water,
+which gave her an incomprehensible, blissful sense of spiritual
+well-being.
+
+And that peaceful life of sympathy was healing to her, whereas it vexed
+Mathilde. She thought that it would always keep flowing on like this;
+and she was greatly surprised when she suddenly heard of a ball at
+Utrecht to which they were all invited.
+
+"Which of you want to go?" asked Constance. "I shall stay at home, but
+Uncle will chaperon you."
+
+Mathilde loved the idea, even though Addie did not give it a thought. Of
+the girls, however, only Gerdy cared about it; but Guy would go with
+her.
+
+"So none of you: Adeletje?... Mary?... Marietje?"
+
+No, they did not feel inclined, even though Aunt Constance urged them,
+said that they very seldom had any fun, that they ought really to go,
+now that the chance offered. But the girls didn't want to; and Aunt
+Constance said:
+
+"Well, then, you and Uncle will just make four; so you can go in the
+carriage."
+
+But Mathilde preferred to dress at Utrecht, in an hotel, because her
+dress would get creased in the carriage; and she decided to go in the
+afternoon, with a box.
+
+On the evening of the ball, Constance grumbled at Adeletje, Mary and
+Marietje, because they took no pleasure in dancing, and said that, if
+this went on, they would move to the Hague, because the girls were
+growing so dull in the country. Constance' nerves were raw; and she said
+angry, unreasonable things; her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"But, Auntie," said Marietje, "we're all so happy here together! Why
+talk about the Hague? What do we care about a dance?"
+
+"That's just it. I think it unnatural."
+
+"Listen to it blowing!" said Adeletje.
+
+"And raining!" said Marietje--Mary.
+
+"That's what Uncle and Gerdy and Guy are driving through," said
+Adeletje.
+
+"The poor horses!" said Marietje--Mary.
+
+The others laughed.
+
+"Yes, the horses will get wet, poor things!" said Marietje--Mary.
+
+"Dirk'll look after them," said Constance. "The horses are taken out so
+seldom."
+
+"But when they are ... they are taken out in the rain!" said Mary,
+reproachfully.
+
+Paul was there, playing softly on the piano. Ernst was there; and it was
+very strange to see the friends which he had silently made with Klaasje.
+Together they looked in her picture-books: the unnaturally old queer man
+and the unnaturally young child.
+
+"I can read now," said the backward girl of thirteen, very proudly.
+
+"Really?" said Uncle Ernst.
+
+"Yes, Uncle Addie is teaching me to read. Look, in these books, with
+pretty letters, blue, yellow, red. That's violet. And that, Uncle Addie
+says, is purple. That's purple: a lovely colour, purple. Uncle Addie
+teaches me to read."
+
+And laboriously she spelt out the highly coloured words.
+
+"So Uncle Addie teaches you to read with coloured letters?" asked Ernst.
+
+"Yes, I don't like black letters. And look at my books: all with
+beautiful pictures. That's a king and a queen. It's a fairy-tale, Uncle.
+This is a fairy. The king and queen are purple ... purple; and the
+fairy--look, Uncle, look at the fairy--is sky-blue. Uncle Addie says
+it's a-zure."
+
+She drew out the word in a long, caressing voice, as though the names of
+the colours had a peculiar meaning for her, rousing in her strange
+memories of very early colours, colours seen in gay, faraway countries,
+down, down yonder....
+
+"Mr. Brauws won't come," said Emilie.
+
+"No, it's raining too hard," said Adeline. "He won't come this evening."
+
+"He's become so much one of the family."
+
+The evening passed quietly; the old grandmother and Klaasje were taken
+and put to bed; but, because Aunt Constance was sitting up till the
+carriage returned from Utrecht, they all wanted to sit up.
+
+"What an idea!" said Constance, with nervous irritability. "Why don't
+you all go to bed?"
+
+But they were gathered round her so pleasantly and they stayed up:
+Addie, Emilie, Adeline, Marietje; but Addie sent Adeletje and Mary to
+bed.
+
+And they sat waiting downstairs in the night. It was three o'clock when
+at last they heard the carriage; and Van der Welcke, Gerdy and Guy
+entered.
+
+"Mathilde is spending the night at the hotel," said Van der Welcke.
+
+"And Uncle made a very sweet chaperon," said Guy, chaffingly.
+
+But Gerdy did not say much, looked tired, very pale, constrained. They
+went upstairs, to their rooms, and Gerdy kissed her mother. But, without
+the others seeing it, she followed Adeline to her room and suddenly,
+unable to contain herself, burst into a paroxysm of tears.
+
+"Darling, darling, what is it?"
+
+And the mother, long since broken, took the girl, now breaking, into her
+arms and it was as though she suddenly wakened from her apathy and felt
+herself very much a mother.... Oh, she knew that she could not do much
+for her children, that she was not capable, never had been since
+Gerrit's death, that without Van der Welcke, Constance and Addie she
+could not have made anything of her children! Nevertheless, they
+remained her children; and, if she did not know how to guide her sons in
+their careers, she did know how to sympathize with her poor Gerdy's
+sobs.
+
+"Darling, darling, what is it?"
+
+And, dropping into her chair, while Gerdy knelt before her in the folds
+of her white-tulle frock, she held the pale little face against her and
+compelled the child to speak, to speak....
+
+"It's nothing," said Gerdy, through her sobs. "I didn't enjoy myself."
+
+"You didn't? Why, what happened?"
+
+"I hardly danced at all."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Mamma, it's better to tell you plainly. I'm so unhappy! It's about
+Johan...."
+
+"Erzeele? Has he proposed to you?"
+
+Gerdy shook her head:
+
+"No, but...."
+
+"But what?"
+
+"In the winter ... skating ... I thought he was fond of me.... It's my
+own fault: it was silly of me, it was silly.... It wasn't anything....
+He was just the same to me as to other girls; and I thought, I thought
+... It's nothing, Mamma, it's my own fault, but I thought ... Mamma, I
+oughtn't to take it so much to heart ... but it makes me very
+unhappy.... He danced with me, once.... But he danced with Mathilde the
+whole time.... He was always with her.... People were talking about
+it.... It was just as if she was mad, as if she didn't think ... that
+she oughtn't to behave like that ... with Johan.... It struck Uncle
+Henri too: I could see it by his face. They were together the whole
+evening and ... you understand.... He paid her attentions ...
+shamelessly ... the way he does to married women.... With girls he's
+different.... I hated him for a moment. But then he came and asked me,
+for that one dance ... and then I thought ... I oughtn't to have thought
+it. It's my own fault. I'm very unhappy, Mamma.... Uncle Henri was very
+angry too ... with Mathilde ... because she wouldn't come back with us
+to Driebergen.... He gave way and let her stay, to avoid
+unpleasantness.... But it was ridiculous of her: the carriage is big
+enough and she would not have been so badly creased.... Oh, she looked
+lovely, she looked lovely!... She is quite lovely, dressed like that, at
+a ball.... Addie ought to have come with us.... She was really
+beautiful, but not--it's wrong of me to say it, I know--not like _us_."
+
+"How do you mean, dear?"
+
+"Not like Aunt Constance and Emilie and you.... She didn't ... she
+didn't look well-bred.... She looked beautiful, but she looked
+coarse.... If Addie had come, perhaps she would have restrained herself,
+not worn her dress so low. She was the only one in such a very low
+frock.... You see, there was something about her ... that repelled me
+even more than usual: I can't say what and it's very wrong of me,
+because after all she's Addie's wife and we must be fond of her; but
+really, she didn't look a lady; and I could see it in people's faces:
+they thought her very handsome ... but not ... not well-bred.... And ...
+after that ... when she did nothing but dance with Johan ... then ...
+oh, Mamma, then she looked at me ... and looked at me with a sneer ...
+as if she were looking down on me!... I knew that I was not at my best,
+that I looked pale and thin; my shoulders are not good; and Johan
+behaved so oddly to me, in such a queer, mocking way: oh, Mamma, he was
+almost cruel!... I do believe, oh, Mamma, I do believe, that I ... that
+I'm in love with him! But I oughtn't to tell you and I oughtn't to be
+like this ... I oughtn't to cry so; but I couldn't help it, I couldn't
+help it!... I did my best, Mamma, not to show it before Uncle Henri and
+before Guy, but, oh, Mamma, the whole dance ... the whole dance was a
+torture!"
+
+Adeline mingled her sobs with Gerdy's:
+
+"My darling, my poor, poor darling!"
+
+"Mamma! Oh, Mamma!"
+
+"What is it, my poor dear?"
+
+"Listen, Mamma!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Don't you hear? The sound ... upstairs!"
+
+"Hush!... Hush!... The sound...."
+
+"Is dragging itself...."
+
+"Downstairs. It's like a footstep. It's always like that."
+
+"Oh, Mamma, I'm frightened!"
+
+"It's nothing, dear: the wind, a draught, a board creaking...."
+
+"Oh, but I'm frightened!"
+
+"It's nothing.... I opened the door once ... to look."
+
+"You dared to?"
+
+"Yes. It was nothing."
+
+"There was nothing to see?..."
+
+"No. It was only very draughty."
+
+"And everything's closed!"
+
+"It's nothing, it's nothing, dear."
+
+"Now it's dragging itself away ... down below."
+
+"It's the draught.... Oh, my poor, poor darling!"
+
+"Oh, Mamma, I'm unhappy ... and I'm frightened, I'm frightened, I'm
+frightened!..."
+
+When Mathilde returned next morning, she seemed to perceive a certain
+displeasure, a coldness in her husband, in her mother-in-law and in all
+of them; but she decided that perhaps she was mistaken: she was tired,
+she was unstrung; and, after she had been to see the children, she kept
+to her own room, where she knew that no one would disturb her, now that
+Addie had gone out to his patients. And it was not the surmised
+displeasure, the unwonted fatigue after the ball that made her nervous,
+as though she was infected by a nervous thrill from all who surrounded
+her: it was particularly because of Johan Erzeele that she was now
+walking restlessly round her room, sitting down at the window, getting
+up again, going in to the children, coming back again, sitting down to
+the piano, looking over her ball-programme and suddenly tearing it
+up.... Now, suddenly, she reproached herself with all sorts of things
+that had happened the night before: for dancing with Johan so often,
+even though she had known him all her life as a young girl at the Hague,
+where he was a subaltern in the grenadiers, while his people lived at
+Utrecht; for flirting with him in so marked a way at supper; for
+allowing him to speak like that, with his brazen, sensual fashion of
+making love to her; for knowing and deliberately encouraging his
+brazenness; lastly, for scarcely preventing him from escorting her on
+foot--because it was so near--to the hotel, where she had reserved a
+room.
+
+She had lost her temper, refused, asked for a carriage, and ridden alone
+to the hotel where she had spent the night; but his offer and the words
+in which he had couched it had shocked her, had frightened her all
+through that night, that short night, so that she had not had a moment's
+sleep. And now she was angry with herself for not summoning up her usual
+sound sense, so that he had seen how frightened and shocked she was and
+had laughed at it, with the caressing laugh of his well-shaped mouth.
+And, because she was angry with herself, all sorts of nervous excuses
+went whirling through, all her grievances, great and small, came surging
+up, as though to defend her against herself, against her own
+self-reproach. Why couldn't Addie have gone too? Why must he leave her
+to her own devices like that? Why was she only good for the one thing?
+Why did he hold such long conversations, full of strange intensity, with
+that ailing Marietje? Why did she sometimes, through his kisses, feel a
+strange chill come out of him and freeze her, so that the spontaneous
+word grew still and lifeless on her lips and she no longer knew what to
+say: she only knew that she was losing him, again and again and again,
+while all the others, down below, were winning him, winning him for
+themselves! Oh, how the grievances whirled up, fighting against her
+self-reproach, until at last she burst into tears, sheer nervous tears,
+such as she had never shed before! And, as though the grievances were
+winning, she suddenly laid the blame on Addie, on all of them, on her
+husband's whole family, on Driebergen, on the house full of lunatics and
+invalids, on the eerie, haunted house where she could not breathe, while
+they all, down below, found living there so delightful. She blamed them
+all, blamed the whole house for it, that she was losing her sound sense
+and had allowed Johan to say all sorts of things to her which otherwise
+she would never have allowed. And, in her tears, while still blaming
+him--because she did not see that there was no blame, that no one was to
+blame for anything, while she was casting about to whom to impute the
+blame--she longed for her husband, felt that she was still very much in
+love with him, that she would have liked to embrace him, to clasp him
+close to her, to weep out her sorrows on his heart, to hear his deep,
+young, earnest voice, to look into his deep, young earnest eyes, so that
+she might grow calm again and happy, far away, with him and her
+children! Now she longed for him to come back; now she looked out down
+the road; and, when she saw him--the bell was ringing for lunch, because
+Truitje downstairs had also seen him coming up the road--she ran down
+and was just in time to kiss him in the morning-room and to whisper:
+
+"Addie, Addie, you do love me?"
+
+"Why, of course, darling!" he answered, gravely and, she thought, almost
+sadly.
+
+And now, sitting silent at table, feeling all sorts of reproaches around
+her, she asked herself, was it not his fault, was it not his fault? What
+she really imagined to be his fault she did not clearly see, for it was
+all whirling through her mind; she kept on thinking of Johan Erzeele,
+kept on feeling her self-reproach; and the grievances surged up, like
+lances, more numerous than before, to defend her against that
+self-reproach.
+
+Gerdy had not come down to lunch: she was tired, Adeline said. The tone
+of the conversation was forced; and Mathilde reflected that it was
+always so when she was there, when they would look at one another
+askance, in a silent understanding against her, against her....
+
+Lunch finished, the children, Jetje and Constant, went out, after Addie
+had first played with them. Yes, he was fond of the children, but was
+he fond of her, of his wife?...
+
+"Addie, Addie, you do love me, don't you?"
+
+She had found another opportunity of asking him; and he answered:
+
+"Why, of course, dear."
+
+"Stay with me to-day."
+
+"Very well. What would you like to do? Shall we go for a walk? It's
+fine."
+
+"Yes, Addie, I'd like to."
+
+And they went out together and roamed along deserted paths; she took his
+arm:
+
+"I am so glad to be with you.... You ought to have come yesterday...."
+
+"I don't care for dancing ... but, if you had asked me...."
+
+"You would have refused."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"Yes, you would.... I sha'n't go again, without you. I want to dance
+with you, with you."
+
+"I like skating better."
+
+"There, you see, you're refusing already!"
+
+"No, I won't refuse: I shall come with you, next time."
+
+"I'm happy when I'm with you.... Addie, couldn't we go and live alone,
+with our children?"
+
+"Whenever you like, darling."
+
+"Yes, but you're attached to the house."
+
+"Yes, I'm attached to it."
+
+"It would be a sacrifice for you."
+
+He made a vague gesture:
+
+"Only you'd have to be economical at the Hague."
+
+"You would soon have a fine practice there."
+
+"But I'm not aiming at ... a fine practice."
+
+"Ah, that's just it!"
+
+He yielded to a slight sense of impatience:
+
+"It's a pity, Tilly, that you find it so difficult to adapt yourself
+here.... Very well, we'll go to the Hague."
+
+"But, if you're obstinate ... and refuse to earn an income," she said,
+impetuously.
+
+"We shall have enough."
+
+"How much?"
+
+He made a brief calculation:
+
+"Say, five thousand guilders, no more."
+
+"But I can't live on that ... with two children."
+
+"It ought to be enough, Tilly."
+
+"But it's nonsense, trying to live at the Hague on five thousand
+guilders a year ... with two children."
+
+"Then what do you want?" he asked, bluntly.
+
+"I want you to get a practice.... You have only to wish it: you would
+become the fashion at once."
+
+He was silent.
+
+"Why don't you answer?"
+
+"Because we don't understand each other, Tilly," he said, sadly. "I
+can't give up the practice which I have in order to become a fashionable
+doctor."
+
+"Why not, if it pays?"
+
+"Because it conflicts with all ... with everything inside me."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"I know you don't."
+
+"Then explain it to me."
+
+"It can't be explained, Tilly. It can only be felt."
+
+"So I have no feeling?"
+
+"Not for that ... no fellow-feeling ... with me...."
+
+"Why did you marry me?" she asked, curtly.
+
+"Because I love you."
+
+"Because you love me!" she echoed, curtly. "Because I'm good enough ...
+for that!"
+
+Her eyes flashed.
+
+"Tilly!" he implored.
+
+It was as though a sudden terror blinded him, as though a spectre of
+guilt suddenly loomed up out of all the black self-insufficiency of the
+last few years, his years of married life.
+
+"Because I'm good enough ... to bear you children. Because you want to
+have children by me, healthy children, children different from your
+family, your mother's family."
+
+"Tilly!"
+
+"Addie!" she entreated. "Love me! Love me!"
+
+"I do love you, Tilly!" he cried, in despair. "Love me altogether!"
+
+"I do love you altogether!" he lied, in anguish for her sake.
+
+"No, you love me ... half!"
+
+"That's not so!"
+
+"Yes, it is, you know it is!... I want to be loved by you altogether and
+not only...."
+
+"Hush, Tilly," he entreated, in dismay. "Tilly, don't let us spoil our
+happiness!"
+
+"Our happiness!" she laughed, scornfully.
+
+"Aren't we happy then?"
+
+And he tried to force her to say yes, but she was suffering too much and
+exclaimed:
+
+"No, I am not happy! When I embrace you...." she clutched her fingers.
+"When I have embraced you," she went on, "it's over, it's over, it's
+over at once; I feel that you are far away from me again; that you don't
+love me."
+
+"I do love you, I do love you!"
+
+"Then talk to me."
+
+"I do."
+
+"No, talk to me as you talk to Mary."
+
+"But, Tilly, I talk to her ... to calm her."
+
+"That's a lie!"
+
+"Tilly!"
+
+"It's a lie!... You talk to her ... you talk to her because you're in
+love with her!"
+
+"Tilly, stop that!"
+
+"Not as you are with me ... but differently."
+
+Suddenly he grasped her wrist. She knew his sudden bursts of anger. They
+were very rare; but she knew them. And, because he was dazzled by the
+sudden light that shone from her, because from all the gloom of his
+self-insufficiency a consciousness of guilt came looming up to frighten
+him:
+
+"And now, silence!" he cried, shaking her arm. "Silence! I command it!"
+
+He no longer knew things. Life whirled dizzily before him, deep as a
+black abyss.
+
+He stood in front of her on the lonely road; and it was as though his
+grey eyes flashed lightning, shooting blue spark after blue spark of
+rage and pain. His whole face quivered, his body quivered, his voice
+quivered with rage and pain. She felt a furious resistance rise within
+her ... together with black despair. She felt an impulse to rush into
+his arms, to sob out her sorrow on his heart. But she did not want his
+caresses: she wanted the thing that escaped her. It was escaping her
+now; and, when she said it, when she said it straight out, he commanded
+her to be silent, not to say it. Wasn't it his fault, wasn't it his
+fault? Wasn't _she_ right?
+
+She released her hand:
+
+"You don't love me," she said, curtly.
+
+"No. When you speak to me like that, I don't. I'm not in love with
+Marietje. I'm sorry for her."
+
+His voice was very calm and full of feeling; and she, also grown calmer,
+answered:
+
+"You feel for her."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Well, then...."
+
+"But you have no right to bring that up against me. I don't grant you
+that right ... because, Tilly...."
+
+"Right, right? What rights have I? I have no rights!.. I live in your
+house on sufferance."
+
+"Tilly, be careful!"
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"You're destroying our happiness."
+
+"It doesn't exist."
+
+"Yes, it does ... if...."
+
+He passed his hand over his head. There was a cold wind blowing; and the
+beads of perspiration stood on his forehead.
+
+"If you would be reasonable."
+
+"And share you?"
+
+"Share me?... With whom?" he roared.
+
+"Not with her, perhaps," she resumed, frightened, "but with ...
+with...."
+
+"With whom?"
+
+"With them all."
+
+"All whom?"
+
+"Your family ... all of them ... whom you love more than me."
+
+"I don't love them more."
+
+"No, but you feel with them ... and not with me."
+
+"Then feel with me!" he implored, as though to save both her and
+himself. "Feel, Tilly, that I can't be a fashionable doctor, but that I
+have a large practice, a number of patients to whom I am of use."
+
+"They don't pay you."
+
+His mouth involuntarily gave a twist of contempt.
+
+"They don't pay you," she repeated. "You are wearing yourself out ...
+for nothing."
+
+"Try and feel, Tilly, that I am not wearing myself out for nothing ...
+just because I am not making money."
+
+"Then teach me to feel it."
+
+He looked at her in despair.
+
+"Teach me!" she entreated. "For your sake, because I love you, I will
+try to learn, try to feel ... I love you, I love you, Addie!"
+
+"Dear," he said, gently, "I'll do my best ... to teach you to feel it.
+Come with me."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"There ... to those little cottages."
+
+"Who lives in them?"
+
+"Poor people ... sick people ... whom I attend."
+
+"Addie ... no, no ... no!..."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I'm not prepared for it.... You know I can't stand that...."
+
+"You're a healthy woman; your nerves are strong: come with me."
+
+She went with him, not daring to refuse.
+
+"Tilly," he said, gently, as they walked on and approached the cottages,
+"I will try to have understanding for both of us.... If you are to be
+happy in yourself ... with me ... happy the two of us ... then...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Then you must learn to understand me ... to understand me very deep
+down, as I am. Then you must try to understand ... all of us; to love us
+all: my father, my mother.... Tilly, Tilly, can you?..."
+
+She did not answer, trembling, frightened, looking deeper into things,
+after all that he had said. Her fine eyes gazed at him despairingly,
+like those of a wounded animal in its pain. She could have embraced him
+now, just ordinarily, clasping him warmly and firmly to herself. But he
+led her on as he might lead a child. He knocked, opened the little door
+and led her in. A sultry heat of mean poverty struck her in the face
+like a blow; and it was nothing but misery, wherever he took her. It
+seemed to her as if she herself carried that misery with her, in her
+soul, which had never yet thrilled as it did now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Oh, he was to blame, he was to blame, he was to blame! He saw suddenly,
+in a sort of despair, that the only answer to the question which he
+sometimes had to ask in vague, black self-insufficiency was the
+assenting yes, yes, yes!... Because he had not known it for himself,
+entirely for himself, for the two personalities which he so clearly felt
+himself to be, he was to blame, because he loved his wife with only half
+of himself. Was she to blame in any way? Was she not what she always had
+been? No, she had changed, she had refined herself, as if her soul,
+despite the antipathy of her environment, had yet become transformed and
+grown more like the people and things that surrounded her! And it was
+his fault: he had brought her into this environment, in which no
+sympathy was created and which had given her nothing beyond a refinement
+of soul, senses and nerves, so that she now suffered through that which
+he had always thought that she would never perceive. With what sudden
+clearness, in her simplicity, she had seen it all, almost unconsciously,
+and was now flinging it at his feet! He wrung his hands and felt
+desperate at the thought of it all. Of an evening now, alone in his
+study, in the soft light of his reading-lamp--the table with Guy's books
+and maps standing in one corner--he would walk up and down, up and down,
+wringing his hands, glancing deep into that despair, while the
+self-insufficiency was no longer vague, but soul-torturing in
+self-dissatisfaction, because he saw himself at fault in that great
+action of his life, which was still so very young, his marriage: at
+fault towards himself, at fault towards his wife. To let her marry him,
+because she was healthy and simply normal, with that idea of setting an
+example--see, that is what we ought all to be: normal, simple and
+healthy--oh, to love her, yes, but to love with only the half of
+himself, without ever giving her anything of the deep--things of the
+soul, things which he gave to all with whom he felt a soul-relationship,
+without counting, in a lavish prodigality: how _could_ he have done it,
+he who knew things for others I More clearly than ever he perceived that
+he had never known them for himself; and he clearly perceived that
+others, his father, his mother, had suspected that he did not know for
+himself, that he had not known when he brought Mathilde to them as his
+wife: into their midst, into their house. And now, in his emotion, in
+this lonely silent contemplation, there awakened within him the energy
+to redress, oh, to redress if possible: to redress everything,
+everything for her!...
+
+Now, suddenly, he went to her room, where she was spending a moment
+after dinner, before tea was brought in, where he often found her when
+he wished to be alone with her for a minute; and he found her now. She
+was sitting listlessly in a chair; and the room was dark: the children
+were already asleep next door. He lit the gas and looked at her with all
+the energy that leapt up within him like springs, the energy to redress,
+to redress. And, without any preamble, he said:
+
+"Tilly ... we'll go to the Hague."
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked, in surprise.
+
+"We shall go and live at the Hague. I shall do what you suggest: I shall
+look for a practice at the Hague."
+
+She had him to herself now, for the first time after their talk that
+afternoon, and suddenly, sobbing, she threw her arms around him, pressed
+him to her:
+
+"Love me!" she implored.
+
+"I do love you.... It won't do for us to stay here.... It's better that
+you should be quite by yourself, in your own house, your own mistress."
+
+"We've talked about it so often!" she sobbed.
+
+"There will be money enough, Tilly; I shall make money."
+
+"You said five thousand guilders."
+
+"No, there will be more. Don't be afraid, have no care, there will be
+enough ... and you can do as you please. I promise, I promise."
+
+"But it's a sacrifice for you...."
+
+"To leave the house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm fond of the house ... but it's better that we should go to the
+Hague."
+
+"Your parents ... they will all miss you."
+
+"Now don't make difficulties, Tilly."
+
+"No, Addie, no...."
+
+"How do you mean, no?"
+
+"I won't go to the Hague."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It's too late.... It wouldn't alter a thing.... It's too late."
+
+"What's too late?"
+
+She sobbed and embraced him. She clutched him to her, she covered his
+lips with glowing kisses.
+
+"Oh, let it be!" she said, in between her kisses; and her voice sounded
+utterly discouraged.
+
+"Why, Tilly? Why? I want to see you happy.... It's decided now: we're
+going to the Hague. I'll look out for a house."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Tell me, Tilly: why do you refuse?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"I don't know," she said.
+
+"You love me, surely?"
+
+"I love you, I dote on you, I'm mad on you!... Let us stay here and ...
+and ... love me a little."
+
+"But, Tilly, I do love you. You know I love you!"
+
+He kissed her, very tenderly; and she accepted his kisses, with her eyes
+closed, and lay limply, as though tired, in his arms. Suddenly she
+thrust him away:
+
+"Let me be," she said, rising to her feet.
+
+"Tilly...."
+
+"Let me be ... stop kissing me."
+
+"Why mayn't I kiss you?..."
+
+"I don't want you to."
+
+"And you say you love me!"
+
+"Yes, but ... don't kiss me any more."
+
+He looked at her in perplexity; and she said:
+
+"It's not only kissing...."
+
+"Tilly!" he said, stretching out his arms. "Whatever it is, we shall
+find it for each other ... with each other...."
+
+"Yes...."
+
+"You think so, don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You believe it? When we are at the Hague ... alone ... in our own
+home?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I believe it."
+
+"And will you then be happy?"
+
+"Yes ... when we have found it."
+
+"And we shall find it."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come and sit with me, in my study.... I have work to do: come and sit
+with me. I sha'n't go downstairs for tea. I have some reading to do:
+come with me ... and stay with me this evening: will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then it will be as if we were already at home ... in our own home ...
+at the Hague...."
+
+She went with him, pale, tired, listless, with his arm round her waist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Easter was at hand; spring brought a new balminess to the wind, a new
+softness to the rain, a new warmth to the air, which hung low in a heavy
+grey canopy; and much had changed during the past few weeks. The big
+house, full though it was with all of them, seemed very quiet now that
+Addie and Mathilde had moved to the Hague, though their rooms were
+always kept ready for them because Van der Welcke had said that Addie
+must always have his rooms ready for him whenever he chose to come home,
+though it were only for a day. And so the bedrooms and the nursery
+always remained in mute expectation, with silent furniture and closed
+doors; and only in Addie's big study, one of the best rooms of the
+house, formerly the old man's library, Guy now sat and worked at the
+window. And it was as though, in spite of the restfulness induced by
+Mathilde's absence, they were all gloomy because Addie was gone, as if
+they had all lost him. True, he came regularly, twice a week in fact,
+especially because of Marietje--Mary; but even then he had so much to do
+outside that they scarcely saw him except at meals. And it was as if
+they could all have put up with Mathilde, rather than lose Addie.
+Klaasje no longer pushed her chair away, Gerdy no longer spilt the milk,
+at evening tea--those small, almost ridiculous vexations with which
+Constance had had to put up so often--as soon as Mathilde entered; but,
+now that all vexation was gone, Addie also was gone and seemed lost for
+all time. And they lived on in a sort of grey harmony, still and
+peaceful but now, regularly, without many words, in a dull resignation
+which mourned in all their eyes and voices, while Gerdy now silently,
+silently pined and pined; and it was only Guy and Van der Welcke who,
+once in a way, indulged in loud and forced merriment. Paul also had his
+melancholy days: sometimes he would not put in an appearance for a week,
+said that he was ill, remained in his rooms, lying on a sofa with a book
+in his hands, not thinking it worth while to talk brilliantly or to play
+the piano. But they looked him up, Constance, Brauws, the girls; they
+drove him out of his rooms and out of his mood of depression; and he
+returned, like a victim, grumbled that Gerdy's piano was always dirty,
+asked for a duster, scrubbed the keys and submissively played Grieg, the
+melodies dripping slackly from his fingers. And, though everything was
+grey, in the somewhat sultry spring air, still it was strangely happy
+with a harmony felt in silence, a family concord, which sometimes
+brought the tears to Constance' eyes when she sat talking to Brauws in
+the twilight upstairs in her own sitting-room, in whispered interchange
+of quick half-words, which at once understood one another. Then, when
+Addie arrived, he brought with him a certain gleam, a light, a sudden
+glory; and yet his eyes too were full of sombre greyness, but they were
+all so glad to see him that they saw only glory in them. He was happy at
+the Hague, he said. He had a good practice, everything was going well.
+Mathilde was very cheerful; the children were well. He asked them all to
+come down sometime, for, though they had all been once, to see the
+house, they did not come again, withdrawing themselves from him as it
+were ... He saw it and was hurt by it; his eyes seemed to roam through
+the dear brown rooms, as if this big house remained his house; and,
+when Constance embraced him, she felt in her son's heart a difficult
+struggle and a swelling of great sorrow. He never spoke of it; he
+hypnotized Marietje; he regularly kept up Klaasje's reading-lessons and
+the books with the coloured letters gleamed into the child's awakening
+imagination; he talked, on Saturdays, at great length with Alex or sat
+with old Grandmamma and always thought of something to say to her that
+made her nod her head with soft, smiling satisfaction; he found a moment
+for his father, for his mother, for all of them: also for the poor sick
+people on the silent country roads; once he interested himself in an old
+sick horse which caused Marietje--Mary--great sorrow, when she saw it
+tortured, and bought it for her and let it run about, for her sake, in a
+meadow belonging to a farmer whom they knew. And his regular visits were
+what they all looked forward to, once a week, as to a delightful day;
+and the other days dragged on, in grey harmony, amid the quiet family
+life, in which they all recognized the same loss in one another.
+
+Easter arrived; and the three, Constant, Jan and Piet, came home for the
+holidays. And it was one great emotion, not only for Adeline, but also
+for Constance and also for Addie, when he came down, an emotion which
+bound them still more closely together, an emotion aroused by the future
+of all those boys, an emotion felt over the examinations which they had
+passed or were about to pass. Constant, now seventeen, was to be
+transferred this year from the Secondary School at the Hague to the
+School of Agriculture at Wageningen; Jan, now fifteen, was still at a
+boarding-school at Barneveld, preparing to go up for his naval
+examination next year; Piet, now fourteen, was at the Hague, at the
+Secondary School, with a view to the Polytechnic. At the Hague,
+Constant and Piet lived with a tutor; and Addie was almost glad that he
+himself was now living at the Hague and seeing more of the boys, for the
+tutor was not satisfied: the boys did their lessons badly, not because
+they were unwilling, but because they had no head for books, for
+working, for studying, any more than Alex, any more than Guy. The three
+yellow-haired younger ones were even worse feather-heads than their two
+elders: Constant was something of a dreamer, Jan the most solid, Piet
+the cleverest of the three, but none of them workers. They all displayed
+the same incapacity for perseverance, with the different shades of their
+different characters: Alex, true, doing his best for Addie's sake at the
+Merchants' School at Amsterdam, but full of a secret dread of life,
+struck as a child with that dread since, staring through open doors, he
+had seen his father's dead body, in that single moment of horror and
+blood; Guy, kindly, genial, merry and light-hearted; Constant, inwardly
+sombre, morose, with a strange deep look of suspicion in his eyes; Jan,
+a boy for games; and Piet--the youngest except Klaasje--no doubt the
+most enlightened intellectually, but delicate, shy, girlish and
+reminding Constance most of the flaxen dolls of the old days: the merry,
+careless children, romping round the dining-room in the Bankastraat,
+while Gerrit, in his uniform and riding-boots, stood tall and
+wide-legged in the midst of their fun. And now, now the boys were no
+longer careless: it was their reports, it was their careers opening
+yonder in the future that as it were compelled them to think of serious
+things; and it was as though they none of them developed with the
+blossoming of their years, as though they, Alex, Guy, Constant and Jan,
+remained feeble, light-hearted, sombre and rough and Piet so shy and
+delicate, while cruel life opened out before them, society, in which
+they had to conquer a place for themselves, when none of them could
+persevere in the youthful studies which prepared their future. It was a
+great source of anxiety for Addie; and, if the boys had not all been so
+fond of him, the anxiety would have been greater than he could cope
+with. Was it not he who had really chosen their career for them, because
+they did not know, because they had no preference, all of them perhaps
+shuddering with dread of having to take their place in human society,
+such as Alex felt it most deeply in the melancholy of his dejection, as
+though their father's suicide, of which they all knew, had cast a shadow
+over all of them, a twilight over their childish souls? And Addie, like
+an elder brother, like a young father, had had, in consulting them, to
+choose for them, had had to discuss the matter with them at length. The
+Indian Civil Service appealed to none of them; Addie thought that not
+any of them had the brains for college; and so it was decided: Alex,
+army training-college, but that had not been a success and he was doing
+better now at the Commercial School; Guy, the Post Office; Constant,
+Wageningen; Jan, the Navy; and Piet, in whom Addie saw the brightest
+intelligence of all, he had stimulated to enter for the Polytechnic. But
+it was not only Alex: Guy also was a source of trouble to him, plodding
+with gloomy resignation at his maps and books; Constant, sombre and
+morose, was doing his best; but the competitive examinations for
+Willemsoord might prove very difficult, Addie thought, for Jan later;
+while Piet ... But the boy was still a child, clinging so dependently to
+Addie, with his rather girlish affection, with his shyness, which placed
+confidence in Addie only.... Yes, thought Constance, now that she saw
+them all together, they would long be a great trouble, they would still
+be a great burden to Addie; and Adeline, poor Adeline could never
+unaided have made men of her boys.
+
+It was Easter; and it was strange how much at home they all were in the
+big house at Driebergen, which they regarded as their paternal house,
+regarding Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance next to their mother as parents
+also, regarding Addie as an elder brother, as their youngest father, on
+whom everything really depended. No one ever opposed this view; and in
+everything, down to the least thing, it was quite natural for them to
+say:
+
+"I'll ask Addie."
+
+They thought their cousin much older in spirit than in years and all
+looked up to him naturally and with unquestioning confidence, as though
+he must know things, as though he would be sure to make life smooth for
+them, that future of career beside career which opened before them like
+a battlefield. However much they might differ in character, in this they
+felt alike, quite naturally, as though they could not do otherwise; and,
+when a stranger sometimes expressed surprise that Addie fathered them
+so, their eyes would glance up in astonishment, as though to ask:
+
+"What do you expect? Of course, Addie does everything for us!"
+
+And they were very grateful, almost unconsciously, to Uncle Henri, who
+paid the bills, to Aunt Constance, who took care of them in so many
+ways, to Addie, who would make life smooth for them; but still they
+thought it very natural, because it had always been like that, for the
+girls too: Marietje, Adeletje, Gerdy and Klaasje. There it was: Uncle,
+Aunt and Addie looked after them, because Mamma was so sad and not very
+capable and devoid of energy. They had been used to it ever since they
+were very young and small; and it was like that; and it could never have
+been different.
+
+Now, when he came down from the Hague, Addie talked to all of them
+seriously; and they listened with serious faces, looking up at him,
+accepting what he said, promising to work better in future, to show
+better reports next time, to give him more reason for content in all
+respects.... Then he would shake hands with them; and that handshake
+conveyed a promise which they would be glad to keep, to please Addie,
+because Addie, after all, was bearing the entire responsibility for
+their lives and their futures. They left it all to him, but they began
+to see more and more clearly that they must make it easier for him. He
+spoke to Piet in particular:
+
+"Mr. Veghel's not satisfied, Piet."
+
+This was the tutor with whom Constant and Piet boarded.
+
+The boy blushed, with a quick flow of colour to his round, girlish
+cheeks; his eyes glanced up shyly and timidly.
+
+"You must work harder, Piet: you can when you like; and therefore, if
+you don't, you can't possibly go to Delft.... And you're cut out for a
+civil engineer. That's what you want to be, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, Addie."
+
+"Well, see that you get your remove before the summer holidays. You
+won't get your remove, Piet, if you go on like this."
+
+"I'll do my best, Addie."
+
+Then the boy became very restless, because Addie was not satisfied; and
+inwardly he wished that Addie did not see him so clearly, so clever and
+capable if only he liked; and Piet thought the Polytechnic a very
+difficult affair:
+
+"It'll never come off," he thought, in his secret heart.
+
+But he did not say so, because, in spite of himself, he hoped that it
+would, if only because Addie wanted it to and because it was such a long
+way off, the Polytechnic, and because Addie lately had worn such a
+wrinkle in his forehead, as though he were disappointed ... possibly in
+him.
+
+"We're a great trouble to you, Addie, what?"
+
+"If only you work hard, Piet ... then it won't be such a trouble and
+things will look after themselves."
+
+But Piet was not the only one to see it: they all saw it, the boys and
+girls alike, and wondered if it was because of them only or because of
+something quite different--himself, or Mathilde--that his forehead
+wrinkled so and his grey eyes grew so sombre....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+At the Hague, Mathilde felt a certain gratification, a satisfaction; and
+the bustle of the early weeks gave her a pleasant feeling of excitement
+and made her forget the despairing thoughts of the last few weeks spent
+at Driebergen. They had an attractive little new house in a side-street
+off the Bezuidenhout itself. It was freshly painted, bright in
+colouring; and she found it delightful to be able to furnish the house,
+now that summer was approaching, with light, modern furniture which
+looked and suggested a doll's house, with the small rooms and the
+abundance of light-coloured muslin in the drawing-room and conservatory,
+which she thought looked nice and cheerful. The first spring light
+entered hard and shrill; and the new colours of the wallpapers showed up
+in the first sunny days, crying out at Addie when he returned from his
+visits in his smart little brougham. And she displayed a certain
+solicitude that above all he should be nicely dressed, that he should
+look very well-groomed: she insisted on his ordering a couple of new
+suits. He had not a large practice yet, but that was sure to come: she
+was full of hope. In the afternoons, she would go out, rejoicing in the
+shopping-streets, in all the errands which she had to do, in the
+old-acquaintances whom she met, people whom she had known in her
+parents' house--they were both dead now--and occupying a somewhat lower
+social scale than her own at present. And she loved especially to show
+herself to her relations--a few uncles and aunts and cousins in her
+elaborate new dresses: Baroness van der Welcke.... And, in her
+gratification, in her satisfaction, in her new environment, created by
+herself in sympathy with her commonplace illusions, it was as though she
+had suddenly wiped all Driebergen out of her life, as though they had
+never existed, the nearly three crowded early years of her marriage
+yonder, in the melancholy, rainy village, in the sombre house, the
+haunted house full of lunatics and invalids. A newness, fresh and
+commonplace as the paint of her house, reigned all around her; she
+inhaled newness and was grateful to Addie; but that which, despite
+herself, had begun to grow refined in her, through her intercourse with
+antagonistic but yet finer natures than her own, now became blunted at
+once; and the days of real misery which she had undergone now, in her
+superficial thoughts, seemed very far away, as though they had been
+never lived but only dreamed, as read in a book, but never felt. The
+feeling had not burst forth from her, like a plant that buds, but had
+moved slowly around her, like a wind that blows or a drifting cloud. It
+had moved her, but had not metamorphosed her. Now, in her own
+atmosphere, she was blossoming up, fully, like a flower transplanted to
+the earth which it needed in order to blossom entirely.
+
+And yet, though she recovered herself, she was not quite herself again.
+Even though she no longer craved to know and to receive that which
+escaped her in Addie, yet she continued to know that something in him
+did escape her; and, however eagerly, in her simple entreaty, she had
+begged that he would love her, now, even though she uttered the same
+request, almost with a childish plaint--"Addie, you _do_ love me, don't
+you?"--she had to admit to herself that she now saw him really very far
+above herself, not only in that which escaped her, but also in that
+which she understood: the daily sacrifice which he was making by living
+at the Hague, by acting as she had asked, seeking to establish a
+practice as she wished, by shifting the tenor of his life, as with a
+strong grip of the hand, in the direction which would make her happy,
+her, the woman who no longer loved him as she had done ... as she had
+done when she felt him akin to herself, in the healthy normal life of
+physical natures.... He was that still, but he was also different; and
+that different thing was not akin to her, nor was the superiority with
+which he sacrificed himself. The superiority, the sacrifice oppressed
+her.... She soon forgot; and, when she was out of doors, going along the
+shops, meeting acquaintances who admired her, she was happy. When she
+came home, waiting with her two children for Addie's return, she
+suddenly felt oppressed:
+
+"I grew melancholy at Driebergen," she would think.
+
+But now she was in her new, freshly-painted house; and she was oppressed
+and felt unattractive; she dragged with her something that she could not
+shake off. She often wept, sobbed, as at Driebergen, but there, she
+knew, it was only about Marietje van Saetzema, whereas here she did not
+know what she was sobbing for.... At meals, sitting with him alone, she
+was silent, or else spoke harshly, without intending to. She did not sit
+with him when he was working, though he asked her to. When he wanted to
+kiss her, she drew back. At night she often locked herself in, pretended
+to be asleep.... Only in the children did she feel in harmony with him,
+did she agree with him, with his system of feeding them, of sending them
+out every day in all weathers. The children united them, now and then,
+for a few moments.... When the children were in bed, their life
+together became strangely unreal, as though both were asking themselves
+why, why? And it grew worse daily. He was now living exactly as she
+wished; and it seemed to him as if he had no life of his own. The
+keeping up of his reading, in the evenings, became mechanical; and
+mechanically he went once, sometimes twice, a week to Driebergen,
+remaining there for half the day. They saw him looking strange,
+unsettled, old, with wrinkles in his forehead and a gloom of despair in
+his eyes.
+
+"My dear old chap," Van der Welcke said, one day, "I can see that things
+are not going well with you. Do you remember how your father, not so
+very long ago, with the only bit of wisdom that ever fell to his share,
+advised you to seek your own life for yourself?... You're seeking it
+less and less ... for yourself. Things are not well with you down there
+... at the Hague."
+
+"Father, I have so little right to seek my own life for myself."
+
+"And yet we all do it."
+
+"There was a time, once, when you didn't. You then gave up your life for
+me."
+
+"I did that quite naturally. I don't know what's happening inside you
+... but it looks to me as if you were forcing yourself. Here you're at
+home, here you feel a man: you love this house, you love the work you
+used to do here...."
+
+"I don't belong to myself any more."
+
+"You never did belong to yourself. As a child, you belonged to your
+silly parents ... who got the better of you entirely; and now you belong
+to your wife. I expect it's your fate."
+
+"If it has to be...."
+
+"I should so much like to see you happy, Addie. Bless my soul, old chap,
+we should all like to see it. We're all suffering on your account. Your
+poor mother's suffering."
+
+"Does she talk about it to you?"
+
+"No, we never talk much together, as you know, but still...."
+
+"Do you understand each other better?"
+
+"No, but that's not the question. The question at this moment is your
+happiness...."
+
+"Father, I am not unhappy. Things are really all right with me."
+
+"You've got that cold, distant voice, my boy, which I know so well in
+you, which you put on when you're hiding yourself and not facing things.
+I never mistake it."
+
+Van der Welcke got up, walked restlessly across the room, all blue with
+smoke, walked back again and suddenly stopped in front of Addie and took
+his son's head in his two hands:
+
+"My boy, why was it necessary that your fate should be the same as your
+father's, an unhappy marriage?"
+
+"Father...."
+
+"Don't deny it. Why should you? Aren't we two friends who have always
+known all about each other? As a child, you were my friend. We were
+always like brothers. Why must your fate be the same as your father's,
+an unhappy marriage? You, who are so clever where others are concerned."
+
+Addie suddenly clutched hold of his father. Van der Welcke continued:
+
+"Why must you always know so little that will help yourself?... At the
+time, I raised no objection. You were fond of the woman; you always knew
+your mind with such certainty; I thought that you knew things for
+yourself; I let you have your way. I was jealous because you were
+getting married; so was your mother; we should have been jealous of any
+woman. We didn't like the girl you brought us; we thought, 'It's our
+jealousy that makes us not like her. She's Addie's wife; she's taking
+our boy from us.' We had no right to think like that. We tried to stifle
+our jealousy. We received Mathilde, hoping, almost knowing for certain,
+that you were finding your own happiness in her, because you always knew
+your mind.... You didn't know it in your own case.... You knew
+everything so positively in ours.... You also knew so positively, so
+plainly, that the profession which I tried to urge upon you was not the
+thing for you: you found your own vocation. You were a small boy; and
+you know it all so clearly and positively.... When you grew up and
+became a man, you no longer knew things. Isn't that so?... Why should
+your fate be the same as your father's? I was a ne'er-do-well, when I
+made my mistake; you were a calm, serious man...."
+
+It was as if his father were depriving Addie of all his strength, but he
+merely said, in his almost cool, even, restrained tones:
+
+"Dear Father, really ... things are all right between Mathilde and me.
+Even Mamma understood, in the end, that she did not feel happy here, at
+home; and Mamma agreed that she would feel more at home and happier in
+her own house, however small...."
+
+"But I'm not speaking of Mathilde's happiness, I'm speaking of
+yours...."
+
+"That goes with it, that must go with it, Father...."
+
+And so it always remained: he spoke out no more than that, gave no more
+of himself than that and was outwardly almost cold with chill shuddering
+and repellant when spoken to about himself. That he had made a mistake,
+that he had not known things for himself he clearly perceived; but all
+his efforts were directed towards the attempt to repair what he had
+managed, through his ignorance where himself was concerned, to spoil or
+destroy in his wife's life.
+
+Because he knew that she soon forgot things, he thought that he would
+succeed, if he devoted himself to her entirely, if he lived with a view
+to her happiness and ceased to live with a view to his own higher
+instincts, his own sympathies, his own vocation and activities. And,
+even if she did not forget everything at once, he would hope that, if he
+persisted, she would end by forgetting entirely.
+
+On days when she was bright and cheerful, he was satisfied, in silence
+and with a certain inward sombreness, because things were going as he
+was compelling them to go. On days when she was snappish and locked
+herself into her room and was evidently unhappy and no longer knew how
+to explain her melancholy, he suddenly saw his young life before him as
+a dismal ruin, as a desolate block of masonry in a dark night, as a
+desperate climbing and climbing in the dusk, with no goal of light
+ahead. Then he would look at his young, crowing children and wonder
+whether one day--and that perhaps soon--they would comfort him and her,
+their parents, even as he had comforted his. He did his work listlessly,
+visited his patients listlessly, even though no one ever noticed
+anything in him. He would ride through the streets of the Hague in his
+smart little brougham; and his eyes looked dully before them and he
+longed for his bicycle and the Driebergen roads, the silent, gloomy
+roads, sodden with rain and weighed down under by the heavy skies where
+his sick poor awaited him in their mean little dwellings, in vain,
+seeing him only for a single moment once a week. He was filled with
+bitterness: with a listless sneer at himself he reflected that he might
+just as well have satisfied his parents' wishes and Grandmamma's wishes,
+in the old days, and become a diplomatist. It would have been nearly the
+same as what he was doing now: putting himself forward as a young
+fashionable doctor who practised hypnotism and who was sought after,
+especially by the ladies, because he was good-looking and a baron.
+
+He sank into deeper and deeper dejection and felt roused only for a
+moment when treating a serious patient.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+And Mathilde's healthy mental balance was disturbed. This young and
+healthy woman, with her rather vulgar aspirations, had fallen in love
+with him because her nature expected to achieve a sympathetic
+satisfaction through his both in body and soul; her love had faltered
+when she gradually perceived that she was sharing him with so many who
+seemed to understand him better, when she suddenly saw, in a refinement
+of her inner perception, that he was really escaping her. She had enough
+common-sense to understand and to appreciate that he wanted her
+happiness above all things, that he was now devoting himself to her
+entirely, that he had forced their present life at the Hague into a
+direction which was hers, not his. Because of this, she was filled with
+a surprised gratitude; and yet this gratitude depressed her. The years
+spent at Driebergen amidst her husband's family had subdued her to a
+mere nervous susceptibility; and now she sought and wept again and did
+not know what she sought nor why she wept. Fits of temper followed on
+fits of weakness and fits of discouragement. In the question which she
+no longer put to Addie, but which nevertheless constantly arose in her
+heart--the question whether he really loved her--lay hidden a second
+question, whether she really loved him. At such times she thought that,
+even though her love was diminished, they would still be happy, now, at
+the Hague, and make her life a simple life, the after-math of physical
+love. But she saw him grow moodier despite himself, despite all his
+efforts. She passed through hours of despair; and, if she had not had
+her children, she would have gone away somewhere, she knew not where.
+
+Her healthy mental balance was disturbed. She now thought that it would
+be a good thing to tell Addie that she did not wish to stay at the Hague
+like this, because he was not happy there, that she wanted to go back to
+Driebergen. And the idea of giving back to him what he was giving her,
+of sacrificing herself as he was sacrificing himself, gave her an
+internal glow of exhilaration, as though she had found a solution; a
+solution in the near future, in a week or two, a month or two. Yes, let
+her tell him that it would be better, after all, to go back to
+Driebergen. The rooms there were always ready for them. They would all
+be glad to see him back again. She would give him back to his family.
+But she ...
+
+She pictured herself once more in the repellant life which she had led
+there. And she would not, she could not suggest it to him. Then days
+would follow when she avoided him, when she hardly saw him at meals.
+Sometimes, for a few moments, they would play with the children, for
+there was something really attractive about the fair-haired little
+mites, pretty children both, Constant and Jetje, healthy children, such
+as Addie had wanted. When they were put to bed, she would go out in the
+evening by herself, to take tea with relations or friends. She did not
+ask him to go with her: he had his work to do; and she came back in a
+cab.
+
+There was a void in her life; and she tried to argue sensibly with
+herself, and to make light of things. Come, there were hundreds of women
+in her position, not so very happy with their husbands: really, happy
+marriages were rare; and people still managed to get on all right....
+There were the children; and she was very fond of them.... Perhaps
+later, when they were a little older, things would be better: Addie
+might become reconciled to his position as one of the most fashionable
+doctors of the day; she also might recover her calmness, her balance....
+Life was so insipid: getting up, dressing, ordering meals, paying
+visits, shopping. Only the children, still so small, imparted a little
+gaiety to it. For the rest, it was insipid; and it was the same for one
+and all. Nearly everybody had to pass through some sort of crisis, after
+a few years' marriage. She would settle down, Addie would settle down:
+they would go on living side by side....
+
+But days of tears would follow, days of despair; and she felt much too
+young, much too full of vitality, just to drag on her life like
+that.....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+It was spring; and Marietje van Saetzema was to go to the Hague for the
+day, to see her father and mother. Constance went with her.
+
+"How well Marietje was looking!" cried Adolphine, with delight.
+
+Marietje certainly looked well. She would always remain a little pallid,
+frail and thin, with narrow shoulders; but her cheeks had filled out,
+her eyes showed a dewy calmness and her lips, pale though they were,
+blossomed into a kindly smile. She was, as usual, a little subdued, but
+she joined in the conversation and her attitude was more natural, less
+painful and forced.
+
+"But you must leave her with us for the summer as well," said Constance,
+"for the poor girl hasn't had much out of the country air during the
+winter. It is beginning to look lovely now where we are. She'll spend a
+summer with us first, Adolphine, won't she, before you take her back?"
+
+"Very well," said Adolphine, gratefully.
+
+But presently, when she was alone with her sister, she found an
+opportunity to say:
+
+"At least ... if there are no objections."
+
+"What objection could there be?"
+
+"Because of Addie."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"People are so spiteful sometimes, you know. They say...."
+
+"What do they say?"
+
+"They say that Addie is in love with Marietje and that Marietje does her
+best to attract him."
+
+"I should let them talk, Phine."
+
+"What do you believe, Constance?"
+
+"I don't believe a word of it. Addie is in love with his wife."
+
+"That's just it. People say...."
+
+"What do they say now?"
+
+"That things are not going so very well between Mathilde and Addie."
+
+"Every young couple has a difficult time now and again. A little
+difference of opinion ... I assure you they are happy together."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It was Mathilde's wish to come and live here?"
+
+"It was better that she should be on her own, in her own house."
+
+"Oh, she didn't have a scene with you then? That's what people say."
+
+"I never had a single word with Mathilde."
+
+"I see her once in a way. She does _not_ talk nicely of you. She says
+that she was sacrificed to Gerrit's children, that she did not count at
+home. When she talks like that, I defend you, for I know how nice you
+and Van der Welcke are to everybody."
+
+"She may have had a bitter moment that made her speak like that."
+
+"She goes out a lot," said Adolphine.
+
+"When? Whom does she go to?"
+
+"In the evening. Friends. She is hardly ever at home of an evening. She
+oughtn't to do that ... without Addie, you know. It's so
+undomesticated."
+
+"I know she goes out now and then of an evening to have tea ... with
+friends."
+
+"Yes, exactly.... She's _always_ out.... But how well Marietje is
+looking, Constance! She does Addie great credit. He's making a great
+reputation ... with his hypnotism. Everyone wants to be hypnotized by
+him. I'm always hearing him praised."
+
+"I'm so glad, Adolphine."
+
+She went away, arranging to fetch Marietje in the afternoon and take her
+back to Driebergen. She had an open fly waiting: it was beautiful, mild
+weather; and the spring was weaving verdure in between the trees. But a
+heavy load lay on Constance' breast and she could have cried ... because
+of her boy, because of Addie. She was going to ride to him now, at the
+other end of the town, the Emmastraat. She meant to lunch there and,
+when she had seen the grandchildren, to come back to Adolphine's. It was
+eleven o'clock. And she felt so much weighed down with sorrow for Addie,
+who came home to them looking more and more gloomy every week, that she
+could not, could not go to him yet ... after all that Adolphine had
+said.... Oh, how she always loved saying things that jarred upon your
+nerves, things that hurt, things that grated against your soul! Did she
+do it purposely? Was she insincere? Or was it because she couldn't help
+it, because she was tactless ... or, very likely, took an unconscious
+pleasure in hurting other people?... Oh, perhaps she did not know how
+much pain she gave!... But to go straight to Addie now, to Mathilde, was
+impossible....
+
+"Cabman, drive a little way through the Woods first."
+
+The driver turned down the Javastraat, went along the Scheveningen Road
+and let his horse roam at will in the rides of the Woods.... Oh, the
+Hague was charming; she loved the Woods! Even as Addie loved Driebergen,
+with an innate inherited love for the house and household and the fact
+of living there--he was indeed his grand-parents' grand-child--so she
+loved the Hague greatly. She loved those green villa-lined roads, she
+loved the briny fragrance of the sea.... She was now riding along the
+Ornamental Water, now, suddenly, along the spot where she remembered
+meeting Brauws years ago--he sitting on that bench yonder--when, after
+she had turned round with a start, he caught her up; and her confession,
+that she had suggested a divorce to Henri.... Oh, those days, those days
+of life and suffering and illusion, so far, so far away in the distant
+past!... And now, now the man drove with his jog-trot, the jog-trot of a
+victoria hired by the hour, along the Kerkhoflaan; now she was riding
+past the old house.... Oh, that old house! It was as though the past,
+the illusion, the suffering and the life, the later, later life, were
+still hanging around it like a low-drifting cloud! It was the trees of
+yore and the skies of yore and the green spring life of yore. The house,
+the house: there was the window at which she had so often sat musing,
+gazing at the great skies overhead, while her soul travelled along a
+path of light. Up above were Addie's little turret-room and her own
+bedroom: oh, that night of illusion at the open window, with the
+noiseless flashes of hope over the sea, the distant sea yonder!... She
+felt almost inclined to stop, to alight, to ask leave to go over the
+house; but something in the curtains, in the outline of a woman
+sketching at the window of her former boudoir prevented her; and she
+rode on. Oh, how she loved her Hague; and yet ... yet she had suffered
+there, with what antipathy she had been surrounded!... Did that
+antipathy of small souls for small souls go on for ever? Must her poor
+boy now suffer through it, even though he made his name as a doctor?...
+Oh, what a heavy depression she felt upon her heart, as if her fur
+cloak, were much too warm for the balmy weather with its breath of
+spring!... Now they were going down the Bankastraat, past poor Gerrit's
+old house; and suddenly that terrible night of snow stood white-hideous
+before her mind, stained dark with her brother's blood.... Here was
+Dorine's boarding-house; and Constance got out and rang, but Dorine was
+not in.... The driver jogged on wearily. She recognized acquaintances
+here and there, grown older now that her memories were harking back to
+past years; and the cabman, doubtless to spin out the drive, instead of
+following the Kanaal, turned up the Alexanderstraat. Oh, the house, the
+old family house, so full of recollections, so full of the past! And ...
+she saw that it was empty, that it was to let. With a quick glance at
+the uncurtained windows above, she even recognized the plasterwork of
+the ceilings; and it was as though the past still brooded there, still
+stared out at her, through the white, streaked windows.... Wearily the
+horse now jogged along the Bezuidenhout; and she saw poor Bertha's
+house, with its tightly-drawn veil of chill panes stiff and repelling a
+swift penetrating glance.... Yes, the Hague was like a grave to her; and
+yet even as a grave the Hague was dear to her. A grave? And Addie lived
+down there, at the end of the street!... Would _she_ still care to live
+in the Hague? She did not know, she did not know: perhaps she was
+becoming used to Driebergen, becoming used to the big, sombre house
+there, because there was so much love around her, even though she
+continued to feel a stranger there.... And a stranger: that was how her
+boy felt here!
+
+The carriage now pulled up outside her boy's house. Strange, the
+front-door was open: perhaps the maid was out on an errand and had left
+the door open for a minute to save herself trouble. Constance, telling
+the driver to come back at half-past two, went inside. Addie could
+hardly be home yet from visiting his patients. She knocked at the door
+of the drawing-room and received no answer. Mathilde was no doubt busy
+with the children or with her house-keeping. Constance opened the door
+and walked in, to look for her.
+
+She gave a start. Through the drawing-room and the dining-room she saw
+Mathilde sitting in the conservatory, with Johan Erzeele beside her. He
+sat bending towards her; and he was holding her hand in his two.
+Mathilde's eyes were staring into the distance; and a feeble hesitation
+seemed to take away something of the usual strength of her fine,
+healthy, rather full lines. Constance saw it for one moment, as a
+strange vision in that bright, unsoftened conservatory-light, which was
+made the harder with many-coloured muslin curtains and coarsely vivid
+with the gold and motley of ugly Japanese fans. It gave Constance a
+fright; and in that inexorable light the fright and the vision were both
+inexorable.
+
+It did not last longer than a second. Her shadow in the drawing-room
+made Mathilde and Johan start up; and they rose to their feet:
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+"Mrs. van der Welcke!"
+
+It sounded like a greeting; but their voices were unsteady, because they
+understood that Constance had seen. Constance' voice trembled, but she
+merely said:
+
+"Good-morning, dear. How do you do, Mr. Erzeele?" She kissed Mathilde,
+shook hands with Erzeele. "I came over with Marietje; I left her with
+her father and mother and came to look you up ... intending to lunch
+with you ... if it suits you."
+
+She strove to make her words and her voice sound quite unaffected and
+she succeeded; and, because she succeeded, she suddenly felt that what
+she had seen was nothing: a moment of familiar intimacy. Were they not
+old friends? Had Mathilde not, as a girl, when he was still a cadet,
+danced with him often at their dancing-club? There was nothing, there
+was nothing; she was reassured by the tranquillity of her own voice.
+
+"So you will stay to lunch," said Mathilde.
+
+"If it suits you."
+
+"Of course it does.... Addie is not in yet."
+
+"Are the children upstairs?"
+
+"Yes, I'll send for them."
+
+Erzeele said good-bye, said that he must go, reminded Mathilde easily of
+her appointment to meet him the next day at the tennis-club. Constance
+glanced at him quickly: in his uniform, he was young, broad and short;
+his complexion fair but bronzed with the sun; above his powerful
+shoulders and thick neck his face stood fresh and strong, smart
+military, with a pair of glad, childlike grey eyes; a long fair
+moustache shaded his lips, which were laughing glad and warmly sensual;
+and, when he laughed, his small sharp ivory teeth flashed.... His thick
+fair hair curled slightly at the tips....? It was very strange, but it
+struck her suddenly that Erzeele's way of looking at Mathilde resembled
+that of her own husband, Van der Welcke, when ... when he was young,
+when she met him in Rome. Something in the fresh vigour of his glance
+and of his rather sensual laugh, something about his figure, about his
+teeth reminded her of Henri as a young man.
+
+"You've known him a long time, haven't you?" asked Constance, when he
+was gone.
+
+"Oh dear, yes!" said Mathilde, vaguely.
+
+The nurse brought down Jetje and Constant for Grandmamma to see: after
+that, the children were to go out for a little longer.
+
+"They look well," said Constance, huskily.
+
+She felt a heavy pressure of inexplicable melancholy on her heart, a
+pressure so heavy that she could have cried, so heavy that she felt her
+eyes grow moist in spite of herself.
+
+"Yes," said Mathilde, "they're very healthy. It's quite a system that
+Addie and I are practising with that special diet and the regular time
+each day in the open air. The other day it was blowing a gale ... and
+Addie absolutely insisted that they should go out all the same. And I
+must say I agree with him."
+
+Suddenly, while Jetje was sitting on her lap and Constant tugging at her
+skirts, Constance took Mathilde's hand:
+
+"Then things _are_ all right between you?" she whispered, almost
+imploringly.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"You are happy now, Mathilde ... here at the Hague?"
+
+"Certainly, Mamma.... You yourself understood, didn't you, that I longed
+for a house of my own."
+
+"Yes, dear, I understood."
+
+"Only...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I am sorry to have robbed you of Addie."
+
+"But, my dear, a son does not belong to his parents."
+
+"Still, I reproach myself.... But I could not stay with you any longer.
+You understood that it was not because ... because you were not kind to
+me. You were very kind ... you tried to be ... though I do not believe
+that Papa likes me, that Emilie, Aunt Adeline or any of the others like
+me.... I bear them no malice: I don't like them either."
+
+Constance was silent.
+
+"I am so different from the boy and girl cousins ... and Papa was always
+jealous."
+
+"My dear!"
+
+"And you too; but you fought against it."
+
+"Mathilde, I always wished you to feel at home with us; I always hoped
+that some part of you would blend with us."
+
+"Exactly; and that was impossible: I was too different from all of you;
+and at Driebergen ... in the end.... I should have become as full of
+nerves ... as Mary."
+
+There was a tint of hatred in her voice.
+
+"No, dear," said Constance, harking back, "you were not happy with us.
+But because I hope that you are happy now...."
+
+She had risen nervously; the nurse had entered and was taking the
+children with her: they were to have one more turn in the street before
+lunch.
+
+"Tell me, Mathilde, are you really happy? Do you really and truly love
+Addie again?"
+
+"I have always loved him. What do you mean?"
+
+"Then it's all right, then it's all right, dear."
+
+"Why are you so sad? There are tears in your eyes."
+
+"The Hague always makes me sad. The cabman took me for a little drive
+and I passed all the houses of the old days ... when we all used to live
+here."
+
+"Did you feel a longing to come back to the Hague?"
+
+"No, no ... I don't want to come back again."
+
+"Will you always remain at Driebergen?"
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+"You have found happiness there, I did not. I remained a stranger."
+
+"Tilly ... one day, perhaps ... you will live there as we do now ...
+when we are no longer there...."
+
+"No, never."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I dislike the house and everything in it ... down to the very
+doorposts. And I can't get used to an eerie house ... as you all do."
+
+"But Addie...."
+
+"Exactly: he will never forget the house. What can it be to him? He was
+not born there!"
+
+"He feels at home there."
+
+"Just so. And I do not.... Oh, I ought never to have married him!"
+
+"Tilly, Tilly, what are you saying?"
+
+"I ought never, never to have married him!"
+
+"And you love him, you love him!"
+
+"I have loved him, oh, very dearly. But he is far above me! I do not
+reach his level! He sacrifices himself for me. And it breaks my heart to
+accept his sacrifice. It oppresses me! Oh, Mamma, find something, find
+something for us! Let him go back to you all ... and let me stay here
+with the children.... I shall live simply ... in a small upper part ...
+and practise economy. It is all my fault, not his. He is good and kind
+and magnanimous ... but all that oppresses me. I thought at first that
+we were--how shall I put it?--akin to each other, kindred natures. When
+we got married, I used not to think about such things ... but I thought
+in myself, with an unconscious certainty, that we were akin. He was so
+nice, so straight-forward and so manly; and that rather elderly
+something appealed to me: I used to look up to it, without being
+oppressed by it.... Gradually, gradually I began to feel that he was far
+above me. Things I like leave him indifferent: little luxuries, fashion,
+gaiety, society. That hypnotism of his: at first, I used to think, 'This
+is something new, a new method;' now, I don't know: I am becoming afraid
+of it! I am becoming afraid of him! There is something in him that
+frightens me.... Oh, I know, it is only because he is so good and so big
+and because I feel very small and ordinary, because I don't understand
+those fine, lofty ideals ... about doing good and about poor people and
+about self-sacrifice!... To him it all comes natural. He is sacrificing
+himself now for me: he does not care for the Hague or for his practice
+here, whereas I could never live at Driebergen again.... And, even if I
+could feel more or less at home among you all ... even then, even then
+Addie would oppress me!... Do you understand? Oh, you are crying! Of
+course you are angry with me: you see your son above everything. That is
+easily understood; and I ... I still have enough love left for Addie to
+understand it, to understand it all.... But, you see, the love I still
+have for him ... is an anxious love, it's a sort of self-reproach that I
+am as I am and not different, a sort of remorse caused by all kinds of
+things I don't understand and can't express, things that make me cry
+when I am by myself and oppress me ... oppress me, until I sometimes
+feel as if I were suffocating!"
+
+"Hush, dear: here he is!"
+
+They both ceased and listened. They heard Addie's voice: coming home, he
+had met the children outside the house; Constance and Mathilde heard
+his deep voice sound kindly, playfully, in the hall. He now opened the
+door, with Jetje on one arm and little Constant toddling by his side
+with his hand in his father's.
+
+"Mamma!" he exclaimed, in surprise. "I had no idea that you were here!"
+
+"No, my boy, I came up unexpectedly. I brought Marietje with me and left
+her with her father and mother."
+
+"You'll stay to lunch, of course?"
+
+"I should like to."
+
+"Why, what's the matter with you, Mamma?"
+
+"The matter?"
+
+"And with you, Mathilde?"
+
+"With me?... Nothing."
+
+He saw that they had been talking together. He said nothing more,
+however, but played with the children for a while and then released
+himself and gave them over to the nurse, who had come in.
+
+"The youngsters are looking first-rate, aren't they?"
+
+"We shall have lunch in a minute, Mamma," said Mathilde, tonelessly.
+
+Addie sat down beside his mother, took her hand, smiled. Mathilde left
+the room with her keys.
+
+"Don't fret, Mamma," he said.
+
+"My boy...."
+
+"You're fretting. You look so sad."
+
+"My dear, my dear ... I...."
+
+"What?"
+
+She gave a sob and laid her hand on his shoulder. She was so frightened,
+so frightened, that it was as though her great dread stifled her and
+prevented her from breathing. She trembled in his embrace.
+
+"You won't fret, you won't fret, will you, dear?"
+
+"No."
+
+The maid came to lay the table in the dining-room. Constance controlled
+herself.
+
+"Mamma," he said, jestingly, now that Mathilde also returned, "you're
+losing all your vanity! That's a nice old blouse to come and see your
+son in! Look, it's wearing out at the elbows. Do you know you haven't
+looked at all smart lately?"
+
+"Oh, my dear boy. This blouse is quite good still!"
+
+"Well, I think it's seen its best days. What do you say, Tilly?"
+
+"Why should I get myself up, an old woman like me?" said Constance.
+
+"You'll never be old, Mummie, and a well-turned-out woman must always
+remain well-turned-out.... Do you remember the old days?"
+
+"Yes, when...."
+
+"You brought home that fine photograph from Nice?"
+
+She smiled through her tears:
+
+"My boy, that is so long ago!... You thought me a bundle of vanity
+then."
+
+"The photograph never leaves my writing-table.... Mamma, you mustn't let
+yourself go like that."
+
+"Very well, I don't wear this blouse any more. ... But it costs so much
+to dress nicely ... and we have so many expenses."
+
+"You were not rich in the old days," said Mathilde, piqued at something
+that she did not understand.
+
+"And yet Mamma wore dresses that cost six hundred francs," said Addie,
+chaffingly.
+
+"Yes; and now that you are well off...."
+
+"Now I never dream of doing such a thing," said Constance, gently.
+
+The luncheon was quiet, a little melancholy, a little constrained.
+Afterwards, things went a little more merrily because Jetje and Constant
+came downstairs again with their nurse, suddenly, in a very youthful
+vision of golden hair seen through the open door. Their little voices
+chirped like those of young birds; and Constance could not refrain from
+saying how much they all missed them at Driebergen. For there also they
+were always coming down the stairs, looking so young and so golden, like
+a vision of the future, to go walking out of doors. Even in the winter
+they brought a hint of sunshine and of spring, something refreshing of
+youth and beginning, a promise of future in the old house which was so
+gloomily full of things of the past, things that hovered about the
+rooms, gleamed out of the mirrors, trailed, like strange draughts, along
+the lightly creaking stairs....
+
+Mathilde did not say much; she was silent and sat with her lips closed
+and her whole face--her eyes half-shut--closed, after that sudden
+irresistible betrayal of her feelings to her mother-in-law to whom
+nevertheless she was attracted by no sort of sympathy.
+
+A little while later, Constance' carriage came to fetch her and Addie
+offered to go to the Van Saetzema's with her and see how Marietje was.
+
+"And what are you doing, Mathilde?" asked Constance, gently.
+
+"I don't know.... I expect I shall go out.... Or I may stay at home...."
+
+Addie went upstairs to get ready; and Constance suddenly took Mathilde
+in her arms.
+
+"My dear...."
+
+"Mamma...."
+
+"You did well to speak out to me just now.... However sad it made me
+feel, you did right."
+
+"Oh, why did I do it? I should have done better to hold my tongue."
+
+"No, no. Speak, oh, do speak to Addie too!"
+
+"I have spoken to him so often!"
+
+"Not lately?"
+
+Mathilde shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"No, not so often lately. What's the use? It's not his fault ... it's
+six of one and half a dozen of the other ... and it can't be helped."
+
+"Very likely. Only...."
+
+"Only what, Mamma?"
+
+"Be careful, Mathilde, I implore you! Oh, do be careful! Everything,
+everything can come right again.... You are sure to come together again
+later ... but be careful, be careful. Don't spoil your life."
+
+They looked deep down into each other's eyes.
+
+"Mathilde, I may speak openly to you, mayn't I? Just because it's I,
+dear, your mother ... who suffered so very much ... because she spoilt
+her life so ... spoilt it so ... when she was young ... until life
+became a torture.... I was a young woman, as you are, Mathilde, and ...
+and I wasn't happy ... any more than you are, my poor child, at the
+moment ... and...."
+
+"I know, Mamma," Mathilde replied, shortly.
+
+"Yes, you know ... you know all about it.... Of course you know, dear,
+though I have not mentioned it to you.... But just ... just because of
+all that, I may tell you, may I not, to be careful? Oh, do be careful!"
+
+"You are afraid of things that don't exist."
+
+"No, dear, there is nothing.... I know there's nothing ... only...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"You see ... when I arrived this morning...."
+
+"Erzeele was with me."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He's an old friend."
+
+"I know."
+
+"He came to make an appointment ... to play tennis to-morrow."
+
+"Yes, I heard him."
+
+"There was nothing else."
+
+"He was holding your hand."
+
+"He's an old friend whom I knew as a girl, almost as a child."
+
+"Yes, dear, I know ... but...."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"It _is_ dangerous."
+
+"What is?"
+
+"To talk to him too much ... while you're in your present frame of mind.
+If you're feeling unhappy, dear, about one thing or another ... speak to
+Addie."
+
+"I've spoken to him so often."
+
+"Confide in him."
+
+"I have."
+
+"And not ... not in Johan Erzeele."
+
+Mathilde's eyes blazed:
+
+"Mamma ... you haven't the right!"
+
+"Yes, dear, I _have_! I not only have the right to tell you this as
+Addie's mother, but above all I have the right because I understand you,
+because I am able to understand you, because I remember my own
+wretchedly unhappy years of despair, as a young married woman,
+unsatisfied, unhappy, desperate, though for other reasons, alas, than
+those between you and Addie!... Because I remember all this, Mathilde,
+because I can never forget, just because I remember, because I now
+remember how I used to talk ... to Papa while I was married to my poor
+old husband ... how I used to talk to Papa ... and try to find
+consolation in those talks ... and how we worked ourselves up with those
+talks until ... oh, Mathilde, oh, Mathilde, let me tell you all about
+it!... Let me tell you all about it, quite simply, even though you know,
+so that I may have the right to speak to you. I used to talk to Papa ...
+and we fell in love with each other ... we _thought_ we loved each
+other...."
+
+"And, if you thought so, why didn't you?"
+
+"Because it wasn't true, dear, because it wasn't a burning fire of
+feeling, because it was an unreal feeling, arising from unreal words
+between a young woman and a young man until ... until all those talks
+drove them into each other's arms ... and the awful thing became
+irrevocable."
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+"I am telling you everything, dear...."
+
+"I know everything, Mamma. But you say you used to have unreal talks
+with Papa."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I talk _simply_ to Johan."
+
+"My dear, my dear, it's not that. I, I myself was unreal ... in those
+days ... in my feelings, which came out of books which I had read. Papa
+used to answer ... out of those same books. You ... you are different:
+you _are_ simple; Erzeele, a friend of your childhood, is simple, a
+simple-minded fellow; your talks are bound to be different."
+
+"Our talks are simple."
+
+"But, when I came in, I saw that you were talking confidentially,
+intimately, intimately and eagerly ... and that he was holding your
+hand, holding your two hands."
+
+"Yes, you saw that: he was consoling me."
+
+"That's exactly what he mustn't do. That's exactly what he mustn't be
+allowed to do. Oh, Mathilde, I am an old woman and I am your mother,
+especially now that you have no mother of your own, and I am Addie's
+mother ... and I understand, I understand everything ... because I
+myself have suffered so much...."
+
+"Addie's coming downstairs, Mamma."
+
+"Promise me, dear ... to be careful."
+
+"I ... I will be careful."
+
+"And forgive me, forgive me for everything that I have dared to say.
+Kiss me. Oh, I long so intensely ... for you and Addie to be happy
+again!"
+
+She took Mathilde in her arms, passionately, and kissed her twice, three
+times.
+
+Addie entered.
+
+"I'm ready, Mamma. The carriage is waiting."
+
+"I'm coming, I'm coming, my boy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Summer came suddenly: fine, sunny days followed one after the other, all
+the windows in the big house were opened and the summer seemed to enter
+and drive everything of winter out of the open windows. The spreading
+garden became closely leaved with a green and gold triumph of dense
+foliage which, lightly stirred by the wind, cast shadows over the pond,
+with a play of alternating flecks of light and shade. Van der Welcke,
+strolling along the paths, found pleasure in watching Klaasje, the big
+girl of thirteen, tearing round the water, pursued by Jack, the new
+terrier, who barked and barked incessantly with his sharp, throaty bark.
+
+"She is still just like a child," thought Van der Welcke, "and she is
+developing like a little woman. It is strange, the influence which Addie
+has over her ... and the way the child is perking up now that the fine
+days have come. But it is not only the fine days, it is Addie above all
+that gives her this balance: what's it through, I wonder? Purely through
+his influence, through a sort of healing magic that flows from him....
+It is very strange. The other day, I had a terrible headache; and, when
+he came and just gave me a little massage, it was gone, quite.... And
+the way the fellow has succeeded in developing the child's mind, with
+those picture-books, with those coloured things: it's as though he
+wanted to affect her by means of colours and glitterings and I don't
+know what. In any case, it came off; she is really learning her lessons
+very well; and everything she says is more reasonable and sensible.
+It's as though she were catching herself up.... Yes, amuse yourself,
+child.... Look, how wildly excited she is with that dog, like a real
+child; she's enjoying the fine weather; she's just like a child of
+nature; and she looks well too: she'll grow into a pretty girl, though
+she's a trifle heavily built.... She no longer has that stupid look in
+her eyes; and there's something kind and genuine about her ... in her
+behaviour towards old Mamma and Ernst, something motherly and
+understanding combined, as if she felt she had something in common with
+their clouded minds. ... It's jolly to look at the child, to see her
+sprouting and blossoming, exactly like a plant that is now receiving
+just the right light and just the right amount of water ... and yet she
+owes it all to Addie and will very likely never know that she owes it to
+him.... Yes, the fellow wields a wonderful influence.... Alex is keeping
+his end up now in Amsterdam and seems to be losing some of his
+melancholia since Addie has been talking to him so regularly: poor chap,
+he was ten years old when he saw his father lying dead in all that
+blood; and it affected him for all time!... We were right to take all
+those children to live with us: that sort of thing gives a man an object
+in life, even me, though I myself do nothing, though it's Constance and
+Addie who act. I feel a certain satisfaction, even though I just let
+them do as they please.... Who would ever have thought that it would
+become like this, the big, lonely house, where Father and Mother lived
+so very long and sadly by themselves, now so full, as a refuge for
+Constance' family? It turned out so strangely, so very strangely.... Oh,
+if my boy were only happier!... Who would have thought that he, he who
+has everything in his favour, should go falling in love with a woman
+who cannot make him happy? I am always thinking about it. I get up with
+it, I go to bed with it; I see the two of them in the smoke of my
+cigarette; and I am beginning to worry and worry about it: a proof that
+I'm getting old.... And I can see that Constance also worries about it,
+that the thought of Addie ... and that woman is always, always with her
+... oh, everything might have turned out so happily!... But it was not
+to be, it was not to be.... A lovely summer morning like this almost
+makes a fellow melancholy.... Yes, it makes you melancholy because you
+know for certain that it won't long remain so, that calmness in the air,
+that beautiful clear sky, that green and gold of the trees, and that it
+will soon become different, soon become different, full of sadness and
+of gloomy things."
+
+He suddenly spread out his arms, for Klaasje, pursued by the dog, came
+rushing down the path in his direction without seeing him, as it were
+blinded by the game which she was playing.
+
+"Uncle Henri, Uncle Henri, let me go! Jack will catch me!"
+
+"Mind and don't tumble into the water," Van der Welcke warned her; but
+she had already released herself from his arms and was running on, with
+the dog after her.
+
+"She's gone wild," he thought, "wild with the joy of life. She is
+beginning to wake up, physically and mentally. It is as though a
+twilight were withdrawing from her, a twilight which is beginning to
+steal over me. What is the matter with me? What do I feel? Oh, I long to
+go bicycling, to go for a long spin ... but Addie's not here; and, even
+when he is, he has no time, and Guy's working!... Suppose I asked Gerdy:
+she's fond of a little run."
+
+He went in, through the conservatory: the old woman was sitting there,
+staring quietly out of the window; Adeletje was busy with the plants.
+
+"Well, Mummie, how are you? What do you say to this fine weather?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"What do you say, Mum, to this fine weather?"
+
+The old lady nodded her head contentedly:
+
+"Lovely, lovely," she said. "The wet monsoon is over. But tell Gertrude
+... to be careful ... of the river ... behind the Palace."
+
+Her voice sounded like a voice from the past and spoke of things of the
+past.
+
+"Where is Gerdy?" Van der Welcke asked Adeletje.
+
+"In the drawing-room. Uncle Paul's in there, playing."
+
+He heard the piano: Paul was improvising. Van der Welcke found Gerdy
+leaning over the back of her chair, very pale.
+
+"I say, dear, come for a ride with me. It'll freshen you up."
+
+She looked at him dejectedly, shook her head:
+
+"I have a headache."
+
+"That's just why you ought to come, dear. Come along, do ... to please
+me."
+
+He stroked her hair. She took his hand and put it to her lips.
+
+"Come."
+
+"Really, Uncle, my head's too bad."
+
+"Then, why don't you go and sit in the garden? It's so hot in here."
+
+"Aunt Constance is taking me for a drive presently; and Mary's coming
+with us."
+
+"Paul, can't you ride a bicycle? There's one of Addie's which you could
+have."
+
+"No, my dear chap, it makes you so hot. And all that perspiring is such
+a dirty business."
+
+"Well, in that case," thought Van der Welcke, "I'll go on my own, but
+it's not particularly cheerful. If only Guy weren't working! I can't
+very well take him from his work ... to come cycling! So I'll go on my
+own.... Lord, Lord, how boring!... How boring everything and everybody
+is ... without my boy! How that poor Gerdy is moping!... No. I can't
+endure it, I can't do it, I can't go bicycling by myself.... I'll ask
+Guy to come. It'll do him good: the boy is too healthy to be always
+sitting with a pile of books round him."
+
+Van der Welcke went upstairs, reflecting that Addie would not approve at
+all if he knew that his own father was taking Guy from his work ... to
+go bicycling, as he had often taken Addie himself in the past.
+
+"But Addie has so much method, he used to divide his time so splendidly
+between his work, his mother ... and me," thought Van der Welcke.
+"Still, to-day, I simply can _not_ go bicycling on my own ... and so
+I'll just play the part of the tempter."
+
+He had reached the first storey; and here too the windows on the passage
+were wide open and the summer, fragrant and radiant, entered the gloomy
+old house, whose brown shadows vanished in patches of sunlight. The
+sunlight glided along the dark walls, the oak doors, the worn stairs,
+along the faded carpets and curtains and through the open doors; and it
+was strange, but all this new summer, however much Van der Welcke had
+longed for it throughout the long, dreary winter, the winter of wind and
+rain, now failed to cheer him, on the contrary, depressed him with
+inexplicable sadness.
+
+He now opened the door of Addie's study. Since Addie and Mathilde had
+moved to the Hague, the room had remained the same as regards furniture,
+but somehow dead; only in the morning Guy usually sat working at his
+table by the window and Van der Welcke was sure to find him there. But
+he was not there; and the books and maps had obviously not been opened
+or looked at.
+
+"Where can the boy be?" thought Van der Welcke. "He can't still be in
+bed."
+
+The room did not look as if anyone had been there that morning. There
+were a couple of letters on Addie's writing-table, where the maids
+always left any that arrived for him at the old address, so that he
+might find them when he came down, once or twice a week, for the brief
+visit to which every one at home looked forward.
+
+Van der Welcke moodily closed the door:
+
+"I'd better see if he is still upstairs," he thought, going up the
+second flight.
+
+Since Guy had given up his bedroom to Marietje van Saetzema, he slept in
+a little dressing-room. The door was open; the bed was made.
+
+"The fellow must have gone out already," thought Van der Welcke. "It's a
+dirty trick not to let me know. Well, I shall go by myself: I need some
+air."
+
+Angrily he went downstairs, through the hall, to the outhouse where the
+bicycles were kept. Guy's was not there.
+
+"There, I said so: he's gone out and never even let me know. Oh, it's
+always like that: those children are always selfish. We do everything
+for them, when they've got no claim on us; and what sort of thanks do we
+receive?... The boy knows that I'm fond of him, that I like cycling with
+him when Addie's not here, but he doesn't so much as think of looking
+for me and asking me to go with him.... It's all egoism, it's always
+thinking of your own self.... If there's any paying to be done, that's
+all right, that's what Uncle Henri's there for; but the least little
+thought for me ... not a bit of it!... That's the way it goes. I've lost
+Addie ... and tried to find him again in another and it's simply
+impossible and ridiculous."
+
+Still young and active, he slung himself on his bicycle and for a minute
+or two enjoyed the motion of the handsome, glittering machine, as it
+glided down the summer lanes; but very soon he began to think, gloomily:
+
+"A motor-car I should have liked to have. I'm not buying one because of
+those everlasting boys: life is expensive enough as it is.... And
+instead of Guy's thinking of me now and again.... Ah, well, if you want
+to do good to others, you must just do it because it is good; for to
+expect the least bit of gratitude is all rot!"
+
+No, cycling alone did not console him; his handsome, glittering,
+nickel-plated machine glided listlessly down the summer lanes and he
+suddenly turned round:
+
+"That's enough for me ... all by myself, without anybody or
+anything...."
+
+And he rode back home slowly, put the machine away and looked at the
+empty stand where Guy usually kept his machine.
+
+"Have you seen Guy?" asked Constance, meeting her husband in the hail.
+
+"He's out," said Van der Welcke, curtly and angrily.
+
+"He hasn't been working," she added. "I always look into Addie's study
+to see if Guy is at work: Addie asked me to."
+
+"No, he has not been working; he's...."
+
+"Out?"
+
+"Yes, with his bicycle."
+
+"They why didn't he ask you to go with him?"
+
+"I'm sure _I_ don't know," said Van der Welcke, angrily, shrugging his
+shoulders.
+
+Constance too did not think it friendly of Guy:
+
+"What does it mean?" she wondered to herself. "He ought to have been
+working, but, if he wanted to go cycling, he might really have let his
+uncle know."
+
+And her soul too became filled with melancholy, because young people
+were inevitably so ungrateful. But she said nothing to Van der Welcke;
+and they never knew that they often thought and felt alike, as in an
+imperceptible harmony of approaching old age that found only a negative
+expression: they so seldom quarrelled nowadays, at most exchanged a
+single irritable word, even though no deep sympathy had ever come to
+them....
+
+Constance went to her room to put on a hat; the carriage was ordered;
+she was going for a drive with the girls. She felt worried about poor
+Gerdy, who no longer took pleasure in anything:
+
+"It will pass," she thought. "We have all of us, in our time, been
+through a phase of melancholy.... Adeline told me that Gerdy was in love
+with Erzeele ... but he doesn't appear to think about her.... Oh, how I
+worry and worry about it all: about my poor boy, about Mathilde!...
+Erzeele is bound ... is bound to be attracted by her.... Come, I need
+air, in this fine weather; and yet this warm air oppresses me: the
+summer is always oppressive in our country. The weather in our country
+is always _becoming_ something: it never has become anything, like the
+weather in the south; it is becoming, always becoming something....
+It's sultry now, the sun is scorching; we are sure to have a storm this
+evening."
+
+She now left her room, ready, and thought:
+
+"Addie is coming to lunch to-day; it's his day: oh, how I always long
+for that day!... Last time, he had to answer some letters and ran for
+ink for his writing-table. I'll just see if everything is in order now."
+
+She entered the room that used to be Addie's study:
+
+"Yes, the ink's there," she told herself, with a glance at the
+writing-table. "How uncosy, how cold the room looks, with nothing but
+the old furniture, the old man's furniture!... There are letters for
+Addie again: the poor boy never has any rest...."
+
+Casually she took a step towards the table and was struck by the
+appearance of the letters:
+
+"What is that?" she thought.
+
+The letters--there were three of them--were without stamps or postmarks:
+it was this that had struck her.
+
+"Bills?" she wondered for a moment.
+
+Then she shivered and began to tremble so violently that she dropped
+into Addie's chair. She had recognized Guy's hand.
+
+There were three letters. One was addressed to herself and her husband:
+to "Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance...." The second: to "Addie...." The
+third: to "Mamma...."
+
+She sat distraught, staring at the three letters vacantly, without
+putting out her hand. A cloud of white squares seemed to whirl about
+her: it was as if the envelopes were flying round in a circle before her
+eyes. And she felt suddenly faint.
+
+"What is it? What does it mean?" she asked herself, aloud.
+
+She looked at Guy's work-table: the books were there, neatly arranged on
+the big atlases. She got up and trembled so violently that she felt
+herself sinking away, into an abyss. She rang the bell. The door was
+open. She heard the maid on the stairs:
+
+"Truitje!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am?"
+
+"Truitje, I'm here ... in Mr. Addie's study."
+
+"What is it, ma'am?"
+
+"Call your master ... at once."
+
+"But how pale you look, ma'am! What is it, ma'am?"
+
+"Nothing, Truitje. Call the master at once."
+
+"Aren't you well?"
+
+"Yes, yes, only call the master."
+
+The maid went away in dismay; the stairs creaked under her hurried
+tread.... Constance had sunk back into the chair again and sat waiting.
+Downstairs the piano sounded, under Paul's fingers, and she followed the
+tune, _Siegmund's Love-song_:
+
+"He plays well, he plays well," she thought.
+
+She was half-fainting; the white squares still surrounded her, because
+of the three letters, there, on the table.
+
+She now heard a footstep on the stairs; she followed the creaking as it
+came nearer. It was her husband, at last.
+
+"What's the matter, Constance?"
+
+Her throat would not allow a word to pass; she merely pointed to the
+table.
+
+"Well, what is it? Letters? For Addie?"
+
+She continued to point. He looked, recognized Guy's hand. He glanced at
+her; she said nothing. He now opened the letter to "Uncle Henri and Aunt
+Constance":
+
+"Has the boy gone mad?"
+
+Constance looked up with a question in her eyes. Every kind of thought
+raced through her, so rapidly that she could not follow them. And yet
+she seemed to see one thought flash across them slantwise: had three
+letters from Alex been lying there, from Alex who was always so much
+obsessed by the vision of terror and blood that had shocked his young
+imagination, she would have feared the worst.
+
+Van der Welcke handed her the letter without a word; she read it
+greedily. Guy wrote briefly, wrote difficult, sincere words of
+gratitude. Oh, it was not want of gratitude to Uncle Henri and Aunt
+Constance that had made him go without taking leave of all who were dear
+to him! He was not ungrateful to Addie! But it was just because under
+all his cheerfulness he had felt himself quietly growing sad under all
+their kindness ... while he found it impossible to go on working. And of
+course he knew that, if he had said to Addie, "I can't work at books;
+what I want, very vaguely and I don't know how, is to make my own way,"
+Addie would have let him go, because Addie understood everybody and
+everything so well. But it was just this, the conversations, the
+leave-takings, that he feared, because within him there was so much
+inert weakness, because he could never have gone, if he had had to
+speak, if he had had to take leave; and that was why he was going away
+like this, with his bicycle and his bit of pocket-money.
+
+"But the boy's mad!" cried Van der Welcke. "To clear out like this at
+his age, with no money and just his bicycle! The boy's mad! I must
+telegraph to Addie at once."
+
+"He will be out ... and on his way to us: this is his day for coming
+down."
+
+"Which train does he come by?"
+
+"The half-past eleven as a rule."
+
+The girls, Gerdy and Mary, came in, with their hats on:
+
+"Are you coming, Aunt? The carriage is there."
+
+"The carriage?"
+
+"When we've been for our drive, we can fetch Addie from the station,"
+said Mary.
+
+Constance burst into sobs.
+
+"Auntie, Auntie, what's the matter?"
+
+Van der Welcke left the room, taking the letter for Addie with him:
+
+"How are we to tell her?" he thought to himself.
+
+Constance, upstairs, had an attack of nerves. She sobbed as violently,
+felt as miserable in the depths of her being as if it had been her own
+child that had left the paternal house ... for good.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+In the midst of the sunshine on that summer day a spirit of melancholy
+descended upon the whole of the big house and set the nerves of all the
+inmates tingling. Addie had been, had read Guy's letter, had left at
+once ... for Rotterdam. Downstairs, in the morning-room, Adeline sobbed
+without ceasing; and from the sunlit conservatory the old grandmother
+stared at her through the vista of the rooms, because she did not
+understand.... Adeline lay sobbing in Emilie's arms; Marie and Paul were
+with her too; upstairs, Adeletje and Mary remained with Constance.
+Brauws appeared at the door:
+
+"What has happened?" he asked, in a whisper.
+
+Van der Welcke seized him by the arm, took him into the garden. Klaasje
+lay half-asleep against the thick trunk of a beech, with Jack nestling
+in her little skirts, both tired with playing. The child was humming a
+tune, looking up at the sky, dreaming away amid all the gold that rained
+down upon her from between the leaves like glittering coins.
+
+"What has happened?" Brauws asked again.
+
+But Van der Welcke could not speak; his throat refused to let the words
+through.
+
+"Good-morning, Uncle Brauws!" cried Klaasje, dreamily. "Look, Uncle
+Brauws, I'm very rich. It's raining golden sovereigns over me ... out of
+the beech-tree, out of the beech-tree!... Out of the beech-tree golden
+sovereigns are raining over Klaasje!" she hummed rhythmically.
+
+"Hans," asked Brauws, "what's the matter, old fellow?"
+
+"It's that idiot of a Guy!" said Van der Welcke, at last, hoarsely. "I
+was looking for him this morning, couldn't find him anywhere. His
+bicycle was gone.... He has cleared out. He left three letters behind
+him: for his mother, for Addie and for us. He writes that he can't work
+at books, that he wants to try his own way.... I've read all the
+letters.... He tells Addie ... that he feels that he must stand alone
+... that he must stand alone if he's to do any good ... that ... in this
+house...."
+
+Van der Welcke gave a sob.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He feels himself growing flabby ... because there's too much affection,
+too much leniency for him.... That's the sort of thing he writes.... Who
+would have thought the boy was so silly?... He writes that he won't do
+any good ... if he stays here.... That he wants to go and face the
+world.... A boy of his age!... The most ridiculous idea I've ever heard
+of!...
+
+"The boy may be right," said Brauws, very gently.
+
+But Van der Welcke was not listening:
+
+"I shall miss him," he confessed. "I miss him now. He was my favourite
+... among them all. He consoled me for the loss of Addie.... I loved him
+as my own son; so ... so did Constance."
+
+Brauws was silent.
+
+"Life is a damned, rotten encumbrance!" said Van der Welcke,
+explosively. "We do everything for those children, we do everything for
+that boy; and, all of a sudden, he goes away ... instead of ... instead
+of staying with us, causes us sorrow breaks his poor mother's heart....
+He writes about America.... Addie went straight to the station to make
+enquiries. He was going on to Rotterdam. Addie ... Addie never has a
+moment's peace.... He was looking tired as it was, tired and sad; and,
+instead of having a day's rest ... with us ... with all of us ... I
+wanted to go with him ... but he said he preferred to go alone.... Why
+not have told Addie ... that he would rather do something else ... than
+go into the Post Office?... God, we'd have been glad enough to help him!
+... He--Addie--does everything ... does every blessed thing for the
+children.... Oh, Brauws, it's as if a son of my own had run away ... run
+away in a fit of madness!... Addie has gone to Rotterdam. It was Addie's
+idea, Rotterdam. But Guy can just as well have gone to Antwerp, to Le
+Havre, to God knows where!... He hadn't much money with him.... What
+will he do, what were his plans?..."
+
+The sunny summer day passed gloomily: just a telegram from Addie,
+"Coming to-morrow," without any further explanation. Constance had found
+the strength to go to Adeline in her room; the girls were overcome with
+a silent stupefaction, at the thought that Guy, their cheerful Guy, kept
+so much hidden under his light-heartedness: a deeper dissatisfaction
+with life, vague and unclear to all of them, who were so happy to be
+with Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance in what had so long been their
+family house, since they had been quite small children; and, when Alex
+arrived in the evening from Amsterdam, he too could not understand why
+Guy had felt a need so suddenly to go away from all of them, without
+taking leave, with that queer idea of making his way in the world
+alone.... On the contrary, he--Alex--valued in the highest degree all
+that Uncle, Aunt and Addie did for him: without them, he would never
+have made any headway in the world and he was making headway at last, he
+thought. He was now working methodically at Amsterdam and almost
+methodically making his melancholy yield ground: it was as though Addie
+inspired him with the love of work and the love of life, wooing to life
+in him the strength to become a normal member of society, oh, he felt it
+so clearly! After every talk with Addie he felt it once more, felt
+strength enough to stay one week in Amsterdam, to work, to live, to see
+the dreaded life--which his father had escaped by suicide come daily
+closer and closer, nearer and nearer, like a ghostly vista, at first
+viewed anxiously and darkly, but later entered, walked into, inevitably,
+until all the ghostliness of it was close around him.... And, when he
+thought of his father and always saw him lying, in a pool of blood, with
+his mother's body flung across the corpse in all the terror of despair,
+then at the same time he would think of Addie and reflect that life, no
+doubt, would not be gay but that nevertheless it need not always hark
+back out of black spectral dread to his youth ... because Addie spoke of
+being strong and becoming a man gradually.... And Guy had gone, had
+evaded just that beneficial, strengthening influence of Addie!... No,
+Alex also could not understand it; and that evening he remained sitting
+gloomily between his sisters, not knowing what he could say to comfort
+his mother.... The next day was Sunday; and, if he did not see Addie on
+Sunday, he knew that the following week would not be a good one for him
+in Amsterdam, would be a bad, black week....
+
+And it was only Grandmamma and Ernst and Klaasje who did not feel
+oppressed by the sombre, sudden, incomprehensible and unexpected event
+which the others were all trying to understand and explain: to them the
+summer day had been all sunlight and the gloom had passed unperceived by
+them.
+
+Next morning Addie returned. Constance, who was quite unstrung, had been
+twice and three times to the station in vain. At last she saw him:
+
+"You didn't find him?" she asked, with conviction.
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"What? You found him? How? How was it possible?"
+
+"I had an idea that he couldn't go farther than Rotterdam: he hadn't
+much money on him. I hunted and hunted until I found him."
+
+"And you haven't brought him back with you!"
+
+"No, I let him go."
+
+"You let him go?"
+
+"I think it's best: he was very anxious to go. He was angry at my
+finding him. I talked to him for a long time. He said that he wished to
+be under no more obligations, fond though he was of us, grateful though
+he felt...."
+
+Constance, trembling, had taken Addie's arm; they went home on foot; the
+road lay in a bath of summer under the trees.
+
+"He spoke sensibly. He had a vague idea of working his passage on a
+steamer as a sailor or stoker. I took a ticket for him. He will write to
+us regularly. I told him that Mr. Brauws, if he liked, could certainly
+give him some introductions in New York. He said he would see. He showed
+a certain decision, as if he were doing violence to something in his own
+character. It was rather strange.... I thought that I ought not to
+compel him to come back. He told me that he was certain of not passing
+his examination and that this was what got on his mind and upset him,
+that he couldn't concentrate on his books, that he would now look after
+himself.... There was a boat going to London; I gave him some money....
+It's better this way, Mamma. Let him stand on his own legs. Here, the
+way things were going, he might have gone drudging on...."
+
+She wept distractedly:
+
+"We shall miss him so.... He was the life of the house.... Papa, Papa
+will miss him badly.... Oh, it's terrible!... Poor, poor Adeline!"
+
+They reached home.
+
+"Let me speak to Aunt Adeline first."
+
+"My dear, my dear, make everything right.... Oh, put it so that Aunt
+thinks it right and accepts it: you can do everything, dear!"
+
+"No, Mamma, I can't do everything."
+
+"You can do everything, you _can_. What should we have done without you?
+Now that you have found him and talked to him and made things smooth for
+him, perhaps everything will be all right for him. If you hadn't found
+him ...! How did you know that he had gone to Rotterdam?"
+
+"I felt almost sure of it, Mummie. But I didn't know anything for
+certain. I might have been mistaken."
+
+"You look so tired."
+
+"I have had a tiring day."
+
+"Addie, to people outside, to the family we will say...."
+
+"That he has gone to America ... a sudden idea ... with introductions
+from Mr. Brauws."
+
+"My dear, how can you talk of it so calmly?"
+
+"Mummie, perhaps it's better as it is ... for him. He was doing no good
+here. He wasn't working. And he was getting enervated in the midst of
+all his relations. He has developed a sudden energy; it would be a pity
+to stifle it. I ... I simply could not bring myself to do that."
+
+"My boy, do you tell your aunt. Tell Papa, too, tell all of them, tell
+his sisters and Alex. I ... I can't tell them. I should only cry. I'm
+going upstairs, to my room. You'll tell them, won't you? You'll make it
+appear as if it's all right, as if it's quite natural, as if it's all
+for the best."
+
+"Yes, Mummie dear, you go upstairs. I.. I'll tell it them, I'll tell all
+of them...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+The oppressive, sultry, rainless summer days followed one after the
+other; and the night also waited in oppressive expectation of oppressive
+things, which were to happen and never happened, as though what we
+expected to happen immediately withdrew and withdrew farther and only
+hung over houses and people with heavy stormy skies: skies of blazing
+morning blue, until great grey-white clouds blew up from a mysterious
+cloudland and drifted past on high; only on the more distant horizons
+was there any lightning; and that came soundlessly, later in the day;
+the threat of a thunderstorm drove past; the foliage became scorched in
+the dust of advancing summer and faded with the approach of decay; and
+there was, almost, a sort of longing for autumn and for purple death in
+autumnal storms: a nature, tired with heavy, trailing summer life, that
+had never finally become anything and was always becoming something,
+never flashing forth in a bright achievement of summer but dragging her
+incompleteness from heavy day to heavy day, under the heavy immensity of
+skies, towards the later bursting delights of autumn: heavy wind, heavy
+rain, followed by the heavy death-struggle and unwillingness to die of
+that which had never been the glory of the sun and yet left no golden
+memory behind....
+
+Often in those oppressive nights Marietje van Saetzema could not get to
+sleep, or else woke up with a sudden start. She had been dreaming that
+she was falling down an abyss, or gliding down a staircase or bumping
+her head against the ceiling, like a giant bluebottle. Then she would
+get up, draw the curtains and look out at the heavy night of trees, grey
+with darkness melting into darkness: the road beyond the house was grey,
+like an ashen path; the oak and beeches showed grey, their leafy tops
+unruffled by the wind; in the front garden the dust-covered standard
+roses stood erect as pikes and the roses drooped from them, grey and
+with the tired, pining attitude of heavy flowers hanging from limp
+stalks. All was grey and silent: only, in the very far distance, a dog
+barked. And the bedroom, still dark with the night--the nightlight had
+gone out--began to stifle Marietje so much that she softly opened the
+door and went through the attic, though Addie had forbidden her to
+wander about like this at night. She went carefully in noiseless
+slippers, pale in her night-dress, staring wide-eyed into the grey
+indoor twilight. She passed the doors of the maids' bedrooms and down
+the first flight of stairs, stepping very lightly, so that the stairs
+did not creak. Once on the staircase she breathed more freely, with
+relief at feeling something more spacious than the air of her room, the
+relief of unfettered movement, although the grey silence wove such
+strange great cobwebs all around her, through which she walked down the
+endless passages. She now went past Uncle's door, Aunt's door, Mamma's
+door, the girls' doors, past Addie's and Mathilde's empty rooms ... and
+she felt that she was very much in love with Addie, silently and without
+desire, and was always thinking of him, even though she did not always
+do as he told her, because she simply could not remain in her room and
+longed even for the out-of-door air, to feel it blowing through the
+filmy tissues that covered her young body. And, however much without
+desire, because Addie remained to her the utterly unattainable, yet
+there blossomed up in her a nervous passion like some strange flower or
+orchid or lily, seen in a waking dream, a blameless girl's dream of
+love, of soft, wistful lying in each other's arms and feeling the
+pressure of breast against breast or mouth against mouth and ecstatic
+thrills through all one's body.... Then Marietje would long for Addie,
+so that he might lay his hand upon her head: no more, that was enough
+for her, because she was also very fond of him, of his voice and his
+glance and his speech, of his care, of his sympathy, of everything
+abstract that came from him to her; she knew that, on his side, it was
+no more than gentle interest, but it was enough for her: she lived upon
+little like a bloodless lily, her body and soul needing no excess. She
+well knew at the moment that she was doing what she should not,
+wandering like that through the house, half awake, half asleep, because
+it was so fresh and cool to walk about like that half-naked. The night
+grew grey with dusk and there were deeper shadows in the corners, but
+she was not afraid, after she had once talked to Addie about the house
+and he had explained to her that, _if_ there was anything of the past
+hovering about it, it could not be malign or angry, but rather
+well-disposed and on the alert, in case it could be of use.... He spoke
+to nobody but her like this; she knew that and it gave her a deep love
+for him, especially because he had said it so very simply and without
+any sort of exaggeration, as though it were the very simplest thing that
+he could have wished to say.... Nor did he speak like that often; once
+or twice at most he had spoken so; but it had reassured her greatly,
+ever since she had been frightened into fainting on the little
+staircase, all because of a sudden shadow which she thought that she saw
+and yet did not know if she really saw....
+
+She was now going down by that same little back staircase, almost
+longing to see a shadow and always thinking of Addie; but she saw
+nothing. White and as though walking in her sleep, she felt her way down
+the narrow little stairs. They creaked slightly. She next opened a door,
+leading into the long hall, which was like that of an old castle, so
+fine with its old wainscoting. The long Deventer carpet was paled by
+many years' traffic of feet; the front door seemed to vanish in the grey
+vista; on the oak cabinet the Delft jars gleamed dimly.... She walked in
+a waking dream on her noiseless slippers and now opened the door of the
+morning-room, all dark, with the blinds down--she was very white now in
+the darkness and could see her own whiteness--and she looked through the
+drawing-room into the conservatory, where Grannie was always accustomed
+to sit. The conservatory-windows showed faintly like transparent
+greynesses; and behind them, in the dawning light of very early morning,
+something of the dusk of the garden melted away: in the very early light
+it was all ash, the conservatory full of fading ash and the garden full
+of ash. Not an outline was visible as yet; and she gazed and gazed ...
+and thought it so strange--and yet perhaps not so very strange--that
+such outlines as did stand out in the conservatory against the grey
+windows were motionless as the outlines of two dark shadows sitting each
+at a window, as it were an old man and an old woman, looking out at the
+birth of morning, which very far in the distance gave just a reflexion
+of paler twilight....
+
+Marietje now closed her eyes for an instant, then raised her lids again
+and stared at the conservatory; and it was always that: the outline of
+the dark, brooding shadows, so very similar to unconsciousness, as if
+she were looking through atmosphere within atmosphere, invisible at
+other hours than those of the greyness of the ending night and the
+beginning of the morning melancholy.... The two irrealities remained
+grey against grey; and suddenly Marietje felt very cold and shivered,
+half naked as she was; and, in her shivering, it seemed to her that,
+very quickly, the shadows themselves shivered, as with a start of
+surprise, and disappeared, because she had dared to stare at them.
+Nothing was outlined any more against the conservatory-windows; only the
+morning between the trees grew paler: there was even a streak of
+white....
+
+Marietje was cold. She left the room, forgot to shut the door after her
+and, going down the passage, made for the little back staircase and here
+also forgot to shut the door. Up, up she crept, shivering, with the
+noiseless tread of the soft slippers; across the attic now; and she
+stole into bed, quite cooled, and, after just thinking about what she
+had seen dimly outlined--perhaps--against the grey conservatory-windows,
+she fell asleep, peacefully, and dozed until late in the morning,
+peacefully and like a cold virgin now, with the bedclothes drawn up to
+her chin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Addie was out in the afternoon when Mathilde opened Constance' telegram:
+
+"Please come see Emilie."
+
+"There's always something," Mathilde grumbled to herself. "Addie is
+physician-in-ordinary to his relations. When it's not Klaasje, it's
+Adeletje, or Mary, or Emilie. There's always something.... What can be
+the matter with her now? He's only just been home. Oh, of course, she's
+always ill in the summer! I expect it's the same as last year...."
+
+She had an angry impulse to tear up the telegram and say nothing to
+Addie, to tell him later that it must have gone astray. She did not
+destroy it, however, but laid it on the table where he would see it and
+then went out to the tennis-club. As a rule, she took the steam-tram[1]
+and alighted at the Witte Brug. This time, she ran against Erzeele, with
+his racket in his hand, in the Bezuidenhout.
+
+"I was waiting for you," he said.
+
+"How nice of you!... Let's take the steam-tram."
+
+"Why not walk?"
+
+They stepped out, along the Hertenkamp.
+
+"Is anything the matter?" he asked.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You look so preoccupied."
+
+"Oh, it's nothing!"
+
+"You're out of humour."
+
+"Need I say they want Addie again at home?"
+
+"Who's ill this time?"
+
+"Emilie."
+
+"Mrs. van Raven?"
+
+"Yes, she calls herself Mrs. van Naghel now."
+
+"I know. She's the one who ran away with her brother, years ago."
+
+"There was rather a scandal about that, wasn't there?"
+
+"People didn't exactly know...."
+
+"I don't like her. She's ill every summer. Then she becomes funny. And
+then she has to see my husband of course. Hence the telegram from
+Mamma."
+
+"The other day ... Mrs. van der Welcke saw...."
+
+"Saw what?"
+
+"That I was holding your hand."
+
+"What about it? You're a friend. We've known each other for years, since
+we were quite young.... Do you know, Mamma warned me against you...."
+
+"Against me?"
+
+"She was afraid that...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"You would fall in love with me."
+
+"I am in love with you."
+
+"Now, Johan, you're not to say that."
+
+"You know I always have been."
+
+"You were in love with Gerdy."
+
+"For a minute only.... With you I have always been in love. Long ago. At
+our Cinderella dances.... In love? I've always loved you."
+
+"You must not talk like that. I ... I love my husband."
+
+"Yes, I know you do. But he doesn't make you happy."
+
+She was silent. She did not wish to go on and say that she felt Addie so
+far above her, unattained and incomprehensible, that everything was
+coming to escape her, that her love was escaping her, that she felt
+herself sinking slowly, slowly, in a vague abyss, that it was only the
+children who made her find Addie again, every day, for a moment. She was
+silent. But there were tears in her eyes. Her healthy temperament, now
+slightly unnerved, had a need of much happiness for itself, even as a
+healthy plant needs much air and much water and does not know what it
+means to pine. The melancholy that sometimes overcame her was not native
+to her.
+
+"Let's take the tram," she said. "I feel tired."
+
+"It's better for you to walk," he said.
+
+His voice was authoritative; and she allowed herself to be coerced: it
+was a hot afternoon and she dragged herself along mechanically beside
+him, both carrying their own rackets.
+
+"Mamma's quite right, Johan," she said, abruptly. "It won't do for us to
+see each other so often, for me to talk to you so ... intimately."
+
+"And why not, if you feel unhappy, if you want to unburden yourself to
+me?"
+
+"No, no, it doesn't do.... Come, let's take the tram: we shall be too
+late for our tennis."
+
+He looked out mechanically for the tram. They were at the corner of the
+Waalsdorp road; and he said:
+
+"Look here, walk a little way with me. I don't feel like tennis. Do
+you?"
+
+She let herself be dragged along and turned down the lonely, green road.
+She seemed to surrender feebly to his wishes; and she became aware that
+she was in a profound state of melancholy, a hesitation of not knowing
+things, of wavering, of feeling unhappy.
+
+"Everything could have been so different," she said, almost crying.
+
+"What do you mean? When?"
+
+"If Addie...."
+
+"If he what?"
+
+"I don't know," she said. "I'm tired of thinking about it. It is not his
+fault."
+
+"No, it's your fault."
+
+"My fault?"
+
+"Yes! Nothing would keep you from marrying him.... And I loved you."
+
+"You? But you never asked me!"
+
+"But you knew that I loved you. Yes, everything could have been
+different, oh, everything could have been so very different!"
+
+She suddenly began to cry.
+
+"Tilly!"
+
+"Oh," she said, sobbing, "don't let us talk like this! Let's go to the
+tennis-club."
+
+"No, no, I don't want to."
+
+She turned.
+
+"Tilly...."
+
+"No, I won't go any farther. I'm going to the club. It'll distract me
+... to play tennis."
+
+She turned back; he followed her.
+
+"Tilly, you're so unstrung. If you were a little calmer, I should tell
+you...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That I can't bear to see you unhappy. Oh, I love you, I love you! Let
+us go away ... together."
+
+"Go away? Where?"
+
+"With each other. I love you, I love you, I have always loved you."
+
+She stopped with a start:
+
+"You're mad!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"To suggest such a thing," she said, with a scornful laugh. "You're mad.
+You think that I...."
+
+"Want to be unhappy all your life?"
+
+"That I should consent to run away with you. I love my husband ... and
+my children ... and you imagine...."
+
+"Yes," he said, "it was mad of me to suggest it. You love your husband,
+not me. You never allow me anything, not anything."
+
+"Nothing ... at all?" she asked, scornfully.
+
+"Nothing ... that counts," he retorted, hoarsely, roughly.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"You men always want ... that. Our happiness does not always consist ...
+of that."
+
+"No, but ... if you loved me ... entirely...."
+
+"Johan!" she cried.
+
+They crossed the bridge and entered the Woods.
+
+"If you ever dare speak to me like that again...."
+
+"Very well, I won't."
+
+"But you're always doing it.... We'd better not see each other at all."
+
+"Not see each other?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I won't have that," he said. "I won't have that either."
+
+"And if I insist?"
+
+"Even so."
+
+"You don't make me any happier by talking like that; you make me even
+unhappier than I am."
+
+"Oh, Tilly, I can't bear to see you unhappy!... What are we to do, what
+are we to do?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, in a dead voice.
+
+"You don't care for me."
+
+"Not in that way. Why shouldn't we be friends?"
+
+"That's nonsense. Friendship between a man and a woman? That's one of
+those notions which you picked up, I dare say, at Driebergen, among
+neurotic people. Between a man and a woman there's only ... yearning. I
+want you and I am in hell because I haven't got you."
+
+"Yes, it's always ... that," she said; and she thought of Addie.
+
+"Oh, if you would only go with me ... out of this."
+
+"Would that make me happy?"
+
+"I should live for you entirely. I have a little money...."
+
+"That would make me happy, would it? To leave my husband, to leave my
+children?"
+
+"Your husband, your children? But I should be there!"
+
+"Yes, but...."
+
+"You don't care for me."
+
+"Not like that."
+
+"All the same, you would become happy.... You never found happiness in
+your husband--you say so yourself--because you don't understand him. You
+would understand me."
+
+She began to cry again:
+
+"Oh," she said, "don't go on talking like that!"
+
+"Do you care for me, Tilly, do you care for me?"
+
+"Yes, Johan, I do care for you."
+
+"Well?"
+
+She stood still:
+
+"Listen," she said, looking him straight in the eyes. "I care for you."
+Her voice sounded loving in spite of herself. "I care for you ... very
+much indeed. At this moment, perhaps even more than for Addie ... I'm
+not quite sure. A time may come ... _may_ come, when I shall care for
+you even _more_ ... certainly more than for Addie."
+
+"Oh," he cried, "but then...."
+
+"Don't speak," she said. "Listen to me. What you're asking of me ... I
+refuse."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I am an honest woman.... Because I am naturally an honest
+woman.... Because I always mean to be an honest woman.... I could never
+do what you ask me to.... Because, even if I had to say good-bye to my
+husband, I should never, never be willing to say good-bye to my
+children."
+
+"You love your children better?"
+
+"Better? I love them in a way which a man like you simply cannot
+understand."
+
+"Tilly! Tilly!"
+
+"Be quiet!... There are people coming.... Be quiet!"
+
+"Oh, Tilly, what then?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, dully. "Oh, come along to the club; we'll play
+some tennis!"
+
+She quickened her pace; he followed her, lurching like a drunken man.
+
+
+[1] Running from the Hague to Scheveningen through the Dunes, as opposed
+to the electric tram running through the Scheveningen Woods.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+When Addie found the telegram he at once took the train to Driebergen.
+It was evening when he arrived.
+
+"What's the matter with Emilie?" he asked his mother.
+
+"She's crying all day long," said Constance. "It's just like last year."
+
+He went straight upstairs to Emilie's room and found her sobbing,
+sobbing in Adeline's arms.
+
+"I'm at my wits' ends what to do with her," said Adeline.
+
+"Leave me alone with her for a moment, Aunt," whispered Addie. "Here,"
+feeling in his pocket, "here's a letter from Guy, posted in New York.
+You'll see that he has found work, thanks to Mr. Brauws' introduction."
+
+Adeline left the room; Emilie went on sobbing. She flung herself on the
+floor, with her face against a chair and her hair dishevelled, her thin
+hands grasping the chair.
+
+"Addie!" she cried. "Addie! Is that you?"
+
+"Yes, Emilie."
+
+"Oh, it's suffocating me, it's suffocating me!... Let me tell you about
+it!..."
+
+He sat down and she came to him with the movement of an animal creeping
+towards him. She stammered incoherent words, but he understood them: he
+knew the words of old; he knew what she was saying: it had been the same
+thing last year and the year before. At the beginning of each summer
+there was some fit of madness which mastered her, a fit in which she
+lived all over again through things that had happened in the years long
+ago. Oh, it was a terrible secret which she always carried about with
+her, which no one knew, which no one had ever known! In the dark room,
+with the closed sun-blinds, the secret stifled her and had to be told,
+because it stifled her in her heart and throat.
+
+"I must tell it you, Addie.... It was during those last days, those
+terrible days in Paris. Eduard, my husband, was in Paris and ... and he
+had been threatening me.... You remember, you _must_ remember: I told
+you as much as that, didn't I?... He had come to look for me in Paris.
+He hated me ... and he hated, oh, how he hated Henri!... Henri, my poor
+brother, my brother!... Addie, Addie, let me tell you everything!...
+Whatever people may have thought, whatever people may have said, none of
+it's true, it's all false! He was my brother, my own brother; and I
+loved him as a brother, though perhaps too much; and he loved me as a
+sister, though perhaps too much.... Oh, people are so wicked, so utterly
+wicked! They thought, they said ... As for me, I would never speak. Oh,
+Addie, your parents and you, your kindest and dearest of parents, never
+asked me a question, but took me to live with them in their house, which
+has become my sanctuary, where I can lead my cloistered life! Oh, Addie,
+I shall be grateful for ever and ever to your dear parents ... and to
+you! They never asked me anything, they have been like father and mother
+to me; I have been able to live under their roof, though my life has
+been nothing but remorse and pain.... Oh, Addie, let me tell you
+everything!... Henri was a clown in a circus--you know about that--and
+I, I made money by painting. We lived ... we lived together; we were
+both of us happy; then Eduard came.... Oh, he was like an evil spirit!
+Oh, when I dream of him now, I dream of a devil! Addie, Eduard came!...
+And it was he ... it was he...."
+
+"I know, Emilie, I know."
+
+The words burst from her in a scream:
+
+"It was he ... he ... he ... who murdered Henri!"
+
+"Hush, Emilie."
+
+"Oh, I can't keep silent, I can't keep silent for ever; it chokes me, it
+chokes me, here!"
+
+She uttered loud, hysterical cries, twisting herself against the chair;
+her eyes stared distractedly out of her face; her hair hung loose about
+her cheeks; her features were pale and distorted.
+
+"It was after an evening when he had been playing in the circus ... and
+Eduard ... Eduard...."
+
+"I know, I know.... Hush, Emilie!"
+
+"He waited for him ... in the passage in front of the house where we
+lived ... and ... and he called him names ... they quarrelled.... Then
+... then he _stabbed_ him ... with a knife!"
+
+"Hush, Emilie, hush!"
+
+But she screamed it out: her screeches rang through the room. She
+wriggled like a madwoman against his knees; he stroked her dishevelled
+hair, to quiet her.
+
+"Oh, your parents, your dear parents, Addie: they never asked me
+anything!... They came and fetched me: oh, Addie, that journey home,
+with his coffin between us, oh, those formalities at the frontiers!...
+Oh, Addie, your dear parents: they saved me: I was mad, I was mad, I was
+mad at that time! Now it's all coming back to me; I can't keep it to
+myself any longer!... You see, he waited for him, they began
+quarrelling about me and ... suddenly they were like two wild animals!
+Henri rushed at him ... and then Eduard stabbed him with his knife! The
+villain, the villain! He has been missing since then; I have never seen
+him again; only at night, at night I see him _with his knife_! Oh,
+Addie, Addie, help me!"
+
+He gripped her by the arms with all his might and sought to control her;
+but she resisted. She was like a madwoman; in the sultry summer heat she
+was overmastered by the day-long vision that loomed up regularly with
+the first balmy warmth of spring. She was like a madwoman; she saw
+everything before her eyes; she lived the past over again.
+
+"Nobody has ever known, Addie, except you, except you!"
+
+"Hush, Emilie, hush!"
+
+He tried to look into her eyes, but they avoided his. She twisted and
+turned as though she were in the grasp of a ravisher; she dragged
+herself along the floor, while his hand held her arms. Suddenly his eyes
+met hers and he held and pierced them deeply with his grey-blue glance.
+She fell back helplessly against a chair; her features, now relaxed,
+hung slackly, like an old woman's; her lips drooped. She lay huddled and
+moaning, with a monotonous moan of pain. Then she began to shake her
+head, up and down, up and down, grating the back of her head against the
+chair.
+
+"Get up, Emilie."
+
+She obeyed, let him help her up, hung like a rag in his hands. She fell
+back on her bed, with her eyes closed; and he rang the bell. It was
+Constance who entered.
+
+"We will undress her now, Mamma; she's much quieter. I'll ring for Aunt
+Adeline to help you."
+
+He rang again and asked Truitje to go for Mrs. van Lowe. But, as soon
+as Emilie felt the touch of Constance' fingers, she began to moan anew
+and opened her eyes:
+
+"Oh, Auntie, Auntie, you're a dear, you're a dear! You never, never
+asked me!"
+
+"Perhaps it will be better to leave her now, Mamma," whispered Addie.
+
+Constance left the room, promising to remain within call with Adeline.
+
+Emilie lay on the bed, her eyes staring straight before her, as though
+she still beheld all the horror of the past; and she went on moaning in
+fear and pain:
+
+"Addie, Addie, it was Eduard ... it was Eduard who murdered Henri....
+Oh, nobody knows, nobody knows!... Uncle and Aunt never asked me....
+People at the Hague say that it was I who made Eduard unhappy, that that
+is why he has gone away, disappeared.... Perhaps I did, perhaps I did
+make him unhappy.... I don't know, I don't know.... You see, I didn't
+know what I was doing when I married Eduard. I thought ... I thought it
+would be all right, I thought I cared for him ... Ssh, Addie, don't tell
+anybody, but I cared for Henri, for my brother, only. I swear, it was
+all quite beautiful what he and I felt for each other; there was never
+anything between us, never anything to be ashamed of!... But my life,
+Addie, my poor life, oh, my poor little life was quite wrecked, because
+I did not know, because I felt so strangely, because I fought against
+the common things of life, against my marriage, against my husband, and
+because all that was stronger than what I tried to do, what I myself did
+not really know, nor Henri, nor Henri either I...."
+
+The heart-broken lamentation over her life moaned away in plaintive
+words and it was as though, after uttering herself, she sank into a dull
+vacancy, with her eyes wide open, staring through the room, as if she
+still saw all the things of the past but as if they were now vanishing
+after she had uttered herself. And it was the same every year: each time
+spring came round, the same strange, mysterious force compelled her to
+tell it, to tell it right out, to tell all the sad secret of her piteous
+wreck and failure of a woman's life, she a very small soul, crushed
+under too great a tragedy, under too great an affliction, something too
+strange, which had crushed her and yet not crushed her to death. She
+lived on, she had lived on for years, living her life devoid of all
+interest and yet still young; bonds seemed still to bind her body and
+soul to life; and there was nothing left for her except the pity of
+those who surrounded her and a dull resignation, which only once, in
+each year, as though roused by the warm torrents of spring or summer,
+burst forth into a thunder of storm.... It gathered, it gathered, she
+felt it threatening days beforehand, as though it were bursting within
+her brain; during those sleepless nights she lay with her head clasped
+in her hands; and it gathered, it gathered: a fit of nerves, a violent
+attack of nerves; and she called for Addie, the only one who knew; and
+she told him, she told it him again; and, after she had told it and had
+fallen asleep under his eyes, she woke a little calmer. Then, after
+days, after long, slow days, her quivering nerves became restful; she
+surrendered herself; and that dull resignation wove itself round her
+again, the summer beat hot and sultry upon her, the slow course of the
+monotonous days dragged her on and on. Nobody talked of it all; and
+then, one evening, in the garden, she found herself recovered, feeling
+strange and resigned, limp her hands, limp her arms, with poor Aunt
+Adeline beside her, quite cheered and receiving a short letter from Guy,
+while the girls and Aunt Constance put Grannie to bed and then Klaasje,
+that great big girl, who still always insisted on being taken to bed ...
+and while Uncle Ernst wandered round the pond, talking to himself ...
+and while Paul had not shown himself for three days, locking himself in
+his room, in the villa over there, lower down....
+
+That was how she recovered, as if waking from a hideous dream; that was
+how she came to herself, in the evening, sitting in the garden with Aunt
+Adeline, reading and rereading Guy's letter, beside her. And a little
+further away sat Mr. Brauws and Uncle Henri: Uncle Henri who could not
+get used to Guy's absence ... and who fretted over it sometimes, with
+the tears standing wet in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Addie returned to the Hague that evening; and seldom had he felt so
+heavy and listless, as if he knew nothing for himself. No, he knew
+nothing, nothing more for his poor self, as if he, as he grew older,
+daily lost more and more of the knowledge that is sacredly imparted for
+a man's own soul, like a far-lighting lamp casts its rays over the paths
+of his own destiny that lie dimly in the future.... Though he knew for
+others so often and so surely, for himself he knew nothing nowadays,
+nothing. Once he had known himself to be a dual personality; to-day he
+no longer knew which of the two he was. He felt like a prematurely old
+and decrepit young man, prematurely old and decrepit because life had
+become serious for him too early and opened out to him too early, so
+that he had fathomed it through and through: prematurely old and
+decrepit because his own life later had not trembled in the pure balance
+of his own twin forces of soul. He had felt fettered to the one; and it
+drew him down, while the other had not the power to lift him up to the
+height of pure self-realization....
+
+He walked home from the station, late in the evening. He dragged himself
+along, his step was heavy and slow; over the dark masses of the Wood
+hung a sultry, pearl-grey summer night; the houses in the Bezuidenhout
+faded away white in the evening silence. Light rain-clouds dreamed in
+the sky: it would doubtless rain to-morrow; and far behind them lurked
+the threatening summer storm. For the present the evening sombreness
+drifted on as though in hushed expectation. Everything was still: the
+trees, the houses, the clouds. There was hardly anyone about; a last
+tram came rumbling out of the distance, from Scheveningen; and its bell
+seemed to ring through the space of the evening, very far behind him.
+
+He walked on, dragged himself along past the houses. He was tired out,
+as he was every time that he practised hypnotism; in addition to this,
+it always broke his heart to leave Driebergen. How united he was with
+everybody and everything there! The house was his father's and his; the
+family was his mother's and his. As the child of his two parents, he
+felt at home there, in that great sombre house. But he no longer lived
+there, no longer worked there. In the crudely-bright, small,
+motley-painted house towards which he was wending, his wife awaited him;
+and he would find his children.
+
+Healthy children, a healthy wife: he had all that. What he had longed
+for, in his anxiety at what he saw in his mother's family, he now
+possessed: a healthy wife and healthy children. How they both of them
+loved the children; how united they were, where the children were
+concerned! All their difference arose from a spiritual misunderstanding,
+because at first they had not known.... Know? Did he know now? Did he
+know that he ought never to have taken a wife like Mathilde? Did he not
+know that it was his fault?
+
+There was nothing else for him to do than to continue the sacrifice, all
+his life long; but the sacrifice was very heavy: living and working in
+contradiction to his impulses, in a sphere that was not his. It was this
+that made him ill and prematurely old. He saw no future before him. The
+sacrifice was killing something deep down in himself.
+
+He felt a sudden rebellion: it was not a man's business to sacrifice
+himself like that. What was done was done. Mathilde must accommodate
+herself somehow. He would tell her that it wouldn't do, that the Hague
+was killing him, that he must go back to the house out there, to the
+village, to the district where he was of use and able to work. She would
+have to go with him.
+
+But he saw her, as a sacrificial victim, offered up for a faith which
+she did not share, because of his mistake in life. No, no, he could
+never do it, could never tell her that the Hague was killing him, that
+she must accommodate herself and make the best of things. It was for
+him, for him to make the best of things: if he wished to remain in any
+sense just, he must continue to sacrifice himself, though it wore him to
+death.
+
+How sombre and joyless it all was! How grey it all was, far and wide
+around him, like the very night that hung pearl-white close by and,
+farther away, dug itself into abysses of threatening darkness!
+
+As he drew nearer home, his feet lagged more heavily. And suddenly,
+before turning down the street in which he lived, he dropped on to a
+bench and remained sitting as though paralyzed, with his head in his
+hand.
+
+How hard and heavy it was for him, to have to go back like that to his
+own house! Oh, to remain sitting, just sitting like that until he had
+attained certain knowledge! He closed his eyes.
+
+He felt himself conquered, overcome.... Suddenly, as in a dream, voices
+struck upon his ear; and he seemed to recognize the voices. He rose
+mechanically and, past the houses, along the silent pavement, saw
+approaching the dark figures of two people walking slowly, a man and a
+woman. Their voices sounded clearly, though he could not catch the
+words; he recognized the leisurely forms. It was Johan Erzeele and
+Mathilde.
+
+They did not see him. They walked on very slowly and Addie followed
+behind them. Johan seemed to be persistently pleading, Mathilde seemed
+to be refusing something. Addie's heart beat fearfully as he followed
+after them; and a jealousy suddenly flared up amid his dull dejection.
+Was she not his wife, was she not his wife? And why, lately, was she
+always looking for Johan and he for her? Was it not always so: always
+these tennis-parties together, always meeting at friends' houses where
+he, Addie, never went?... Where were they coming from now? Where had
+they been? Was he bringing her home? How intimate their conversation
+sounded, how sad almost! Had they grown fond of each other, in a
+dangerous increasing friendship?
+
+He followed them unobserved, almost glad to have surprised them,
+suspicious in his jealous grief. Did not he still love his wife,
+notwithstanding their deep-seated differences?... He slackened his pace
+and followed very slowly.... After his first access of jealousy, he
+seemed rather to feel a certain curiosity to observe in silence, to make
+a diagnosis. His nature got the upper hand of him, the nature of one who
+is born to heal and who, before healing, diagnoses the disease. Yes,
+jealousy still smouldered within him; but he felt even more distinctly
+the craving for knowledge. Did he not still love Mathilde?... Ah, but
+was she indispensable to his life?
+
+That suddenly became clear to him: indispensable to his life she was
+not.... His children, yes: they belonged to all of them, to all of them
+yonder, in the old house, the old family-house. She, his wife, did not.
+His children were indispensable to his life: he felt that clearly.
+Mathilde, Mathilde was not. For Mathilde, as he now walked behind her
+and Johan, he felt only the curiosity to analyze and classify the nature
+of the disease, nothing but that. Even the jealousy died away in him,
+the child of his jealous parents.... He continued to follow them. He saw
+Erzeele put his arm through Mathilde's.
+
+He now quickened his pace slightly. His heels rang on the pavement
+through the night air, regularly, faster than before. The two in front
+looked round. They gave a start. He caught them up:
+
+"I seemed to recognize you ... in the distance," he said, calmly and
+naturally, while they were unable to speak and Erzeele withdrew his arm.
+
+"I have come from the station."
+
+"I didn't expect you till to-morrow," said Mathilde, faintly, in spite
+of herself.
+
+"I finished earlier. Emilie is much more peaceful.... How are the
+children?"
+
+"All right."
+
+"Where have you been this evening?"
+
+"I went and had tea at Johan's sister's.... Johan was seeing me home."
+
+"But now that Van der Welcke's here ... to see you home...." said
+Erzeele.
+
+"Not at all," replied Addie. "Come a little way farther."
+
+They walked on, Mathilde between the two men. Addie talked
+conventionally. They hardly answered. Meanwhile he observed them. His
+curiosity roused him, gave him a sudden new interest, as though he was
+treating a case of serious illness.
+
+"I'll say good-bye here," said Erzeele, as they turned down the
+side-street.
+
+They both shook hands with him and walked home more silently, suddenly
+dragging their feet.
+
+Addie felt in his pocket for the key:
+
+"It's late," he said, mechanically.
+
+"Getting on for twelve," replied Mathilde, dully.
+
+He saw that her eyes were red with weeping. He said nothing. They went
+upstairs without speaking. On reaching the nursery, they both crept in
+for a moment on tip-toe and looked into the little cots. The nurse was
+sleeping in the next room, with the door open between. They exchanged a
+smile, because the babies were sleeping so prettily. Then they went to
+Mathilde's bedroom. Once they had crossed the threshold, it seemed to
+him as if they were strangers.
+
+"I'm tired," said Mathilde.
+
+"So am I," said Addie.
+
+He kissed her, left her and went to his own bedroom. Through the closed
+door he could follow her movements, heard her undressing, heard the
+rustle of her clothes. He sank into a chair and stared in front of him:
+
+"I know," he thought, with his eyes very wide. "She loves him and he
+loves her. I ... I no longer love her.... She has never been
+indispensable to my existence.... I made a mistake. I did not know for
+myself...."
+
+He did not sleep that night. Next morning early he said to Mathilde:
+
+"Tilly, I want to talk to you."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"About ourselves."
+
+She raised her eyebrows impatiently:
+
+"What for?" she asked. "We have had that sort of talk so often. It leads
+to nothing. It tires me."
+
+"Yes, you're looking tired ... and ill. You're not happy."
+
+"Oh, never mind my happiness!"
+
+"But what else did we come here for, Tilly, except your happiness?"
+
+"That's true," she said, without interest. "You did it for my sake. It
+was nice of you."
+
+"But it did no good."
+
+"No, it did no good. And it would be better...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"For you to go back to Driebergen, Addie."
+
+"I agree," he said, gently.
+
+She started:
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I was thinking the same thing."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That I ought to go back to Driebergen."
+
+She looked at him in surprise:
+
+"And I?" she asked.
+
+"You remain here ... with the children."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"You stay in the Hague ... you and the children."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I'll go down there."
+
+"I don't understand," she repeated.
+
+"I mean what I say, Tilly," he said. "It is better...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That we should separate."
+
+"Separate?"
+
+"Perhaps. For a longer or shorter period."
+
+She stared at him:
+
+"Do you want a divorce?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+She continued to stare at him and choked down her tears:
+
+"Addie, do you no longer love me?"
+
+"No," he said, gently.
+
+She looked deep in his eyes, affronted:
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"That I don't love you, any longer, enough to live with you. I beg your
+pardon, Tilly, if I have spoilt your life, if I have shattered your
+life. I have spoilt and shattered it. I beg your pardon ... if you can
+forgive me."
+
+"Only a little while ago ... you told me that you cared for me."
+
+"I thought so at the time ... It seemed to mean so much to me."
+
+"And now?"
+
+"Now I don't".
+
+She rebelled with injured pride:
+
+"Then why did you ask me to marry you?"
+
+"Yes, that was just it."
+
+"Just what?"
+
+"The mistake.... Tell me, do you still love me?"
+
+"No," she said, proudly.
+
+"So you see: it's better...."
+
+"That we should be divorced."
+
+"Don't you think so yourself?"
+
+"And the children?" she asked.
+
+"That's my punishment," he said, gently. "They will remain with you."
+
+"You entrust them to me?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Addie!" she cried, with a sob.
+
+"You still love me a little, Tilly...."
+
+She only sobbed.
+
+"But not so much as you did," he assured her. "You are in love with
+Erzeele."
+
+"Erzeele?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He is a friend."
+
+"He may become more ... later," he forced himself to say, uncleansed as
+yet of jealousy, because she was still his wife.
+
+"Addie," she said, "I am to blame. If I could only have got accustomed
+to things, like all of you, at Driebergen ... I should have been happy."
+
+"Yes, but it is not your fault that you couldn't."
+
+"I don't want a divorce," she said.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"For my sake ... and the children's."
+
+"The children's?"
+
+"For their sake especially. No, Addie, I don't want it. Unless...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Unless you want it ... for your own sake, to be free, to marry somebody
+else."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I don't want it either. If you assure me...."
+
+"I do assure you."
+
+"Then I don't want it either."
+
+"And Erzeele?"
+
+"No," she said, shaking her head. "It's not as people say."
+
+"What do they say?"
+
+"That he is my lover. He's not that."
+
+"I never supposed he was."
+
+"I value his friendship ... but I could not be his wife."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I am your wife."
+
+"Do you feel that?"
+
+"Always."
+
+"My poor child!" he said, in spite of himself.
+
+"Why do you pity me?" she asked, proudly.
+
+"Because I have done you a wrong. Because I am unable to atone."
+
+"You have done me no wrong. We loved each other very much ... then. At
+that time ... I thought I understood you. Now I no longer understand
+you. You breathe too rarefied an air for me."
+
+"No, it isn't that. But...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Nothing. So, Tilly, you don't want us to be divorced."
+
+She looked at him anxiously:
+
+"No," she entreated.
+
+"Well, dear, then we won't be," he said, gently. "Only ... our present
+life ... is no life at all. So it will be better if...."
+
+"If what?"
+
+"If I don't stay with you, if I go away."
+
+"And I?"
+
+"You remain here, in this house, where everything is as you like it. You
+stay ... with our children."
+
+"Our ... our children," she stammered.
+
+"Perhaps later...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Because of our children, we shall come together again ... when all
+misunderstanding has disappeared."
+
+"I don't follow you."
+
+"Perhaps you will later. But perhaps also ... you will become so fond of
+Erzeele ... that...."
+
+She shook her head, stared before her.
+
+"We never know," said Addie, gently.
+
+"No," she said, pensively. "I know nothing ... nothing now. I used to
+think ... that you knew everything."
+
+"I do sometimes know things ... for others. I have not known for
+myself."
+
+"And now?"
+
+"Now I know better ... for you."
+
+"For me?"
+
+"Yes, now I _know_, Tilly ... that it is better for you ... that I
+should leave you...."
+
+"For good?"
+
+"Perhaps. Perhaps for a long time ... only...."
+
+"And the children? Won't you be longing for them?"
+
+It was more than he could bear; and he said nothing, only nodded yes.
+Then he said:
+
+"But they will be all right ... with you, Tilly."
+
+It was more than she could bear either. She fell into a chair, sobbing.
+
+"Don't be unhappy, Tilly," he said. "We _must_ make a change. If we
+remain as we are, we shall end by hating each other.... Don't be unhappy
+about parting ... when you reflect ... that it is really out of the
+question for us to remain together."
+
+"You are right," she said, coldly. "So...."
+
+"You will stay here. You will live here. That is, if you like."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I? I shall go home."
+
+She felt her jealousy of all of them, out there:
+
+"Yes," he said, gently.
+
+"If you don't love me," she burst out, "they will not need to console
+you long."
+
+"I shall feel regret ... because I have spoilt your life ... and because
+I sha'n't see the children any more."
+
+"Spoilt my life?" she said, proudly. "You have not done that."
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"The children?" she continued. "Why should you not see them ... when you
+want to?"
+
+"Would you allow that?"
+
+"Allow it? They are your children. I have nothing to say in the matter.
+In fact...."
+
+"In fact?"
+
+"I should not think it right ... if you did not see them often."
+
+"Then I shall come."
+
+"Of course.... But to go on living here ... would be too expensive."
+
+"No, not at all. I ... I shall want nothing ... out there. Whatever I
+make is yours."
+
+"I can't accept it."
+
+"Yes, you can ... for the children. It's better, Tilly, that everything
+should remain as it is."
+
+"Very well," she consented. "Only, Addie ... it's not a solution."
+
+"There can be no solution ... until you know that you care enough for
+Johan Erzeele...."
+
+"No, no, I don't!"
+
+"That you care enough for Johan Erzeele to...."
+
+"I don't know, I don't know ... and I refuse to discuss it."
+
+"I understand that, Tilly. Then ... there can be no solution yet, can
+there? We know nothing about a solution. I am simply giving you back
+your life, as far as I can, and you are doing the same to me. Later we
+will see what happens. It will all come of itself. What do we know? We
+know nothing ... for ourselves. Knowledge will all come of itself. Do
+you understand?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You will, later.... You will live here, with the children; you will see
+me hardly at all. I shall not see the children for a time. It will be as
+though I were on a journey. They are so small: oh, I hope that they
+won't miss me and that, when they do see me again, they will know me!...
+So you will be alone ... with the children ... It may be that you will
+want me back then, that the former love will return.... In my case too,
+perhaps.... We shall see. It will ... it will all come of itself and we
+... we know nothing.... Perhaps, in years to come, we shall be living
+quietly together again ... with the children. Or else...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Or else you will be far away from me ... and will have found your
+happiness with another."
+
+She put her hands before her eyes:
+
+"I don't see it.... I don't know...."
+
+"Now you are being honest. No, you don't know if you will come to care
+so much as that for Johan.... And I ... I will be honest too! I don't
+know if I shall ever care for you again.... But we must wait, Tilly; and
+the best thing therefore is to leave each other and ... and not to talk
+to each other again until it has come of itself and until we know....
+You will not be alone in the world; for, if ever I can do anything for
+you, I will come to you. I shall never forget you."
+
+"Yes, perhaps that will be best," she said, in a dead voice. "I shall
+try to look at it like that ... and to live alone ... with the children.
+I shall not see Johan again."
+
+"No, no, on the contrary: you must see him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"So as to know. You will never be _weak."_
+
+"No, I shall never be that."
+
+"You know how he feels towards you."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I know you do.... You know what he feels for you. But you do not know
+what you feel for him."
+
+"Addie! Oh, Addie!"
+
+"Don't deny it. Be honest. These are the last words, perhaps, that we
+shall exchange for quite a long time. I am going away now."
+
+"Now?"
+
+"Yes.... Write to me when there's any occasion."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"Good-bye, Tilly."
+
+She was silent, sat staring before her, with her hands clasped over her
+knees. No, she did not understand him, but she could not act otherwise
+than he wished.
+
+He was gone; and suddenly she felt very lonely. She heard him upstairs
+packing, rummaging in his cupboards.
+
+And she began to reflect, sadly:
+
+"He acts differently and speaks differently from anybody else. Divorced?
+Oh, no, I don't want that ... if he doesn't want it for himself!... I
+... at least ... not yet.... No, no, nor ever.... Oh, I don't know, I
+don't know!... I am fond of Johan.... If I were free now, if I were a
+girl still.... But Addie, the children.... I don't know, I don't
+know.... That was why Addie thought it would be well ... for us not to
+see each other ... for a time. How he will miss the children!... Oh
+dear, is he really, really going? Yes, I hear him upstairs ...
+packing.... What will people say? Not that it matters. We can say that
+he has to read, quietly, out there ... at Driebergen.... We can tell
+people something of the kind ... even if they do understand.... I simply
+can't go back to Driebergen. ... Oh, how will it work out, how will it
+all work out? That is just what Addie doesn't know either.... Do I? No,
+Heaven help me, I don't know any more than he does!... I am fond of
+Johan: shall I grow fonder of him, now that I am less fond of Addie? I
+don't know, I don't know.... Oh, if only I hadn't my children! ... As it
+is, I could wish, my God, how I could wish, for his sake and the
+children's, that I knew how to be happy at Driebergen, in that house of
+theirs, with all of them, and that I could go back to it! Shall I ever
+go back to it?... Shall I be Johan's wife one day, after all?... Oh, it
+is all so dark and uncertain!... Addie says a solution will come of
+itself.... We know nothing, he says.... Must I let it come as it
+will?... But how will it come?... Oh, even Addie, who is so wise, can
+find no solution!... There is ... there is no solution yet!... Will
+there ever be one?... Oh, if I could go back ... to the house down
+there!... Should I _ever_ be able to? Perhaps years hence! Perhaps
+never! Who can tell?...Is Johan ... really fond of me? Not only because
+he admires me ... not only for _that_?... Oh, that was the only reason
+why Addie loved me!... I know it now, I know it: that was his one idea,
+to have healthy children.... Now we are parted: parted for ever?... Or
+shall we come together again one day? Shall we ever become husband and
+wife again ... or not?... I do care for Johan. He is so matter-of-fact,
+so simple: I should have become very happy and simple with him, without
+all this thinking about things which I can't grasp or feel ... and which
+came haunting me down there, at Driebergen, gradually.... Oh, if I could
+only force myself to live there again!... But perhaps I never can!
+Perhaps, in three or four years' time, I shall be Johan's wife ... and
+have to give up the children, the poor children, to Addie!..."
+
+Now she sobbed, because she did not know. The days and months would
+drift past slowly and slowly before she knew....
+
+There is a sacred knowledge for ourselves, a knowledge so sacred that we
+know it only ... when the future is here....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+The months drifted by.
+
+"It is strange," said Brauws, "that we haven't heard from Addie lately."
+
+"How long is it since we did?" asked Constance, vaguely.
+
+"Nearly a week."
+
+"Yes, it must be close upon a week."
+
+"His last letters were brighter."
+
+"Do you think the travelling is doing him good?"
+
+"He doesn't travel as another man would. In the three months that he has
+been away...."
+
+"Yes, he will have learnt a good deal that will be useful to him ... in
+his profession."
+
+"His letters were cheerful."
+
+"I'm longing badly to see him again ... Listen to the wind!"
+
+"That's the autumn coming."
+
+"The summer is past. This is our typical weather. Look, here, out of my
+window, you can see the clouds coming up over the moor as you never do
+downstairs, because the trees in the garden hide all the view."
+
+"Up here it reminds me sometimes of the Hague, in the Kerkhoflaan."
+
+"But it's wider, wider...."
+
+"And finer."
+
+"There, they're coming up, the clouds.... That must be rain.... They're
+all grey and dark purple: I have never seen such purple as in our skies
+down here."
+
+"You're able to live under them now."
+
+"Now I am. But it took so long ... that I had to get old first. I'm old
+now and it's all right now.... Look, look: the clouds are drifting
+along.... That means storm...."
+
+"For days on end."
+
+"Oh, I am yearning for Addie!... How long is it since we saw him? Three
+months, isn't it?... Three months! What an age!... We are all yearning
+for him...."
+
+"His father is counting the days till he returns.... Poor Hans!"
+
+"Poor Henri!... Even Mamma was asking the other day, where Addie was."
+
+"She always knows him."
+
+"Ernst and Paul can't get on without him."
+
+"And he has an excellent influence on Alex: the boy's doing very well."
+
+"Yes, he's grown so calm and manly ... latterly."
+
+"Guy's letters are satisfactory, are they not?"
+
+"Yes. It's kind of you, Brauws, to take so much interest ... in all of
+us."
+
+"Well, I'm living ... with you all."
+
+"You belong to us."
+
+"It is like one family."
+
+"Family.... Yes, there is such a thing as family. In the old days, I
+often used to think that it was just a word."
+
+"No, it's there, only...."
+
+"Yes, I understand what you mean.... Sometimes it does not begin to take
+shape until we ourselves are no longer young.... It was there for Mamma,
+whereas for us, at that time ... But for Mamma it was an illusion
+and...."
+
+"For us ... it is indeed a reality...."
+
+"In so far that we think so ... we old people."
+
+"No, no, it is so."
+
+"I am quite willing to believe it is.... Yes.... Addie ought soon to be
+home again."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"I think ... he will stay _here_."
+
+"And Mathilde?"
+
+"_There_ ... with the children."
+
+"That is not a solution."
+
+"No, but Addie says...."
+
+"That it will have to come...."
+
+"Later, of itself."
+
+"I dare say he's right.... How is she?"
+
+"Reconciled ... more reconciled.... I saw her the other day."
+
+"Don't leave her to herself."
+
+"No, we are not doing that.... It's not her fault. And she is a good
+mother to her children."
+
+"As you say, it's not her fault."
+
+"Nor Addie's either. It's our fault: Henri's and mine."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't know, I feel it is. It's all our fault. It's still the
+punishment dragging along."
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Yes, it is. Our child was doomed not to be happy ... because of us."
+
+"No."
+
+"You know quite well that you too ... look on it like that."
+
+"Not entirely.... If he had had certain understanding for himself...."
+
+"He couldn't, because...."
+
+"Hush! Say no more on that subject.... There _is_ a knowledge.... which
+is so sacred ... Which of us has that certain understanding for
+himself?... We all just let it come...."
+
+"Look how dark it's growing."
+
+"Here comes the rain."
+
+"It's lashing against the windows."
+
+"Strange that, even in this weather, the house and this room don't seem
+sombre ... to me."
+
+"There is an air of so much affection in the house.... If Addie would
+only come! If he would only come now!... Tell me, Brauws, what is your
+opinion? What will be the end of it? Will they ever go back to each
+other?"
+
+"Possibly ... later...."
+
+"You can't say it positively?"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Do you think that she cares for Erzeele?"
+
+"It's difficult to say."
+
+"She doesn't know, herself. Only the other day she told me so herself:
+she herself doesn't know.... Will the children prevent her?"
+
+"Who can say?"
+
+"Is it right ... that Addie should let things decide themselves?"
+
+"Perfectly right."
+
+"Say that ... say that again. I sometimes doubt. Is it right that Addie
+should let things decide themselves?"
+
+"Yes, I am firmly persuaded that it is right."
+
+"Is she ... strong enough?"
+
+"I think so ... in that way ... of course she mustn't sit still, with
+her hands folded.... She will have to find herself."
+
+"Oh, if she could only feel in sympathy with all of us!... _If_ she ever
+comes back, I swear that I shall...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Nothing. I was thinking.... Then I begin to hope that she and all of us
+will feel alike.... And, strangely enough, I see that in everything. We
+all want it. _If_ she comes back, I am almost sure that we shall all ...
+do a great deal ... to make her ours...."
+
+"And to make her happy...."
+
+"_If_ she comes back.... How delightful it would be, _if_ she came back
+... with the children."
+
+"Delightful?"
+
+"I mean ... yes, I mean delightful.... Lives that have once been
+interlaced...."
+
+"Are bad to pull apart. I agree.... And Hans?"
+
+"Oh, even he ... even he will try!"
+
+"Who knows? Perhaps one day it'll be like that."
+
+"For the present, there's nothing to be said."
+
+"No, nothing."
+
+"It's all still mystery and darkness."
+
+"Listen to the rain."
+
+"The sky is black."
+
+"What's the time?"
+
+"Almost dinner-time."
+
+"There goes the bell."
+
+"Shall we go downstairs?"
+
+They went down the dark staircase. The wind howled round the house. The
+old lady was sitting at the window of the conservatory at the back when
+Constance and Brauws entered.
+
+"It's blowing hard," she said. "There are great branches falling from
+the trees in the garden."
+
+"Aren't you too cold in here, Mamma?"
+
+The old woman did not understand; and Constance put a shawl over her
+shoulders:
+
+"Will you come in, Mamma, when you feel too cold?"
+
+The old woman nodded, without understanding. She remained sitting where
+she was. She had already had something to eat, with Marietje to wait on
+her: she never sat down to table with the others.
+
+The second bell rang.
+
+"Come," said Constance.
+
+Paul was there and noticed how miserable Van der Welcke looked:
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked.
+
+Van der Welcke was carving:
+
+"I loathe carving," he said. "Addie always used to do it, or Guy."
+
+"I never learnt how," said Paul, secretly fearing the gravy.
+
+"Give it to me, Hans," said Brauws.
+
+They were silent round the table; the wind howled outside.
+
+"The gas is burning badly," said Constance.
+
+"How nice-looking Mary is growing now that she's down here!" said Paul.
+"There, you needn't go blushing: your old uncle may surely pay you a
+compliment."
+
+"Well, Uncle Paul, I'm not as young as all that myself: I'm getting on
+for thirty."
+
+"And you, Klaasje," said Paul, "you're eating like a grown-up person."
+
+"I do eat nicely now, don't I, Auntie?" said Klaasje, proudly.
+
+Constance nodded to her with a smile.
+
+"Only Gerdy ... she's not doing well," thought Paul. "How pale she
+looks!... Ah, well! Perhaps it'll all come right later for the poor
+child.... He or another.... Love, it's a strange thing: I never felt
+it."
+
+He felt a shiver pass through him and said:
+
+"It's cold to-day, Constance."
+
+"Yes. We shall start fires to-morrow."
+
+"It's blowing bitterly outside. And what a draught! I'm sure there's a
+draught in the house! What do you say, Ernst?"
+
+Ernst looked up:
+
+"There's no draught," he said. "I'm quite warm. You people are always
+feeling things that don't exist."
+
+"Why is it so dark to-day?" asked Adeline, as though waking from a
+dream.
+
+"The gas is burning badly," said Constance.
+
+"Truitje," said Van der Welcke, "take the key and see that the meter is
+turned on full."
+
+"Grandmamma was very tired to-day," said Marietje.
+
+"Grandmamma hardly ate anything at all," said Adeletje.
+
+"She's getting very old," said Constance, sadly.
+
+The meal dragged on. They exchanged only an occasional word.
+
+"We're very cosy, among ourselves, like this," said Constance, fondly.
+"Oh, I wish that Dorine would come and live here too!"
+
+"Nothing will induce her to," said Paul.
+
+"No, I'm afraid not."
+
+A carriage drove up outside, drove through the garden.
+
+"Hark!" said Constance.
+
+"It's Addie!" said Van der Welcke.
+
+"But he never wired!"
+
+Gerdy had got up: she rushed outside, leaving the door open. A cold
+draught blew in. They all rose. The bell had rung; Truitje opened the
+door.
+
+"Oh, Addie, Addie!" Gerdy exclaimed. "Is that you? Have you come back at
+last? We have missed you so frightfully!"
+
+It was he. She flung herself into his arms and embraced him, with a
+little sob.
+
+They all welcomed him home; they no longer noticed the draught, no
+longer heard the wind. They hardly ate anything now, hurriedly finishing
+their dinner.
+
+"Come into the drawing-room," said Constance, "it's warmer there. I
+don't know why the dining-room should be so chilly."
+
+"We'll set the stove going to-morrow," said Van der Welcke.
+
+His face had brightened up out of recognition.
+
+"Let's see how you're looking, old chap."
+
+He, the father, was so much excited that the tears came to Addie's eyes.
+The others left the two of them together in the drawing-room with Van
+der Welcke while in the dimly-lighted dining-room the old woman seemed
+to be asleep.
+
+"How are you, my boy?"
+
+"Very well indeed, Dad."
+
+"And now ... you're staying here?"
+
+"Yes, I'm staying ... with all of you."
+
+"Yes, this is your home.... And your wife?"
+
+"We shall see. That will settle itself."
+
+"So ... there's nothing certain yet ... about Mathilde?"
+
+"No, nothing certain.... I write to her once a month; she writes rather
+oftener ... about the children. She's very good to them."
+
+"So ... no talk of a divorce?"
+
+"No, no talk of that.... Perhaps, later, all will come right between us.
+Perhaps, on the other hand, she will feel that she would sooner be free
+... in spite of the children."
+
+They both thought of Erzeele.
+
+"So you don't know anything yet?"
+
+"No, not yet. It will settle itself. It must settle itself some day."
+
+"You see, my boy, I'm different. In your place, I should have fought a
+duel with Erzeele. I should have had a divorce ... if my wife didn't
+care for me, if she cared for Erzeele."
+
+"Yes, Father, I know, that's you. I'm different."
+
+"You're better."
+
+"No, not better. But, whatever I may be, I am first of all your son."
+
+"You, my son? You're my friend, my pal; always have been."
+
+"And suppose I now wanted to be ... your son? I have come back feeling
+very sad and very tired, because I feel that I am much to blame."
+
+"Nothing has happened?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What has happened? Nothing at all. You're too fond of thinking. What
+you have to do now is to seek your own happiness. Just selfishly."
+
+"Perhaps ... if I can. Perhaps that will become Mathilde's happiness
+too. We shall see. But I don't feel certain of myself. I don't know
+things. And I now feel ... not your friend and pal but your son, Father.
+I seem to feel it for the first time."
+
+"You always used to know things."
+
+"For you, Daddie, and for Mamma. But now, now...."
+
+"Now you're my son."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"My big boy."
+
+"Father."
+
+Van der Welcke was standing in front of him; Addie was sitting down. And
+Van der Welcke now took his son's head in his hands.
+
+"Father," said Addie, "I wonder if you realize ... how devotedly I love
+you! It's something that I feel only for my parents and for my children,
+not for any woman."
+
+"You're a funny chap," said Va der Welcke.
+
+"But it is not your fault. It is your parents' fault."
+
+"If you only knew," Addie repeated, "how devotedly I love you ... and
+Mamma!... And all of them here a bit too!... If I had my children here,
+then.... Perhaps, perhaps they will come back later ... very much later,
+with ... with Mathilde.... Look here, if that ever happens, we must all
+of us ... behave differently to her."
+
+"Yes, my dear boy."
+
+"Or try to."
+
+"Yes, old fellow, I know what you mean. We'll all do it ... for your
+sake."
+
+"You see, she _is_ my wife. I ... I am to blame for everything. If you
+will try...."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"_If_ she comes back.... Perhaps she won't come...."
+
+"Do you want her to?"
+
+"Yes, I do. I can't do without my children ... like this."
+
+"But you'll see them now and again."
+
+"Yes. So, if she _does_ come back, you promise, Dad...."
+
+"That I'll try."
+
+"And, if they will all try, then ... then I shall be happy."
+
+"Yes, they'll do it, for your sake. But...."
+
+"If she comes back, I honestly believe ... that she will have learnt ...
+also to try ... to like us all a little."
+
+"You mustn't be angry, Addie, that it was not like that at once. She is
+so different ... from all of us."
+
+"Yes, it's my fault."
+
+"No, my boy, don't go thinking that and worrying about it."
+
+"No, Father."
+
+"What you've got to do now is to try and be happy among us all ... to
+work ... to pick up your work again, you know."
+
+"Yes, just so."
+
+"And then, gradually, to let things _come_ ... as you say.... Would it
+upset you very much if she and Erzeele...."
+
+"Yes. Because I should then feel my shortcomings towards her still more
+strongly.... And also because of my children."
+
+"Perhaps things will come right, later, my boy."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Take it all calmly now ... and don't worry. And just do your work here
+quietly."
+
+"Yes, Father.... Oh, I feel that you are my father!"
+
+"Perhaps for the first time!... A different part for your old ruffian of
+a father!"
+
+"You're not an old ruffian, you're...."
+
+Addie stood up and embraced his father.
+
+"Don't squeeze the breath out of my body!" said Van der Welcke. "You're
+strong enough still. And you're looking well too. Your eyes look
+interested again, even though they're a bit too pensive. And they were
+always calm.... Did you have an interesting time abroad?"
+
+"I saw a great deal of misery ... but also a great deal of
+good-will...."
+
+"That's it: do what you can here, just simply, in your own surroundings.
+Oh, my dear chap, how glad I am that you're back!"
+
+Gerdy looked in at the door:
+
+"May we _never_ come in?... Uncle Henri, you're being selfish about
+Addie!..."
+
+"You may come in, dear."
+
+Addie took her hands:
+
+"Will you be strong, Gerdy?"
+
+She sobbed and laughed through her tears:
+
+"I have tried to be all the time, Addie," she whispered. "But for
+you...."
+
+"You know, life isn't _all_ your first suffering."
+
+"No, so you've told me."
+
+"And you must believe it.... It will help you.... You have such a long
+future before you."
+
+"Yes. Oh, Addie, Addie, but for you...."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I should have died! I have suffered so, I have suffered so!"
+
+"And you see so much suffering around you.... But life...."
+
+"Isn't all your first suffering ... as you say."
+
+"And you must believe it."
+
+"Yes, I'll try."
+
+Constance entered:
+
+"Am I to see nothing of my boy this evening?" she asked, banteringly.
+
+He took her in a clinging embrace:
+
+"You've got him home for good now."
+
+She gave a sob:
+
+"My poor child ... then I haven't lost you?"
+
+"Lost me? Why?"
+
+"A son...."
+
+"You've always been afraid ... of losing me. But you never have lost
+me."
+
+"No, never.... Tell me, dear, am I to blame? I am to blame, am I not?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"About Mathilde."
+
+"No, you're not to blame.... But, _if_ she comes back, later, with the
+children, Mamma, let us try...."
+
+"Yes, dear, yes."
+
+"We will, won't we? We must try ... to bring ourselves into harmony with
+her as far as possible...."
+
+"Yes, yes, I will try."
+
+"And all of us."
+
+"Yes, all of us."
+
+"That's so, Gerdy, isn't it? We must all...."
+
+"What did you say, Addie?"
+
+"I was saying, Gerdy, _if_ Mathilde comes back, later on...."
+
+"Yes...."
+
+"Would you be willing to try ... with all of us, with Papa and Mamma,
+with every one of us ... to get into harmony with her as far as
+possible, so that she...."
+
+"Yes, oh, Addie, yes! I'll try!"
+
+"You will?"
+
+"Oh, yes!... If she comes back, I'll try, Addie, I'll try."
+
+"My dear, listen to it blowing."
+
+"That's _our_ wind, Mamma."
+
+"Yes, always."
+
+Marietje and Adeletje had now gone into the dining-room; Adeline and
+Emilie came after them.
+
+"Why is it so dark in there?" asked Marietje.
+
+"Grandmamma's taking a nap."
+
+"We must take her to bed," said Constance.
+
+Adeletje turned up the gas.
+
+"Auntie!" cried Marietje, in alarm.
+
+"What is it, dear?"
+
+"Oh, Auntie, Auntie ... come here!"
+
+Constance came in, with Addie and Gerdy.
+
+"Is Grandmamma ... is Grandmamma...?" stammered Marietje, aghast.
+
+They all looked at the old woman. She was sitting as usual, sitting
+quietly in her big chair, with her veined and wrinkled hands folded in
+her black lap. Her head hung back, framed white in her white hair. All
+knowledge was hers now; and her old mouth smiled because of it,
+encouragingly....
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. ADRIAAN***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 34761.txt or 34761.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/4/7/6/34761
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+