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The Twilight of the Souls 
 

 THE BOOKS OF THE 
 
 
 SMALL SOULS 
 
 
 By 
 
 LOUIS COUPERUS 
 
 Translated by 
 ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA de MATTOS 
 
 I. 
 
 SMALL SOULS. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE LATER LIFE. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 DR. ADRIAAN. 
 
 \Later. 
 
THE TWILIGHT 
 OF THE SOULS 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS COUPERUS 
 
 Author of "Small Souls, " M The Later Life," etc. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 
Copyright, 1917. 
 By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. 
 
/in 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 
 
 This is the third of the novels known as The Book of the 
 Small Souls and is by some considered the greatest of the 
 series. Be this as it may— and I confess that personally I like 
 Small Souls the best— it is, beyond dispute, one of the most 
 masterly and striking stories that this generation has produced. 
 
 It can be read separately and independently, but will be 
 enjoyed more fully by those who are familiar with Small Souls 
 and The Later Life. The series will conclude with the next 
 volume, which, in the English version, will be entitled Dr. 
 Adriaan. 
 
 Alexander Teixeira de Mattos 
 Harrogate, io August, 191 7 
 
 370050 
 
The Twilight of the Souls 
 
- — £.- 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 When Gerrit woke that morning, his head felt 
 misty and tired, as though weighed down by a 
 mountain landscape, by a whole stack of mist-mount- 
 ains that bore heavily upon his brain. His eyes 
 remained closed; and, though he was waking, his 
 nightmare still seemed to cast an after-shadow : a 
 nightmare that he was being crushed by great rocky 
 avalanches, which he felt pressing deep down inside 
 his head, though he was conscious that the red 
 dayligh*- was already dawning through his closed 
 eyelids. He lay there, big and burly, sprawling in 
 his bed, beside Adeline's empty bed: he felt that 
 her bed was empty, that there was no one in the 
 room. The curtains had been drawn back, but the 
 blinds were still down. And, though he was awake, 
 his eyelids remained closed and through them he 
 saw only the red of the daylight as through two 
 pink shells: it seemed as if he would never be able 
 to lift those two leaden lids from his eyes. 
 
 This after-weariness flowed slowly through his 
 great, burly body. He felt physically rotten and 
 did not quite know why. The day before, he had 
 merely dined with some brother-officers at the 
 restaurant of the Scheveningen Kurhaus: a farewell 
 
2 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 dinner to one of their number who was being trans- 
 ferred to Venlo; and the dinner had been a long 
 one; there was a good deal of champagne drunk 
 afterwards; and they had gone on gaily to make 
 a night of it. One or two of the married ones had 
 refused, good-naturedly, but had come along all the 
 same, so as not to spoil sport; Gerrit had come too, 
 in his genial way. At last, he had decided that that 
 was about enough and that the road which the 
 others were taking was not his road : he was one of 
 your sensible, moderate people, who never went to 
 extremes; he was very fond of his little wife; indeed, 
 he already felt some compunction at the idea of 
 perhaps waking her at that time of night, when 
 he went into the bedroom, after undressing. As 
 a matter of fact, she did wake; but he had at once 
 reassured her with his gruff, good-natured voice 
 and she had gone to sleep again. He had stayed 
 awake a long time, lying there with wide-open eyes, 
 angry at not being able to sleep, at having forgotten 
 how to take a glass of wine with the rest. At last, 
 in the small hours, when it was quite light, he had 
 slowly dozed off into a misty dreamland; and 
 gradually the mists had turned into solid land- 
 scapes, had become a stack of heavy mountains, 
 which pressed heavily upon his brain until they 
 crumbled down in rocky avalanches. 
 
 Now, at last, he shook off the strange heaviness, 
 took his bath; and, when he saw himself naked — 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 3 
 
 that expanse of clean, white skin, the great body 
 built on heavy, sinewy lines, a good-looking, fair- 
 haired chap still, despite his eight-and-forty years — - 
 he wondered that he sometimes had those queer 
 moody fits, like a lady's lap-dog. And now, as he 
 squeezed the streaming water over himself out of 
 the great sponge, he tried to pooh-pooh those moody 
 fits, shrugged his shoulders at them, muttering to 
 himself as he kept on squeezing the sponge, squeez- 
 ing out the water until it splashed and spattered 
 all around him. He had the sensation of washing 
 the inertia from him; he drew a deep breath, flung 
 out his chest, felt his strength returning and, still 
 naked, took his dumb-bells and worked away with 
 them, proud of a pair of biceps that were like two 
 rolling cannon-balls. His eyes recovered their 
 usual jovial expression, which also played around 
 his fair moustache with a roguish sparkle, as of 
 inward mockery; the wrinkles vanished from his 
 forehead, which was gradually acquiring a loftier 
 arch as the crop of fair hair on his head diminished; 
 and the blood seemed to be flowing normally 
 through his big body, after the bath and the five 
 minutes' exercise, for his cheeks, now shaved, became 
 tinged with an almost pink flush. And he simply 
 could not make up his mind to dress: he looked at 
 himself, at his big, strong, clean body, which he 
 kneaded yet once more, as proud of his muscles as 
 a woman of her graceful figure. 
 
 
4 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 Then he quickly put on his uniform and went 
 downstairs to breakfast. The children surrounded 
 him instantly; and he at once felt himself the father, 
 full of a father's affection, passionately fond as he 
 was of his children. He was only just in time to 
 see Alex and Guy go off with their satchels: the 
 school was close by and they went by themselves, 
 two sturdy little fellows of nine and seven; but the 
 other children, all except the eldest, Marietje, who 
 was also at school, were eating their bread-and- 
 butter at the round table, while Adeline sat in front 
 of her tea-tray. And Gerrit, in the little dining-room, 
 at the round table, felt himself become normal 
 again, quite normal, because of his wife and his 
 children. 
 
 The dining-room was small and very simply fur- 
 nished, containing only what was strictly necessary. 
 Adeline, now thirty-two, looked older : a plump little 
 mother, with not much to say for herself, full of 
 little cares for her little brood; and Gerrit, noisy 
 and clamorous, filling the whole little room with 
 the gay thunder of his drill-sergeant's voice, was 
 full of incessant jokes and fun. There were half- 
 a-dozen younger ones round the table: two girls, 
 Adeletje and Gerdy; three boys: Constant, Jan and 
 Piet; and the latest baby, a girl, Klaasje. Gerrit 
 had given the youngest three their names, in his 
 annoyance at the high-sounding names of the others : 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 5 
 
 Alexander, Guy, Geraldine, christened after Ade- 
 line's family, while Marie and Constant were called 
 after Mamma and Papa van Lowe. 
 
 11 Look here, not so many of those grand names,'* 
 Gerrit had said, when Jan was coming. 
 
 And, after Klaasje ' — a name which the whole 
 family considered hideous — Gerrit said: 
 
 " If we have another, it shall be called after me, 
 Gerrit, 2 whether it's a boy or a girl." 
 
 41 Gertrude, surely, if it's a girl?" Adeline had 
 suggested. 
 
 44 No," said Gerrit, 44 she shall be Gerrit all the 
 same." 
 
 Gerrit's manias were Mamma van Lowe's de- 
 spair; but so far there had been no question of a 
 grand-daughter Gerrit. 
 
 Gerrit had no favourites. His long arms swung 
 round as many children as he could get hold of 
 and he drew them on his knees, between his knees, 
 almost under his feet; and by some miraculous 
 chance he had never broken an arm or leg of any 
 of them, so that Adeline and the children them- 
 selves were never afraid and only Mamma van 
 Lowe, when she witnessed Gerrit's embraces, went 
 through a thousand terrors. And to the children 
 the joy of life seemed to be embodied in their 
 father, a joy which they soon came to picture in- 
 stinctively as a tall man, an hussar, with a loud voice 
 
 1 Nicolcttc. ' Gerard. 
 
6 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 and any number of jokes, a pair of high riding- 
 boots and a clanking sword. 
 
 Gerdy was a tiny child of seven, who loved being 
 petted; and, as soon as she saw Gerrit, she hung 
 on to him, nestled on his knees, rubbed her head 
 against the braid of his uniform, tugged at his 
 moustache, dug her little fists into his eyes. Or else 
 she would throw her arms round his neck and stay 
 like that, quietly looking at the others, because she 
 had taken possession of Papa, 
 
 This time too she left her chair, crept under the 
 table, climbed on Gerrit's knees and ate out of his 
 plate, although Adeline tried to prevent her. 
 Gerrit ate his breakfast, with Gerdy on his lap ; and 
 the childish voices twittered all around him, like 
 the voices of so many little birds. And this twitter- 
 ing produced a brightness in his heart, so that he 
 began to smile and then to poke fun at Klaasje, the 
 baby in her baby-chair, sitting beside him rather 
 stupidly. Klaasje, who did not talk much yet, was 
 still a little backward and just fretted and whim- 
 pered. 
 
 Latterly, he had felt a strange pitying tenderness 
 when he looked at his children, as though surprised 
 at all this dainty, flaxen life which he had created, he 
 who had always said: 
 
 "Children are what you want; without children 
 you have no life; without children nothing remains 
 of you; children carry you on." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 7 
 
 He had married, fairly late, a very young wife; 
 and that had been the reason of his marriage, the 
 root-idea: to beget children, as many children as 
 possible, because it seemed to him a dismal thought 
 that nothing of him should survive. And now, 
 when he looked around him, now that Marietje, 
 Adeletje and Alex were twelve and ten and nine, 
 he sometimes had, deep down in his heart, a 
 strange feeling of wonder and pity, even of sad- 
 ness, as though the thought had suddenly come to 
 him: 
 
 44 Where do they all come from and why are 
 they all round me? 1 ' 
 
 A strange, wondering astonishment, as though 
 at the riddle of childbirth, the secret of human life, 
 which suddenly became impenetrable to him, the 
 father and husband. Then he would give a furtive 
 glance to see if he could discover that same won- 
 dering astonishment in Adeline; but no, she quietly 
 went her way, the gentle, fair-haired little mother, 
 the domesticated little wife, very simple in soul and 
 limited in mind, who had quietly, as a duty, borne 
 her husband her fair-haired children and was 
 bringing them up as she thought was right. No, 
 he noticed nothing in her and he was the more sur- 
 prised, because, after all, she was the mother and 
 therefore ought really to have felt that strange 
 thrill of wonder even more than he did. 
 
 " And all these are my children," he thought. 
 
8 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 And, while he boisterously tickled Gerdy and 
 pretended to eat up Klaasje's bread-and-butter, like 
 the great tease that he was, he thought: 
 
 " Now these are all my children and Adeline's 
 children." 
 
 And he was filled with wonder as he saw them 
 around him, the pretty, flaxen-haired children: the 
 wonder of an artist at his work, wonder such as 
 a sculptor might feel on contemplating his statue, 
 or a writer reading his book, or a composer 
 listening to his melodies, a simple, wondering 
 astonishment that he should have made all that, 
 a wondering astonishment at his own power and 
 strength. ■ 
 
 And then, in the midst of his astonishment, he 
 suddenly grew frightened, frightened at having 
 heedless begotten so much life simply because he 
 had been depressed by the thought that, if he had 
 no children, nothing of him would survive after his 
 death. Yes, they would survive him now, his 
 children, his flaxen-haired little tribe, his nine; life 
 would scatter them, the little brothers and sisters 
 who were now all there together like little birds in 
 the nest of the parental house, sheltered by father 
 and mother; and what would they be like, what 
 would their life be, what their sorrow, what their 
 joy, when he himself, their father, was old or dead? 
 He was afraid; a terror shot through him strangely 
 enough at that breakfast-table where he sat eating 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 9 
 
 with Gerdy out of one plate and teasing little Jan 
 with his jokes, which made the boy crow aloud. 
 And the strangest thing to him was that no one 
 should suspect what he was thinking, that it was 
 hidden from them all, from Adeline, from his 
 mother, his brothers and sisters, because in appear- 
 ance he was a great robust fellow, a sort of Goth, 
 a civilized barbarian, with his flaxen head and his 
 white, sinewy body, devoted to sport and racing, 
 revelling in his work as an officer; outwardly almost 
 commonplace, with his solid, healthy normality; loud 
 of voice, a little vulgar in his jests, even exag- 
 gerating his noisiness and vulgarity out of a sort 
 of bravado, an instinctive desire to hide his real 
 self. Yes, that was it: he hid himself, he was 
 invisible; nobody saw him, nobody knew him: not 
 his wife, nor his family, nor his friends; nobody 
 knew him in those strange fits of giddiness and 
 faintness which suddenly seemed to empty his brain, 
 as though all the blood were flowing out of it; 
 nobody knew the secret of his temperateness, the 
 hidden weakness that would not even allow him 
 to take two glasses of champagne without that hor- 
 rible congestion at his temples which made him feel 
 as if his head were bursting; nobody, not even the 
 wife at his side, knew of that heavy, oppressive 
 nightmare which came to him when, after lying 
 awake for hours, he dozed off, that nightmare of 
 piled-up mountains and rocky avalanches weighing 
 
io THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 upon his brain; nobody knew of his fears and 
 anxieties about his children, while outwardly he was 
 the gay, jovial father, " a healthy brute," as some 
 of his brother-officers had called him. 
 
 Sometimes, he had silently thought of the desig- 
 nation and smiled at it, because he knew himself 
 to be neither a brute nor healthy. Gradually, al- 
 most mechanically, he had gone on showing that 
 unreal side, posing successfully as the strong man, 
 with cast-iron muscles and a simple, cast-iron con- 
 ception of life : to be a good husband, a good father 
 and a good officer; while inwardly he was gnawed 
 by a queer monster that devoured his marrow: he 
 sometimes pictured it as a worm with legs. A great, 
 fat worm, you know; a beastly crawling thing, 
 which rooted with its legs in his carcase, which 
 lived in his back and slowly ate him up, year by 
 year, the damned rotten thing! Of course, it wasn't 
 a worm: he knew that, he knew it wasn't a worm, 
 a worm with legs; but it was just like it, you know, 
 just like a worm, a centipede, rooting away in his 
 back. Then he felt himself all over, proud not- 
 withstanding of his sound limbs, his well-trained, 
 supple muscles, his youthful appearance, though he 
 was no longer so very young; and then it seemed to 
 him incomprehensible that it could be as it was, that 
 that confounded centipede could keep worrying 
 through those limbs, at those muscles, right into 
 the marrow of his strong body. Nothing on earth 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS n 
 
 would ever have induced him to see a doctor about 
 it: he took walking-exercise, horse-exercise, rode at 
 the head of his squadron; and the brazen blare of 
 the trumpets, the dull thud of the horses* hoofs, 
 the sight of his hussars — his lads — would make him 
 really happy, would make him forget the con- 
 founded centipede for a morning. As he sat his 
 horse, with head erect, twisting his fair moustache 
 above his curved lip, a burly, straight-backed figure, 
 he would say to himself: 
 
 M Come, get rid of all those tom-fool ideas and be 
 a man — d'ye hear? — not a nervy, hypochondriacal 
 girl. You and your centipede! Rot! I just had 
 a peg yesterday; and that, damn it, is what I 
 mustn't do: no peg at all, not one! . . . Perhaps 
 not even any wine at all . . . and then not more 
 than one cigar after dinner. . . . But, you see, 
 giving up drinking, giving up smoking: that's the 
 difficulty. ..." 
 
 Gerrit had just finished his breakfast and was 
 putting little Gerdy down, when there was a violent 
 ring at the front-door bell. Adeline gave a start; 
 the children shouted and laughed: 
 
 44 Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling! " cried little 
 Piet, mimicking the sound with his mug against his 
 plate. 
 
 44 Hush ! " said Adeline, turning pale. She had 
 seen Dorine through the window, walking up and 
 down outside the door excitedly, waiting for it to 
 
12 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 be opened. " Hush, it's Auntie Dorine. ... I 
 do hope there's nothing wrong at Grand- 
 mamma's! . .. •" 
 
 But now the maid had opened the door and 
 Dorine rushed into the room excitedly, perspiring 
 under her straw hat, with a face as red as fire. 
 She was in a furious temper; and it was impossible 
 at first to make out what she said: 
 
 "Just think . . . just think ..'..;■'." 
 
 She could not get her words out; the passion 
 of rage seething inside her made her incapable of 
 speaking; moreover, she was out of breath, because 
 she had been walking very fast. Her hair, which 
 was beginning early to turn grey, stuck out in rat- 
 tails from under her sailor-hat, which bobbed up 
 and down on her head; her clothes looked even 
 more carelessly flung on than usual; and her eyes 
 blinked with a look of angry malevolence, a look 
 of spite and discontent gleaming through tears of 
 annoyance. 
 
 "Just think . . . just think ..." 
 
 " Come, Sissy, calm yourself and tell us what's 
 the matter ! " said Gerrit, admonishing her in a 
 good-natured, paternal, jovial fashion. 
 
 "Well then — just think — that horrible creature 
 came to Mamma first thing this morning . . . and 
 made a scene . . ." 
 
 "What horrible creature?" 
 
 "Why, are you all deaf? Via telling you, I 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 13 
 
 began by telling you: Miss Velders, the creature 
 who keeps the rooms where Ernst lives . . . came 
 and made a frightful scene . . . and upset 
 Mamma awfully . . . and Mamma sent for me. 
 Why me? Why always me? What can I do? 
 I'm not a man! Why not Karel? Why not you? 
 . . . Oh dear no: Mamma of course sent for 
 me! . . . Off I went to Mamma's, found Mamma 
 quite ill, that horrible creature there. . . . Then 
 I went off with Miss Velders . . . first to Karel's 
 . . . but Karel was absolutely indifferent ... a 
 selfish pig, a selfish pig: that's what Karel is. . . . 
 Miss Velders had to go home. . . . Then I went 
 off to Ernst . . . and, when I had seen him, I 
 came on to you. . . . Gerrit, you're a man . . . 
 you know about things, you know what to do; I'm 
 a woman . . . and I do not know what's to be 
 done!" 
 
 Her voice was now a wail and she burst into 
 tears. 
 
 44 But, Sissy, I don't yet know what's happened ! " 
 said Gerrit, quietly. 
 
 44 Why, Ernst, I'm telling you . . . Ernst, I'm 
 telling you ..." 
 
 44 What about him?" 
 
 44 He's mad!" 
 
 "He's mad?" 
 
 44 Yes, he's mad ! . . . He wanted to go out 
 into the street last night: he's mad! ..." 
 
i 4 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 Adeline had rung for the nurse, who took the 
 children away. 
 
 "He's mad?" Gerrit repeated, passing his 
 hand over his forehead. 
 
 " He's mad," Dorine repeated. "He's mad. 
 He's mad." 
 
 " Oh, well," said Gerrit, in a vague, conciliatory 
 tone, w Ernst is always queer ! " 
 
 " But now he's mad, I tell you ! " Dorine 
 screamed, in a shrill voice. " If you don't believe 
 me, go and see him. Don't you see, something's 
 got to be done ! I, I don't know what. I'm a 
 woman, do you hear, and I'm utterly unnerved 
 myself. Why didn't Mamma send for you at 
 once? Why me? Why me? And Karel . . . 
 Karel is a nincompoop. Karel at once said that 
 he had a cold, that he couldn't go out. Karel? 
 Karel's a nincompoop. ... A cold, indeed! A 
 cold, when your brother's gone mad all of a sud- 
 den! ..." 
 
 " But, when you say mad ... is he really 
 mad?" asked Gerrit, doubtfully. 
 
 " Well, go and see him for yourself," said 
 Dorine, fixing her irritated gaze full on Gerrit. 
 "You go and see him for yourself; and, when 
 you've seen him as I've seen him . . . then you 
 won't ask me if he's mad. ..." 
 
 " All right," said Gerrit. " I'll go at once. I 
 must look in at barracks first and then ..." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 15 
 
 u Oh, you must look in at barracks first," said 
 Dorine, angrily. M Of course you must look in at 
 barracks first. And then, if you have a moment 
 to spare ..." 
 
 11 I can go from here," said Gerrit, dejectedly. 
 11 Are you coming? " 
 
 44 1 ? " screamed Dorine. " Do you think Vm 
 going back with you? No, thank you. I've 
 told Mamma, I've told you and now I'm 
 going home to bed. For, if I'm not careful 
 and go trotting about wherever you send me, I 
 shall go off my head myself. ... I? I'm going 
 to bed. ..." 
 
 She rose, walked round the table, sat down again; 
 and suddenly her voice changed, tears of pity came 
 into her eyes and she wailed: 
 
 "Poor Mamma! She's quite ill. . . . What an 
 idea of that horrible creature's, to go running 
 straight to Mamma. Why frighten her like that? 
 Why not first have told one of us? . . . I'll just 
 go round to Constance . . . and to Adolphine: 
 then they can console Mamma a bit. . . . You 
 call in at Paul's on your way: he may be able to 
 help you, if there's anything to be done. . . . But, 
 after that, I'm going home to bed." 
 
 14 Yes," said Gerrit, " I'll go now." 
 
 And then at once he began to hesitate: ought 
 he not to go to barracks first? Should he go first 
 to Paul ... or straight to Ernst? He went into 
 
1 6 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 the passage, strapped on his sword, put on his cap. 
 Dorine followed him out: 
 
 "So you're going to him? Well, when youVe 
 seen him . ... . you won't ask me again if he's 
 mad." 
 
 And she made a rush for the front-door. 
 
 "Dorine ..." 
 
 " No, thank you," she said, excitedly. " I'm 
 going to Constance; to Adolphine . . . and then 
 . . . then I shall go home to bed." 
 
 She had opened the door and, in another mo- 
 ment, she was gone. Gerrit saw Adeline weeping, 
 wringing her hands in terror: 
 
 44 Oh, Gerrit!" 
 
 44 Come, come, I don't expect it's so very bad. 
 Ernst has always been queer." 
 
 44 1 shall go to Mamma, Gerrit." 
 
 44 Yes, darling, but don't make her nervous. Tell 
 her that I'm on my way to Ernst and that I don't 
 believe he's so bad as all that. Dorine always 
 exaggerates and she hasn't told us what Ernst is 
 like. . . . There, good-bye, darling, and don't cry. 
 Ernst has always been queer." 
 
 He flung his great-coat over his shoulders, for 
 the weather was like November, cold and wet. 
 Outside, the pelting rain beat against his face; and 
 he saw Dorine ahead of him, wobbling down the 
 street under her umbrella, with that angry, strad- 
 dling walk of hers. She turned out of the 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 17 
 
 Bankastraat on the left, into the Kerkhoflaan, on 
 her way to Constance. He took the tram and, in 
 spite of the rain, stood on the platform, with his 
 military great-coat flapping round his burly figure, 
 because he was stifling, as with a painful congestion, 
 and felt his veins, surfeited with blood, hammering 
 at his temples: 
 
 41 That confounded champagne last night !" he 
 thought. " I don't feel clear in my head. . . . I'd 
 better go to Paul first. . . . Yes, I'd better go to 
 Paul first. ... Or ... or shall I go straight 
 to Ernst? ..." 
 
 He did not know what to decide and yet he had 
 to make up his mind while his tram was going along 
 the Dennenweg, for Ernst lived in the Nieuwe 
 Uitleg. But, because he did not know, he remained 
 on the tram, on the platform, with his back bent 
 under the pelting rain; and it was not until he 
 reached the Houtstraat that he jumped down, his 
 sword clanking between his legs. 
 
 Paul lived in rooms above a hosier's shop. 
 Gerrit found his brother still in bed: 
 
 44 Ernst is mad," he said, at once. 
 
 44 He's always been that," replied Paul, yawning. 
 
 44 Yes, but ... it appears that he's absolutely 
 mad now," said Gerrit. 
 
 He felt so seedy and heavy-witted that he could 
 hardly speak: his swollen tongue lolled between his 
 teeth. However, he told Paul about Dorine's visit: 
 
1 8 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " We must go on to Ernst, Paul, and see how 
 much there is in it." 
 
 Paul was listening now: 
 
 " Ye-es," he drawled. " But I must dress myself 
 first. You see, the curious thing about this world 
 is that, whatever happens, we have first to dress 
 ourselves . . ."• 
 
 " I was dressed," laughed Gerrit. 
 
 44 Oh, really! " said Paul, amiably. "Well, that 
 was lucky." 
 
 There was a note of sarcasm in his tone which 
 escaped Gerrit, in his dull condition. 
 
 Paul, stretching himself, decided to get up. And 
 for a moment he remained standing in front of 
 Gerrit, in his pink pyjamas: 
 
 " Do you think Ernst is really mad? " he asked. 
 
 " Perhaps it's not so bad as that," Gerrit ven- 
 tured. 
 
 " Everybody is a little mad," said Paul. 
 
 " Oh, I say!" said Gerrit, in an offended 
 voice. 
 
 " No, not you," said Paul, genially. " Not you 
 or I. But everybody else has a tile loose. I'm 
 going to have my bath." 
 
 11 Don't be long." 
 
 " All right." 
 
 Paul disappeared in his little bathroom; and 
 Gerrit, who was suffocating, flung open the windows, 
 so that the bedroom suddenly became filled with 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 19 
 
 the patter of the summer rain. And Gerrit looked 
 around him. He had hardly ever been here, at 
 Paul's; and he was now struck by the exquisite tidi- 
 ness of the rooms. Paul had a bedroom, a sitting- 
 room and a dressing-room in which he had installed 
 his tub. 
 
 k What a tidy beggar he is! " thought Gerrit and 
 looked around him. 
 
 The bedroom was small and contained nothing but 
 a brass bedstead, a walnut looking-glass wardrobe, 
 a walnut table and two chairs. There was not a 
 single object lying about. The pillows on the bed 
 showed just the faintest impress of Paul's head; 
 the bed-clothes he had thrown well back, when he 
 got up, very neatly, as though to avoid creasing 
 them. 
 
 Gerrit heard the ripple of water in the dressing- 
 room. It was as if Paul were squeezing out the 
 sponge with exquisite precaution, so as not to 
 splash a single drop outside his tub. The bath 
 lasted a long time. Then all was silence. 
 
 " Can't you hurry a bit?" cried Gerrit, impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 " All right," Paul called back, in placid tones. 
 
 "What are you up to? I don't hear you 
 moving." 
 
 M I'm doing my feet." 
 
 " My dear fellow, can't you get on a bit faster? 
 Or shall I go on?" 
 
2o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " No, no, I wouldn't miss going with you. But 
 I must get dressed first, mustn't I? " 
 
 " But can't you make haste about it?" 
 
 14 Very well, I'll hurry." 
 
 There came a few sharp, ticking sounds as of 
 scissors and nail-files that were being put down on 
 the ringing marble. Gerrit breathed again. But, 
 when everything became silent once more, Gerrit, 
 after an interval, cried: 
 
 "Paul!" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Will you soon be ready now?" 
 
 " Yes, yes, but don't be impatient. I'm shaving. 
 You wouldn't have me cut myself? " 
 
 " No, of course not. But we must look sharp : 
 you don't know what sort of state Ernst may be in." 
 
 Paul did not answer; and Gerrit heard nothing 
 more, except the swish of the rain. He heaved a 
 deep sigh, moved about restlessly, stretching out 
 his long legs. After some minutes, which seemed 
 hours to Gerrit, Paul opened the door, but closed 
 it again at once: 
 
 "Gerrit, will you please shut the window!" he 
 cried, angrily. 
 
 Gerrit fastened the window; the rain no longer 
 pattered into the room. Paul now came in: he 
 was in a sleeveless flannel vest and knitted-silk 
 drawers; a pair of striped socks clung tightly to his 
 ankles; his feet were in slippers. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 21 
 
 11 Good Lord, my dear chap, have you only got 
 as far as that?" asked Gerrit, irritably. 
 
 Paul looked at him, a little superciliously: 
 
 " No doubt you fling yourself into your uniform 
 in three minutes; but I can't do that. Since 
 one has to dress one's self and can't just shake 
 one's feathers like a bird, I at least want to 
 dress myself with care . . . for otherwise I feel 
 disgusting." 
 
 44 But do remember ... if Ernst ..." 
 
 11 Ernst won't go any madder than he is because 
 I dress myself properly and keep you waiting a 
 quarter of an hour longer. I can't dress any 
 quicker." 
 
 44 Because you don't choose to!" 
 
 " Because I don't choose to?" retorted Paul, 
 pale with indignation. " Because I don't choose 
 to? Because I can't. I can't do it. Do you want 
 me to go as I am? In my drawers? Very well; 
 then send for a cab. I'll go like this, just as I am. 
 But, if you want me to dress myself, you must have 
 a little patience." 
 
 44 Oh, all right! " Gerrit sighed, wearily. 44 Oof! 
 Get on with your dressing." 
 
 Paul opened a door of his wardrobe. Gerrit 
 saw his shirts lying very neatly arranged, coloured 
 shirts and white shirts. Paul stood hesitating for 
 a moment, looked out of the window at the rain 
 and at last selected from the coloured stack a shirt 
 
22 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 with black stripes. He put the stack straight and 
 hunted for his studs in his jewel-case. 
 
 " How much longer will you be? " asked Gerrit. 
 
 " Ten minutes," said Paul, lying angrily, though 
 he was inwardly delighted to make Gerrit lose his 
 temper. 
 
 He found a set of niello studs and links that 
 went well with the black-striped shirt and de- 
 liberately and neatly put them into the front and 
 cuffs. 
 
 Gerrit rose impatiently and walked up and down 
 the room. Through the open partition-door, he 
 saw the bathroom and was surprised to find every- 
 thing tidied up, with not a drop of water anywhere. 
 
 "Do you do your wash-hand-stand yourself?" 
 asked Gerrit, in amazement. 
 
 " Of course," said Paul, who was now getting 
 into his shirt. " Did you think I left that to the 
 servant? Never! She has nothing to do but empty 
 my slop-pail. I do my tub, my basin, my soap- 
 trays, everything myself. I have separate cloths 
 for everything: there they are, hanging on a rail. 
 The world is dirty enough as it is, however tidy 
 one may be." 
 
 " In that case," said Gerrit, astounded, " you 
 haven't been so long after all ! " 
 
 " It's method," replied Paul, airily, though se- 
 cretly flattered by Gerrit's remark. "When you 
 have method, nothing takes long." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 23 
 
 And, basking in Gerrit's praise, he rang, while 
 pulling on his trousers, and told the maid to bring 
 his breakfast: 
 
 11 I'll only take a hurried bite," he said, amiably, 
 just bending the points of his stand-up collar at 
 the tips. 
 
 Then he picked out a tie, in a large Japanese 
 box. 
 
 u By Jove, what a number of ties you have ! M 
 
 11 Yes, I have a lot of them/' said Paul, proudly. 
 " They're my only luxury." 
 
 And in fact, when the maid pushed back the 
 folding-doors, revealing the sitting-room, which 
 Paul, loathing other people's furniture, had fur- 
 nished himself, in addition to his other two rooms, 
 Gerrit was struck with the plainness of it: com- 
 fortable, but exceedingly simple. 
 
 11 I adore pretty things," said Paul, " just as 
 much as our mad Ernst. But I can't afford them: 
 I haven't the money." 
 
 11 Why, you have the same income that he 
 has." 
 
 44 Yes, but he doesn't dress. To dress yourself 
 well is expensive." 
 
 Paul's dressing was now finished; and he had 
 turned up the bottoms of his trousers very high, 
 showing nearly the whole of his well-cut button- 
 boots. He merely drank a cup of tea, ate a piece 
 of dry bread. 
 
24 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Butter's so greasy," he said, " when youVe just 
 brushed your teeth." 
 
 And he went back to his bathroom to rinse his 
 mouth once more. 
 
 He was ready now, took his umbrella and fol- 
 lowed Gerrit down the stairs. Gerrit opened the 
 door. 
 
 " What beastly weather ! " growled Paul, furi- 
 ously, in the passage. 
 
 He drew his umbrella carefully out of its case, 
 while Gerrit was already outside, with his blue 
 military coat flapping round his shoulders, because 
 he had not put his arms through the sleeves. 
 
 "What a filthy mess!" raved Paul. "This 
 damned, rotten mud! " he cursed, pale with rage. 
 
 He had folded up the umbrella-case and slipped 
 it into his pocket and was now opening his um- 
 brella : he seemed to fear that it would get wet. 
 
 " Come on ! " he said, seething with inward rage. 
 
 And, taking a desperate resolve, he stepped 
 aside, fiercely slammed the front-door and carefully 
 placed his feet upon the pavement: 
 
 " We'll wait for the tram," he said. 
 
 He glared at the rain from under his umbrella: 
 
 "What a dirty sky! " he grumbled, while Gerrit 
 paced up and down, only half-listening to what 
 Paul said. "What a damned dirty sky! Dirty 
 rain, filthy streets, mud, nothing but mud. The 
 whole world is mud. Properly speaking, everything 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 25 
 
 is mud. Heavens, will the world ever be clean and 
 the people in it clean: towns with clean streets, 
 people with clean bodies? At present, they're mud, 
 nothing but mud: their streets, their bodies and 
 their filthy souls! . . .." 
 
 The tram came and they had to get in ; and Paul, 
 in his heart of hearts, regretted this for, as long 
 as he had stood muttering under his umbrella, he 
 could still yield to his desire to go on raving, even 
 though Gerrit was not listening. They got out in 
 the Dennenweg; but by this time he had lost the 
 thread of his argument and moreover he had to 
 be careful not to step in the puddles: 
 
 44 Don't walk so fast ! " he said, crossly, to 
 Gerrit. 44 And mind where you walk: it's all 
 splashing around me.' 1 
 
 They were now in the Nieuwe Uitleg. That 
 ancient quarter was quite dark, soaked in the ever- 
 lasting rain that fell perpendicularly between the 
 trees, like curtains of violet beads, and clattered 
 into the canal. 
 
 44 Do you think he's really mad? " asked Gerrit, 
 nervously, as he rang the bell. 
 
 Paul shrugged his shoulders and looked down 
 at his trousers and boots. He was satisfied with 
 himself; he had walked very carefully: he had 
 hardly a single splash. A fat landlady opened the 
 door: 
 
 44 Ah ! . . . I'm glad you've come, gentlemen. 
 
26 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 . . . Meneer is quite calm now. . . . And have 
 you been to a doctor?" 
 
 "A doctor?" said Gerrit, startled. 
 
 "A doctor," thought Paul. " Just so: we've 
 been practical, as usual." 
 
 But he didn't say it. 
 
 They went upstairs. They found Ernst in his 
 dressing-gown; his black hair, which he wore long, 
 lay in tangled masses over his forehead. He did 
 not get up; he gazed at his two brothers with a 
 look of intense melancholy. He was now a man of 
 forty-three, but seemed older, his hair turning grey, 
 his appearance neglected, as though his shoulders 
 had sunk in, as though something were broken in 
 his spinal system. He did not appear very much 
 surprised at seeing the two of them; only his sad 
 eyes wandered from one to the other, scrutinizing 
 them suspiciously. 
 
 And all at once the two brothers did not know 
 what to say. Gerrit filled the room with his restless 
 movements and nearly knocked down a couple of 
 Delft jars with the skirts of his wet great-coat. 
 Paul was the first to speak: 
 
 "Aren't you well, Ernst?" 
 
 " I'm quite well." 
 
 "Then what is it?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "What was the matter with you last night?" 
 
 " Nothing. I was suffocating." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 27 
 
 "Are you better now?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He seemed to be speaking mechanically, under 
 the influence of the last glimmer of intelligence, for 
 his voice sounded uncertain and unreal, as though 
 he were not quite conscious of what he was 
 saying. 
 
 11 Come, old chap," said Gerrit, with good- 
 natured bluntness, laying his hand on Ernst's 
 shoulder. 
 
 As he did so, Ernst's expression changed; his 
 eyes lost their look of intense melancholy and 
 became hard, staring hard and black from their 
 sockets, like two black marbles. He had turned 
 his head in a stiff quarter-circle towards Gerrit; 
 and the hard gleam of those black marbles bored 
 into Gerrit's blue Norse eyes with such strange 
 fierceness that Gerrit started. And, under his 
 brother's big hand, which still lay on his shoulder, 
 Ernst's limp body seemed to be turned to stone, to 
 become rigid, hard as a rock. He stiffened his 
 lips, his arms, his legs and feet and remained like 
 that, motionless, evidently suffering physical and 
 moral torture, shrinking under the pressure of 
 Gerrit's hand, without knowing how to get rid of 
 that pressure. He remained motionless, stark; 
 every muscle was tense, every nerve quivered; Ernst 
 seemed to shrink and harden under Gerrit's touch 
 just as a caterpillar shrinks and becomes hard when 
 
28 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 it feels itself touched. As soon as Gerrit removed 
 his hand, the tension relaxed and Ernst's body hud- 
 dled together again, as though something had given 
 way in the spinal system. 
 
 u Ernst," said Paul, " wouldn't you do well to get 
 some sleep? " 
 
 " No," he said, " I won't go to bed again. There 
 are three of them under the bed." 
 
 "Three what?" 
 
 " Three. They're chained up." 
 
 " Chained up ? Who's chained up ? " 
 
 " Three. Three souls." 
 
 "Three souls?" 
 
 " Yes. The room's full of them. They are all 
 fastened to my soul. They are all riveted to my 
 soul. With chains. Sometimes they break loose. 
 But I was dragging two of them with me for ever 
 so long yesterday, in the street, over the cobble- 
 stones. They were in pain, they were crying. I 
 can hear them now in my ears, crying, crying. ... 
 There are three under the bed. They're asleep. 
 When I go to bed, they wake up and rattle their 
 chains. Let them sleep. They are tired, they are 
 unhappy. As long as they're asleep, they don't 
 know about it. ... I ... I can't sleep. I 
 haven't slept for weeks. They only sleep when 
 I'm awake. They're fastened to me. . . . Don't 
 you hear them? The room is full of them. They 
 belong to every age and period. I've gathered them 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 29 
 
 around me, collected them from every age and 
 period. They were hiding in the jars, in the old 
 books, in the old charts. I have some belonging to 
 the fourteenth century. They used to hide in the 
 family-papers. The first moment I saw them, they 
 rose up, the poor souls . . . with all their sins upon 
 them, all their past. They are suffering . . . they 
 are in purgatory. They chained themselves on to 
 me, because they know that I shall be kind to them 
 . . . and now they refuse to leave me. I drag 
 them with me wherever I go, wherever I stand, 
 wherever I sit. Their chains pull at my body. They 
 hurt me sometimes, but they can't help it. . . . 
 Last night . . . last night, the room was so full 
 of souls that there was a cloud of them all round 
 me; and I was suffocating. I wanted to go out, 
 but the landlady and her brother prevented me. 
 They are a miserable pair: they would have let me 
 die of suffocation. They are a pair of brutes too: 
 they tread on the poor souls. Do you hear . . . 
 on the stairs? Do you hear their feet? They are 
 treading on the souls. . . ." 
 
 Paul's face was white; and he said, nervously 
 trying to change the subject : 
 
 44 Have you seen Dorine this morning, Ernst?" 
 
 Ernst looked at his brother suspiciously: 
 
 44 No," he said, 4 ' I have not seen her." 
 
 44 She was here, wasn't she?" 
 
 14 No, I haven't seen her," he said, suspiciously; 
 
3 o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 and his eyes wandered round, as though he were 
 looking for something in the room. 
 
 The two brothers followed his gaze mechanically. 
 Everything about the large, comfortable sitting- 
 room suggested the man of taste and culture, of 
 quiet and introspective temperament, but acutely 
 sensitive to line and form. The sombreness of the 
 ceiling, wall-paper and carpet stood out against the 
 yet greater sombreness of old oak and old books; 
 and a very strange note of blue and other colours 
 was struck in the midst of it all by the pottery, 
 which was not all old, but included some examples 
 of more recent art. The modern harmonies of line 
 and the very latest discoveries in earthenware sud- 
 denly appeared with their weird flourishes in vases, 
 jars, pots, like enamelled flowers, from modern con- 
 servatories, that had sprung up in the shadows of 
 some old, dark forest. On the book-shelves too, 
 the brown leather bindings of the ancient folios 
 were relieved by the direct contact of the yellow 
 wrappers of the latest French literature or the 
 art-nouveau covers of the most modern Dutch 
 novels. This lonely, silent man, who walked shyly 
 through the streets, gliding along the walls of the 
 houses; who had no friends, no acquaintances; who 
 only on Sunday evenings — because he dared not 
 stay away, from a last remnant of respect for ma- 
 ternal authority — consented to suffer martyrdom 
 among the assembled members of his family, even 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 31 
 
 to the extent of taking a hand at bridge: this man 
 seemed, hidden from every one of them, to lead a 
 rich, abundant life, a secret, inner life, a life not of 
 one age but of many. Because he never spoke, they 
 looked upon him as a crank; but he had lived his 
 years abundantly. Had he filled his silent, uncom- 
 panioned loneliness too full with the ghosts of 
 literature, history and art? Had the ghosts loomed 
 up and come to life around him, in that dark and 
 gloomy room, where the old and modern porcelain 
 and earthenware glowed and rioted around him 
 with the haunting brilliancy of their colours and 
 glazes, of their tortured, gorgeous curves and 
 outlines? 
 
 The two brothers, who had come because they 
 thought their brother mad, looked round the room; 
 and to both of them the room also seemed mad. 
 To the captain of hussars, whose earlier depression 
 had passed off, who suddenly felt himself becoming 
 healthy and normal again as he listened to his 
 eccentric brother's ravings, the room became a de- 
 mented room, because it lacked a trophy of arms, 
 riding-whips, prints of horses and dogs and the 
 oleograph of a naked woman, bending backwards 
 and laughing. To the other brother the room also 
 seemed demented because here the vase was no 
 longer an ornament, because the vase had become 
 a morbid thing, like a many-coloured weed, grow- 
 ing in rank profusion among the dark shadows of 
 
32 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 the curtains and oak book-cases. To Paul the room 
 seemed demented because there was dust on the 
 books and because the basket full of torn paper 
 had not been emptied. But to both of them the 
 man Ernst himself seemed more demented than the 
 room: the man Ernst, their brother, an eccentric 
 fellow whom for years they had been compelled to 
 think " queer " because he was different from any 
 of them. When he confessed to them that his room 
 was full of souls, souls that hovered round him 
 like a cloud until he was on the point of suffocating, 
 souls that chained themselves to him and rattled 
 their chains, they thought that he was raving, that 
 he was stammering insane words. It was the view 
 of both of them, the view of normal, healthy men, 
 outwardly sane in their senses, in their gestures, 
 expression and language, because their gestures, 
 expression and language did not clash with those of 
 the people about them, whatever they might some- 
 times feel deep down in themselves. But to the 
 man himself, to Ernst, his own view was the normal, 
 the very ordinary view; and he thought his two 
 brothers Gerrit and Paul queer and eccentric be- 
 cause he was able, in his furtive way, to see that 
 neither of them noticed anything of the innumerable 
 souls, though these writhed so pitifully and 
 thronged so closely around him, as though he were 
 in purgatory. To him there was nothing mad or 
 insane in his room, in his words, or in any part of 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 33 
 
 him. He looked upon them as mad, he looked upon 
 himself as sensible. When, last night, he tried to go 
 out in his nightshirt, because the souls pressed upon 
 him until he felt as if he were suffocating in the 
 throng, he had simply wanted air, nothing but air, 
 had wanted to breathe without the discomfort of 
 clothes, coat or waistcoat, upon his chest; and he had 
 thought it quite, natural that he should go down- 
 stairs with a candle and try to open the door with 
 his key. Then the fat landlady and her lout of a 
 brother had heard him and had come upon him, 
 making a great to-do with their silly hands and 
 their loud voices; and the two, the fat landlady 
 and her lout of a brother, had stood there shouting 
 and gesticulating like a pair of lunatics while he 
 had already loosened the chain from the front- 
 door and felt the draught doing him so much good, 
 because it blew upon his bare flesh under his flap- 
 ping shirt. Then Ernst had become angry, because 
 the fat landlady and her .lout of a brother did not 
 listen to what he said: he had a soft voice, which 
 could not cope with the rough, loud, vulgar voices 
 of people without feeling, of people without soul, 
 knowledge or understanding. He had become 
 angry, because the brother, the coarse brute, had 
 locked the door again, dragged him away, hauled 
 him up the stairs; and he had struck the brother. 
 But the brother, who was stronger than he was, had 
 hit him, hit him on the chest, which had been 
 
34 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 bursting before and at that had become still worse, 
 because all the souls had thronged against him in 
 terror, beseeching him to protect them. And, 
 roughly, rudely, like the unfeeling brutes that they 
 were, the fat landlady and her lout of a brother 
 had dragged him upstairs between them; and, as 
 they dragged him, they had trodden not only on his 
 bare feet but also on the poor souls ! Their vulgar 
 slippers, their clumsy, caddish feet had trodden on 
 the poor, poor tender souls, trodden on them in 
 the passage and along the stairs; and he heard them 
 panting and sobbing, so loudly, so loudly, in their 
 mortal anguish, that he could not understand why 
 the whole town had not / come running up in sheer 
 alarm, to see the poor souls and help them. Oh, 
 how they had moaned and gnashed their teeth, oh, 
 how they had sobbed and lamented, most terribly! 
 And nobody had come. Nobody would hear. 
 They had refused to hear, those townsfolk; no 
 rescue had arrived; and the two brutes, that fat land- 
 lady and that wretched cad of a fellow, her brother, 
 had hauled him along, up the stairs, into his room, 
 had flung him in, locked the door behind him and 
 barricaded the door on the outside. And in the 
 passage, caught in the front-door, on the landing, 
 caught in the door of his room, lay the poor panting, 
 sobbing souls; they lay trodden and trampled, as 
 if a rough crowd had danced on those tender 
 gossamer beings, on their frail bodies; and he had 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 35 
 
 spent the whole night sitting on a chair in a corner 
 of his room, shivering in his nightshirt, in the dark, 
 listening to the lamentations of the souls, hearing 
 them wring their hands, hearing them pray for his 
 pity, for his commiseration, for they knew that he 
 loved them, that he would not hurt them, the poor 
 souls. . . . He understood, yes, he understood 
 that those two brutes, the woman and her brother, 
 thought that he was mad. But he had only wanted 
 to breathe the cool night-air, to feel the cool night- 
 air blowing over his hot limbs, which were all 
 aglow because, in bed, the souls pressed so close 
 upon him, though he tried to push them softly from 
 him. It wasn't mad, surely, to want a breath of 
 fresh air, to want to feel the cool air blowing over 
 one's self. That was all he wanted. . . . And, in 
 the morning . . . yes, he had seen her at the door, 
 opening it very carefully. He had seen the face 
 of his sister Dorine that morning, seen her 
 grimacing and laughing and cackling, with a devilish 
 grin, glad, she too, at the sight of the frail bodies 
 of the poor souls lying trampled on the stairs and 
 in the passage; but he had been clever: he had 
 remained sitting in his shirt, in the corner of his 
 room, and pretended not to see her and taken no 
 notice of her devilish grin, so as not to satisfy her 
 evil pleasure. . . . Then at last the poor souls that 
 still lived had settled down: he had lulled their 
 fears with gentle words of consolation. Then they 
 
3 6. THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 had fallen asleep around him; and he had been able 
 to get up softly, without rattling their chains, and 
 wash his face, put on his trousers, his socks, his 
 dressing-gown. . . . What were his brothers doing 
 now? He knew, he knew: no doubt they were also 
 thinking, like the landlady and her beast of a 
 brother, that he was mad, mad, bereft of his senses. 
 But it was they who had lost their senses: they had 
 no eyes, not to see the slumbering souls that filled 
 the house; they had no ears, not to hear the plaint 
 of the souls last night ringing through the universe. 
 They, they were mad: they knew nothing and felt 
 nothing; they lived like brute beasts; and he hated 
 them both: that big, burly officer and the other, 
 that fine gentleman, with his smooth face and his 
 moustache like a cat's whiskers, which he couldn't 
 stand, which he simply could not stand. Somehow, 
 he had had to tell them about the poor souls; but, 
 now that he saw that they were mad, he would 
 never mention the souls to them again: otherwise 
 they would be sure to want to beat him too and 
 pull him about and tread on the poor souls, as those 
 two horrible brutes had done. 
 
 So he remained sitting quietly, waiting for them 
 to go and leave him to himself, in the peaceful 
 solitude to which he was accustomed. For he was 
 tired now; and, sitting straight up in his chair, he 
 closed his eyes, partly to shut out the sight of his 
 brothers' faces. Around him lay the souls, count- 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 37 
 
 less numbers of them, but they were still and silent, 
 slumbering around him like children, though their 
 faces were wrung with all the grief and pain that 
 they had been made to suffer the night before. 
 
 Gerrit and Paul had stood up, were pretending 
 to look at the vases, talking in whispers : 
 
 11 He is pretty calm," said Gerrit. 
 
 44 Yes, but what he said was utter nonsense. " 
 
 " We must go to a doctor." 
 
 M Yes, we must go to Dr. van der Ouwe first. 
 Perhaps to Dr. Reeuws afterwards, or any other 
 nerve-specialist whom Van der Ouwe recommends." 
 
 "What do you think of him? Is he absolutely 
 mad?" 
 
 44 Yes, mad. He never used to talk in that in- 
 coherent way. Up to now, he was only queer, 
 dreamy, eccentric. Now he is absolutely ..." 
 
 44 Mad," Gerrit completed, in a low voice. 
 
 44 Look, he's shut his eyes ..." 
 
 44 He seems calm." 
 
 44 Yes, he's calm enough." 
 
 44 Shall we go?" 
 
 41 Yes, let's go." 
 
 They went up to Ernst: 
 
 44 Ernst ..." 
 
 44 Ernst!" 
 
 He slowly raised his heavy eyelids. 
 
 44 We're off, Ernst, old chap," said Gerrit. 
 
 Ernst nodded his head. 
 
38 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " We shall be back soon." 
 
 But Ernst closed his eyes again, yearning for 
 them to go, driving them out of the room with his 
 longing. . . . 
 
 They went. He heard them shut the door softly, 
 carefully. Then he nodded his head with satis- 
 faction: they were not so bad, they had not waked 
 the souls. . . . He heard them whispering on the 
 landing, with those two beasts, the landlady and 
 her brother. He got up, crept to the door, tried 
 to listen. But he could not make out what they 
 said. 
 
 Then he laughed contemptuously, because he 
 thought them stupid, devoid of eyes, ears, heart or 
 feeling: 
 
 " Wretched brutes, infernal brutes ! " he mut- 
 tered fiercely, clenching his fists. 
 
 A mortal weariness stole over him. He went to 
 his bedroom, let down the blinds and got into bed, 
 feeling that he would sleep. 
 
 All around him lay the souls: the whole room 
 was full of them. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Old Mrs. van Lowe's neighbours thought it a 
 funny thing that, after dinner that evening, the 
 whole family arrived, one after the other, rang the 
 bell and went in, though it was not Sunday. Except 
 on those " family-group " Sundays, there was never 
 much of a run on Mrs. van Lowe's door. And they 
 wondered what could be the matter; and, as it was 
 very warm, an August day, they opened all the 
 windows, kept looking across the street and even 
 sent their maids to enquire of Mrs. van Lowe's 
 maids. But the maids did not know anything: they 
 only thought it must be something to do with the 
 young mevrouw, the one in Paris — Mrs. Emilie, as 
 they called her — who had gone off with her brother. 
 
 44 It's very queer about the Van Lowes," said 
 the neighbours, looking out of window at the old 
 lady's front-door, at which somebody was ringing 
 again for the hundredth time. 
 
 44 There come the Van Saetzemas." 
 
 44 And here are those fat Ruyvenaers." 
 
 44 What's up?" 
 
 44 Yes, what can be up? " 
 
 44 The servants say it's something to do with 
 Emilie." 
 
 39 
 
4 o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 44 A nice thing for the Van Ravens! " 
 
 44 They say that Bertha has become quite childish, 
 don't they?" 
 
 44 1 don't know about that: she just sits staring in 
 front of her. They never come now : they're living 
 at Baarn." 
 
 44 Here are the Van der Welckes." 
 
 44 Like aunt, like niece." 
 
 44 Now they're all there." 
 
 44 All?" 
 
 44 Yes, I've seen them all. Captain van Lowe 
 and his wife, Paul, Dorine and Karel." 
 
 44 And Ernst?" 
 
 44 He hasn't come yet," 
 
 44 But then he doesn't always come." 
 
 44 1 wonder what's up." 
 
 44 Yes, I wonder." 
 
 44 There must be some scandal with Emilie." 
 
 44 And, when you think of what the Van Naghels 
 used to be. . . . Such big people ! " 
 
 44 And now ..." 
 
 44 Absolute nobodies. ..." 
 
 44 Oh, I think they're rather nice people! . . ." 
 
 44 Yes, but they're all a bit touched, you know." 
 
 44 Well, suppose we go to Scheveningen ? . . ." 
 
 44 Yes, let's go to Scheveningen. We may hear 
 there what's happened ..." 
 
 44 Yes . . . about Emilie, you know. . .. . " 
 
 And Mrs. van Lowe's neighbours went off to 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 41 
 
 Scheveningen, with the express object of hearing 
 what had happened about Emilie. . . . 
 
 Old Mrs. van Lowe was sitting in the con- 
 servatory, with the windows open, and crying gently, 
 like one who was too old to cry violently, whatever 
 the sorrow might be. Uncle Herman, Aunt Lot, 
 all the children had come in gradually, their faces 
 blank with utter dismay; and they were moving like 
 ghosts about the large, dark rooms, where no one 
 had thought of having the gas lit. 
 
 " Herman ! " the old lady cried, plaintively. 
 
 Uncle Ruyvenaer and Aunt Lot approached. 
 Have you seen him, Herman?" asked the old 
 lady, wringing her old, knotted hands. 
 
 " \o-o, Marie. But I ... I shall go to him 
 to-morrow . . . with Dr. van der Ouwe." 
 
 M And who is with him now? " 
 
 " A male nurse, Mamma," said Gerrit. " We've 
 seen to everything. He's quite calm, Mamma dear, 
 he's quite calm. It won't be very bad. It's only 
 temporary: it'll pass, the doctor said." 
 
 Cateau's bosom suddenly loomed through the 
 open doorway of the conservatory: 
 
 " Oh, Mam-ma," she said, " how sad . . . about 
 Ernst ! Who would ever have im-a-gined . . . 
 that Ernst would become . . . like this!" 
 
 And she bent over her mother-in-law and gave her 
 a formal kiss, like the kiss of a stranger paying a 
 visit of condolence. 
 
42 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 "And how are you, Mamma?" asked Karel, as 
 though there were nothing the matter. " I hope 
 you're not suffering from the heat." 
 
 The old woman nodded dully, pressed his hand. 
 
 " All that I ask," said Adolphine, addressing her 
 husband, Paul, Dorine and Adeline, " is that you 
 will not talk about it. Don't talk about it to out- 
 siders. The less it's talked about, the better 
 pleased I shall be. . . . We have that Indian lack 
 of reserve in our family, that habit of at once going 
 and telling everybody everything. ... If people 
 ask, we can say that Ernst has had a nervous break- 
 down; yes, that's it: let's arrange to say that Ernst 
 has had a nervous break-down. ..." 
 
 She asked them to give her their word; and they 
 promised, in order to keep her quiet. 
 
 " You'll see," she said, " this business with Ernst 
 will mean that Van Saetzema will once more fail to 
 get elected to the town council." 
 
 Paul looked at her in stupefaction, failing to grasp 
 the logic of her remark. Then he said, calmly: 
 
 1 Yes, you see funny things happen sometimes." 
 
 4 Yes," said Adolphine, nodding her head to show 
 how much she appreciated the fact that Paul under- 
 stood her. "It's horrid for me: you'll see, Van 
 Saetzema won't get in. ..." 
 
 " I believe that Ernst ... is the sanest of the 
 lot of us ! " thought Paul. 
 
 And, as he moved to a seat, he first looked to 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 43 
 
 make sure that there were no bits of fluff on the 
 chair. 
 
 But Constance had come in; and, when the old 
 lady saw her, she half-rose, threw herself into her 
 daughter's arms and began to sob more violently 
 than she had done. It was strange how she had 
 gradually come to look upon Constance once more 
 as the nearest to her of her children, this daughter 
 whom she had not seen for years and years, until 
 at last Constance had returned to Holland and the 
 family. As a mother, she had never had a 
 favourite; yet she would often, for months at a 
 time, feel drawn now more towards the one, then 
 again towards the other. She was growing old, she 
 was getting the broken look which a mother's face 
 begins to wear as she sees sorrow coming into her 
 children's lives: a sorrow which, in her case, arrived 
 so late that by degrees the illusion had come to her 
 that there would never be any sorrow. The sudden 
 break-up of Bertha's house — that house which she 
 was so fond of visiting, because she found in it the 
 continuation of her own life, the reflection of her 
 own past grandeur — had fallen on her as a painful 
 blow: Van Naghel's sudden death; the sort of 
 apathy into which Bertha had sunk; the divorce 
 between Van Raven and Emilie after Emilie had 
 refused to come back from abroad, preferring to 
 stay in Paris with her brother Henri, who had been 
 sent down from Leiden: a divorce obtained in the 
 
44 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 face of all the persuasion which Uncle van Naghel, 
 the Queen's Commissary in Overijssel, had brought 
 to bear upon them; Louise living with Otto and 
 Frances, in order to help Frances, who was always 
 ailing, with the children, so that Bertha was living 
 alone with Marianne in her little villa at Baarn, 
 now that Frans had taken his degree and gone to 
 India, while Karel and Marietje were at boarding- 
 school. The big household had broken up, in a 
 few months, in a few days almost; and the old 
 grandmother, whose dearest illusion it had always 
 been to keep everything and everybody close to- 
 gether, had been seized with an innocent wonder 
 that things could happen, so, that things had hap- 
 pened so. . . . She no longer went about, finding 
 a difficulty in walking; and, because Bertha had 
 become so apathetic and had also ceased to go 
 about, she had as it were lost Bertha and all who 
 belonged to her. It had produced a void around her 
 which nothing was able to fill, even though she saw 
 Constance every day. A void, because with none of 
 her other children did the old lady find, the same 
 atmosphere of rank and position which she had 
 loved in the Van Naghels' ministerial household. 
 She would often complain now, a thing which she 
 never used to do: she would complain that Karel 
 and Cateau were so selfish, so stiff and Dutch, that 
 they were getting worse every year; she would com- 
 plain that at Gerrit's the children were always 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 45 
 
 so noisy, that Adeline was unable to manage them, 
 that both Gerrit and Adeline were much too 
 weak to bring up so many children — nine of 
 them — with proper strictness; she would complain 
 that Adolphine was growing more and more 
 envious and discontented, because her husband did 
 not make his way, because Carolientje was not mar- 
 ried, because the three boys were so troublesome; 
 she would complain of Dorine and Paul and had 
 all sorts of little grievances against both of them. 
 Then, on the Sunday evenings, when the children 
 and grandchildren came to her, she felt the void 
 which Van Naghel and Bertha had left behind them, 
 missed the sound of a few aristocratic names, 
 missed any reference to the Russian minister in her 
 children's conversation; and, with a little half- 
 bitter laugh, she would say to the Ruyvenaers that 
 amily was no longer what it had been, called it 
 a grandeur dcchue and took a melancholy pleasure 
 in the phrase, which she would repeat again and 
 again, as though finding consolation in its gentle 
 irony. And Constance had become the child towards 
 whom she felt most drawn in these dreary days, be- 
 cause Constance devoted herself regularly to her old 
 mother and also because she, Mamma, in her secret 
 heart, loved to talk with Constance about Rome, 
 about De Staffelaer even, about the Pallavicinis, the 
 Odescalchis, whom Constance had known in the old 
 days; because Constance, whatever might be said 
 
46 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 against her, was connected with the best Dutch 
 families; because Constance had a title; because 
 Addie was the only one of her grandchildren who 
 bore a title, good family though the Van Naghels 
 were. Oh, those grandchildren, whom she now saw 
 so seldom! And, now that the terrible thing had 
 befallen Ernst, the terrible thing which the children 
 had at first wished to conceal from her, but 
 which she had guessed nevertheless, because she 
 had so long feared it, feared it indeed from the time 
 when Ernst was a tiny child — oh, what frightful 
 convulsions he used to have as a child! — now that 
 the terrible thing had befallen Ernst, it was Con- 
 stance in whose arms she was first able to sob out 
 her grief, in whose arms she first felt how sorely she 
 had been stricken in her declining days: 
 
 " Connie," she cried, her voice broken with sobs, 
 " Connie darling, it's true ! . . . Ernst . . . Ernst 
 is madl )} 
 
 And the word which no one had yet uttered to 
 her, though she had guessed what they meant, rang 
 shrill through the fast-darkening room, in which 
 every whisper was suddenly hushed in terror at the 
 shrill sound of the old woman's high-pitched voice. 
 Silence fell upon everything; and the word sent a 
 shudder through the room. The children looked at 
 one another, because Mamma had uttered the word 
 which none of them had spoken, though they had 
 thought it silently. The word which Mamma 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 47 
 
 uttered so shrilly, almost screaming it at Constance, 
 in the intolerable pain of her sorrow, struck them 
 all with a sudden dismay, because, coming from 
 Mamma's lips, it sounded like an open acknowledg- 
 ment of what they all knew but did not wish to 
 acknowledge except among one another, in great 
 secrecy. They would merely say that Ernst was 
 suffering from a nervous break-down, nothing more. 
 A nervous break-down was such a comprehensive 
 term! Anybody could go to a home for nervous 
 patients for a rest-cure. But the word uttered by 
 Mamma to Constance in shrill acknowledgment of 
 the truth had cut through the dim room, where 
 no one had even thought of lighting the gas. 
 Adolphine, Cateau, Karel, Uncle Ruyvenaer, 
 Floortje and Dijkerhof exchanged sudden glances, 
 terrified, struck with dismay, because they would 
 never have been willing to utter the word aloud, in 
 open acknowledgment of the truth. 
 
 Aunt Lot's loud " Ah, kassianl " ' now came 
 from a corner of the dark room; and Toetie was so 
 much upset that she suddenly burst into sobs. That 
 was your Indian lack of self-restraint again, 
 thought the Van Saetzemas and Cateau; and it did 
 not seem to them decent to let yourself go like that, 
 it made them feel that the business was a hopeless 
 one. But the door opened and the two doctors 
 entered, groping their way in the darkness: the old 
 
 1 Malay: "Poor dear!" 
 
48 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 family-doctor, a retired army-surgeon, Van der 
 Ouwe; and Reeuws, a young nerve-specialist. At 
 their entrance, Toetie, abashed, ceased her sobbing. 
 The doctors had come from the Nieuwe Uitleg, 
 where they had left Ernst reading peacefully, with 
 the male nurse, a stolid, powerful fellow, in an 
 adjoining room. And, when the brothers and sisters 
 crowded round the two doctors, the older began, 
 quietly : 
 
 " Our poor Ernst can't stay where he is, all by 
 himself. We must see and get him to Nunspeet, 
 at Dr. van der Heuvel's: that will do him good 
 . . . the country, change of environment, nice, 
 quiet people, who will look after him. ..." 
 
 "Nunspeet?" asked Adolphine. "That's not 
 . ?" 
 
 " No," said the old doctor, decisively, under- 
 standing what she meant. " It's not." 
 
 And he did not speak the word, left it to be 
 implied, the word that must not be uttered, the 
 terrible word that denoted the house of shame, the 
 family-disgrace. 
 
 " It's a nice, pleasant villa, where Dr. van der 
 Heuvel minds a few nervous patients," he said, 
 calmly and kindly, casting a glance round at the 
 brothers and sisters; and his grey head nodded 
 reassuringly to all of them. 
 
 They admired his tact ; and they the more readily 
 condemned Mamma's shrill word, which had cut 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 49 
 
 through the darkness and made them shudder, they 
 the more readily condemned Aunt Lot's exclamation 
 and Toetie's outbreak of sobbing. 
 
 And, breathing again, they lit the gas, suddenly 
 noticing that the room was pitch-dark now that 
 the two doctors had gone to Mamma and were 
 telling her quietly that it would be all right and 
 that Ernst was just a little overstrained from being 
 too much alone and poring too long over his dusty 
 books. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Constance went to the Nieuwe Uitleg next morn- 
 ing; the landlady, shaking her head, let her in; Dr. 
 van der Ouwe met her in the passage : 
 
 M I thank you for coming, mevrouw. It won't 
 do for Ernst to remain here any longer; I should 
 like to take him down to Nunspeet, with one of you, 
 as soon as possible, to-morrow. But it won't be an 
 easy matter . . . poor fellow ! " 
 
 44 I'll do my best," said Constance, doubtfully. 
 
 44 Then I'll leave you alone with him. You won't 
 be nervous? No, you're not nervous. He's quite 
 quiet, poor fellow. Don't be afraid: I shall be 
 near." 
 
 Constance went upstairs, with her heart thumping 
 in her breast. She tapped softly at the door and 
 received no answer : 
 
 44 Ernst! " she called; and her voice was not very 
 steady. 44 Ernst ..." 
 
 But there was no reply. 
 
 She slowly opened the door. The door-handle 
 grated into her very soul; and before entering she 
 asked once more : 
 
 44 Ernst. . . . May I come in?" 
 
 He still did not answer and she walked into the 
 
 50 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 51 
 
 room. She had made up her mind to smile at once, 
 to come up to him with a smile, so that the ex- 
 pression of her face might put her poor brother 
 at his ease. And so she smiled as she entered, 
 looking for him with kindly eyes, as though there 
 were nothing at all out of the common. 
 
 But her smile seemed to freeze on her lips when 
 she saw him sitting huddled in a corner of the room, 
 in a flannel shirt and an old pair of trousers, with 
 his long hair hanging unkempt. Nevertheless she 
 controlled herself and said, in as natural a tone 
 as she could command : 
 
 11 Good-morning, Ernst. I've come to see how 
 you are. n 
 
 He looked at her suspiciously from his corner and 
 asked: 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 44 Because I heard that you were not well. So 
 I thought I would see how you were getting 
 on. 
 
 11 I'm not ill," he said, in a low voice. 
 
 "Why are you sitting in that corner, Ernst? 
 Are you comfortable there?" 
 
 44 Ssh! " he said. 44 They're asleep. Don't speak 
 too loud." 
 
 44 No. But I may talk quietly, mayn't I, Ernst? 
 . . . Can't you get up from your chair? For 
 there's no room there to sit beside you. Come, 
 dear, won't you get up? " 
 
52 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 And she smiled and held out both her hands to 
 him. 
 
 He smiled back and said : 
 
 "Ssh! Don't wake them." 
 
 " No, no. But do get up." 
 
 He gave way at last and, grasping her hands 
 warily, allowed her to pull him up, out of his corner, 
 and once more said, earnestly: 
 
 14 You must promise me not to wake them. All 
 my visitors wake them, the brutes! The doctor 
 woke them too." 
 
 " No, Ernst, we'll let them sleep. There, it's 
 nice of you to have got up. Shall we sit down 
 here?" 
 
 "Yes. Why have you come? You never come 
 to see me. ..." 
 
 There was in his words an unconscious reproach 
 that startled her. It was quite true : she never came 
 to see him. Since that first time, eighteen months 
 ago, when he had asked her to his rooms on her 
 return to Holland, the day when she had lunched 
 here with him, when he had toasted her with two 
 fingers of champagne out of a quaint old glass, she 
 had never once been back. She reproached herself 
 for it now: she, who did feel all that affection for 
 her family, why had she left that brother to himself, 
 as all the others did, just because he was queer? 
 If she had overcome that vague feeling of distaste, 
 almost of repugnance; if she had felt for him 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 53 
 
 always as she suddenly felt for him now, perhaps 
 he would not have been so self-centred, perhaps he 
 would have retained his sanity. 
 
 44 No, Ernst," she confessed, " I never came to 
 see you. It wasn't nice of me, was it? " 
 
 44 No, it wasn't nice of you," he said. 44 For I'm 
 very fond of you, Constance." 
 
 Her heart began to fail her. Her breath came 
 in gasps; her eyes filled with tears. She put her 
 arm over his shoulder and, without restraining her 
 emotion, she cried : 
 
 " Did we all leave you so much alone, Ernst? " 
 
 44 No," he said, quietly, 44 1 am never alone. 
 They are all of them around me, always. There 
 are some of every century. Sometimes they are 
 magnificently dressed and sing with exquisite voices. 
 But latterly," mournfully shaking his head, 44 lat- 
 terly they have not been like that. They are all 
 grey, like ghosts; they no longer sing their beautiful 
 tunes; they weep and wail and gnash their teeth. 
 They used to come out into the middle of the room 
 . . . and laugh and sing and glitter. But now, oh, 
 Constance, I don't know what they suffer, but they 
 suffer something terrible ... a purgatory ! They 
 crowd round me, they suffocate me, till I can't draw 
 my breath. . . . Hush, there they are, waking 
 again ! . . . " 
 
 44 No, Ernst, no, Ernst, they're asleep ! " 
 
 He turned to her with a knowing laugh: 
 
54 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 11 Yes," he whispered, " you are kind, you love 
 them, you are sorry for them . . . you let them 
 sleep . . . you don't wake them. ..,..>" 
 
 And they sat quietly together for a moment, 
 without speaking, she with her arm round his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " What a lot of pretty things you have, Ernst! " 
 she said, looking round the room. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I collected them . . . gradu- 
 ally, very gradually. There was one in every 
 piece." 
 
 " Ernst," she said, gently, " perhaps it would be 
 a good thing if you went to the country this 
 summer." 
 
 At once he seemed to stiffen and shrink under her 
 touch, as though all his limbs were becoming tense 
 and stark : 
 
 " I won't leave here," he said. 
 
 " Ernst, it would be so good for you. Do you 
 know Nunspeet? " 
 
 She felt him go rigid; and he looked at her 
 angrily and harshly: 
 
 The doctor wants to get me to Nunspeet," he 
 answered, craftily. He laughed scornfully: " I know 
 all about it. You people think I'm mad. But I'm 
 not mad," he went on, haughtily. " You people are 
 stupid: stupid and mad is what you are. You see 
 nothing and hear nothing, you with your dull brute 
 senses; and then you just think, because some one 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 55 
 
 else sees and hears and feels, that he's mad . . . 
 whereas it's you yourselves who are mad. I shall 
 stay here; I won't go to Nunspeet." 
 
 But suddenly he grew alarmed and asked: 
 
 44 I say, Constance, you won't force me, surely? 
 You won't beat me? That beastly cad down below, 
 that fellow, that cad: he hit me . . . and woke 
 them . . . and trod on them! He stood treading 
 on them, the great fool, the blockhead! . . . Tell 
 me, Constance, you will leave me here, won't 
 you?" 
 
 44 No, Ernst, no one wants to force you. But it 
 would be a good thing if you went to Nunspeet." 
 
 44 But why? I'm all right here." 
 
 44 You would be among kind people . . . who 
 will be fond of you." 
 
 44 No one has ever been fond of me," he 
 said. 
 
 44 Ernst! " she cried, with a sob. 
 
 44 No one has ever been fond of me," he repeated, 
 bluntly. 4i Not Mamma . . . nor any of you . . . 
 not one. If I had not had all of them ... oh, if 
 I had not had all of them! My darlings, my 
 darlings! Oh, what can be the matter with them? 
 Now they're waking up ! Now they're awake ! Oh, 
 listen to them moaning! Oh dear, listen to them 
 screaming! They're screaming, they're yelling! 
 ... Is it purgatory? Oh, dear, how they're 
 crowding round me! They're stifling me, they're 
 
5 6 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 stifling me! . . . Oh dear, it's more than I can 
 bear!" 
 
 He rushed to the open window; and she was 
 afraid that he wanted to throw himself out, so that 
 she caught him round the body with both her arms. 
 The old doctor came in. He shut the window. 
 
 " I can do nothing/' she murmured to the old 
 man, in despair. 
 
 " Yes, you can," said the doctor, calmly. " Yes, 
 you can, mevrouw." 
 
 "'•You' are all of you my enemies," said Ernst. 
 u My enemies and theirs." 
 
 And he went and sat in his corner, huddled up, 
 with his arms round his knees. 
 
 " Go away," he said, addressing both of them. 
 
 " I'm going, Ernst," said the old doctor. u But 
 Constance may as well stay." 
 
 He sometimes called her by her Christian name, 
 the old doctor who had brought them into the world 
 in India; and to Constance it was touching, to hear 
 that name from under his grey moustache; it called 
 up those old, old days. 
 
 " Constance can stay? " 
 
 " Very well," said Ernst. 
 
 The doctor left them alone: the nurse would be 
 on his guard. 
 
 " Ernst," said Constance, " suppose we went to- 
 gether . . . to Nunspeet?" 
 
 "Why? Why? " he asked, vehemently. "I'm 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 57 
 
 all right here. . . . And we can't take them with 
 us there," he whispered, more gently. " Ssh ! 
 You're waking them." 
 
 44 It will be quieter for them, perhaps, if you 
 leave them here, dear," she said, kneeling on the 
 floor beside him, feeling for his hand, with her eyes 
 full of tears. 
 
 44 No, no . . . that woman's brother down there 
 . . . that cad ..." 
 
 44 But, Ernst," she said, more firmly, with her 
 eyes on his, 44 dear Ernst, do let me tell you : they 
 don't exist. They exist only in your imagination. 
 You must really get rid of the idea: then you will 
 be well again, quite well. . . . Ernst, dear Ernst, 
 they don't exist. Do look round you: there's no- 
 thing to see but the room, your furniture, your 
 books, your vases. There's nothing else, except our 
 two selves. . . . Oh, Ernst, do try to see it: there's 
 nothing. . . . That you feel as if you were suf- 
 focating comes from always being so much alone, 
 never going out, never walking. At Nunspeet, we 
 will walk ... on the heath, over the dunes . . . 
 and then you will get quite well again, Ernst. . . . 
 For, honestly, you are ill. . . . There's nothing 
 here, nothing. Look for yourself: there's only you 
 and I . . . and your furniture and books. ..." 
 
 He quietly let her talk; an ironical smile curled 
 round his lips; and at last he gave her a glance of 
 pitying contempt, gave a little shrug of his shoulders. 
 
58 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 Then he softly stroked her hand, patted it gently, 
 in a fatherly manner : 
 
 " You are kind and nice, Constance, but," shaking 
 his head, " you have no sense ! I believe you mean 
 what you say, but that's just it: you're narrow, 
 you're limited. You don't see, you don't hear," 
 putting his hand to his eyes and ears, " what I see, 
 what I hear with my eyes and my ears. ..." 
 
 " But, Ernst, you must surely understand that 
 those are all illusions. The doctor says that they 
 are hallucinations." 
 
 He continued to smile, looked at her with his con- 
 temptuous pity, looked hard out of his black Van 
 Lowe eyes. 
 
 " They are hallucinations, Ernst." 
 
 " And you?" 
 
 " No, I'm not." 
 
 "And the room, the books, the vases? . . ." 
 
 " No, they are not. They are all around you, 
 they exist." 
 
 "Well . . . and why not all of them, the 
 souls?" 
 
 "They don't exist, Ernst. They are hallucina- 
 tions." 
 
 He just closed his eyelids, smiled, shrugged his 
 shoulders, to convey that he was utterly at a loss 
 to understand such exceedingly limited perceptions. 
 Then he said, gently and kindly: 
 
 "No, Constance dear, you're not clever . .. .if 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 59 
 
 you mean all you say. I believe you do mean it, 
 but that's just it: you live like a blind person; you 
 don't see, you don't hear. That's the way you all 
 of you live and exist, in a dream, with closed eyes 
 and deaf ears. You none of you see, hear or under- 
 stand anything. You know nothing. You are as 
 unfeeling as stones. You can't help it, Constance, 
 but it's a pity, for you are so nice. There might 
 have been something to be made of you, if you had 
 learnt to see and hear and feel. It's too late now, 
 Constance. You are stupid now, like all the rest; 
 but I'm sorry, for you are very nice. Your hand 
 is soft, your voice is soft; and you did your best not 
 to tread on my poor darlings . . . and not to drag 
 them away on their chains, which are riveted so 
 fast to my heart that they hurt me sometimes, 
 here!" 
 
 He put his hand to his heart. A weariness came 
 over her brain, as though she were exhausting her- 
 self in the effort to speak and to give understanding 
 to an intelligence and a soul which remained very 
 far away, miles away, and which her words could 
 only reach through a dense cloud of darkness. And 
 suddenly that sense of weariness and impotence be- 
 came crueller and harder within her: it was as 
 though she were talking to a stone, to a wall; she 
 felt her own words beating back against her fore- 
 head like tennis-balls striking the wall. 
 
 44 But, Ernst," she tried once more, 44 won't you 
 
60 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 come to Nunspeet with me ... to please me, to 
 walk on the heath with me? You would be giving 
 me such immense pleasure. It would be good for 
 me. . . ." 
 
 " And all of them, here, around me? . . . " 
 
 He pointed round the room, cautiously. 
 
 " We will leave them to sleep here." 
 
 "And that cad, downstairs? . . ." 
 
 14 He sha'n't interfere with them, I promise 
 you. . . . We'll lock up the room, Ernst, and they 
 shall sleep peacefully." 
 
 She humoured him, not knowing if she was doing 
 right, but feeling too tired to convince him. 
 
 "You promise ?" he asked, suddenly. "You 
 promise that they shall sleep peacefully? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " That the cad downstairs won't wake them and 
 tread on them? " 
 
 " Yes, yes." 
 
 " You promise that? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "We'll lock up the room very quietly?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And nobody at all will come in? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " You promise that? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Will you swear it?" 
 
 44 Yes, Ernst." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 61 
 
 44 All right, then." 
 
 "Will you come?" she cried, rejoicing and 
 unable to believe her ears. 
 
 11 Yes. Because you would so much like to go 
 for walks ... on the heath. You're nice. ..." 
 
 He spoke gently, pityingly; and his contempt was 
 not as great as it had been, for he looked upon her 
 as a nice but stupid child that needed his help and 
 his protection. 
 
 She smiled at him in return, stood up where she 
 had been kneeling beside him, put out her hands to 
 him, inviting him to get up from his corner also. 
 He let her pull him up; he was a heavy weight: 
 she drew him out of his corner like a lump of lead. 
 
 44 Then we start to-morrow, Ernst? " 
 
 He nodded yes, good-naturedly: she was very nice 
 . . . and she was longing for those walks . . . 
 and she was so weak, so stupid, she knew nothing, 
 saw, heard and felt nothing, absolutely nothing. He 
 must help her and guide her and support her. 
 
 44 And shall we pack a trunk now, while I am 
 here?" 
 
 He did not understand that a trunk was necessary : 
 he looked at her blankly; but he wanted to please 
 her and said: 
 
 44 All right. But don't make a noise." 
 
 The doctor returned. 
 
 44 He's coming," she whispered. 44 We're going 
 to pack his trunk." 
 
62 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 The doctor pressed her hand. Ernst looked 
 down upon them both, smiling, as upon poor, un- 
 fortunate people who cannot help being so stupid 
 ... so slow of understanding ... so limited in 
 their knowledge ... so dull of perception. . . . 
 
 And, while Constance and the doctor opened the 
 clothes-press in his bedroom, he warned them, 
 quietly, but with dignity: 
 
 " Ssh ! Be careful, you know. Don't let the door 
 of the wardrobe creak. Don't wake them ! . . : " 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 It was a sultry summer morning and old Mrs. van 
 Lowe sat at the conservatory-window, crying very 
 quietly. She had been crying incessantly now for 
 two long days. After her first sob in Constance' 
 arms, she had sobbed no more; but since then her 
 tears had flowed continually, salt, stinging tears that 
 burned her wrinkled cheeks. She sat with her hands 
 folded in her lap; and from time to time she nodded 
 her head up and down, while she stared at the leafy 
 garden, over which the stormy sky hung dark and 
 heavy as lead. Now and then she cleared her 
 throat, now and then heaved a deep sigh; and her 
 handkerchief was soaked with the tears that kept 
 on flowing, quietly, out of her smarting eyes. Con- 
 stant fretting had drawn down the corners of her 
 mouth into two long, sad wrinkles. Oh yes, it was 
 very hard ! Trouble . . . always trouble . . . her 
 life had been full of trouble: trouble when Louis 
 and Gertrude had died at Buitenzorg, poor children; 
 what had they not suffered from fever and cholera ? 
 Money troubles : an expensive household to be kept 
 up on limited means. Trouble again, terrible 
 trouble with dear Constance; and the heavy trouble 
 of her husband's illness and death: he had never 
 
 63 
 
6 4 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 recovered from Constance* disgrace; more trouble 
 over Van Naghel's death, the great change in 
 Bertha and the break-up of the whole household; 
 and now there was this last sore trouble with her 
 son, her poor son, who had gone mad! Oh, if it 
 had only happened a little earlier, when she was 
 younger, she could have borne it, as she had borne 
 the rest, could have accepted it as her natural share, 
 a mother's share of trouble. But she was so old 
 now; and it seemed to her that the supreme trouble 
 was drawing near, a trouble which was coming very 
 late in her life, too late for her to bear it with 
 strength and patience, now that she was growing 
 older and feebler daily; and her only wish had been 
 to see her big family happy together, that great 
 family of children, grandchildren and great-grand- 
 children, amongst which she had always rejoiced to 
 live, thankful as she had been for that great bless- 
 ing. It was as though a presentiment were coming 
 to her from very far, from very far out of those 
 heavy, lowering skies, a presentiment which her 
 nerves, sharpened by age, suddenly not only felt but 
 saw coming like a menace, as old people will sud- 
 denly see the truth very clearly, the future : a waning 
 lamp which suddenly flickers up brightly, before 
 dying out in darkness; a bright flicker which sud- 
 denly reveals the shadows in the room and in which 
 the portraits grin, with faces that seem to speak 
 ... . . before the lamp dies out, before everything 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 65 
 
 is swallowed up in the black darkness! Oh, the 
 awful presentiment which suddenly approached like 
 a spectre out of the leaden clouds, that filled the 
 whole vista before her eyes with grey terrors; the 
 presentiment that this trouble, the greatest of all, 
 was going to strike her most, now, in her old, old 
 age, when she no longer had the strength to endure 
 it, when she would sink under the weight of it ! . . . 
 O God, why should it now, why now, fall with 
 such pitiless, crushing weight? Why now? Was it 
 not enough that one of her children . . . had gone 
 mad, surely the most terrible thing that can happen? 
 Was not that enough? What more could be 
 threatening, looming before her, now that she was 
 growing so feeble? See, did not her old hands 
 tremble at the mere thought, was not her whole 
 helpless body shaking, were not the tears flowing 
 until they smarted in the furrows of her wrinkles 
 and until her handkerchief was just a wet rag? 
 What more could there be coming? 
 
 " O God, no more, no more! " she prayed, auto- 
 matically, believing, in her feeble despair, in the 
 great, infinite Omnipotence which is so very, very 
 far removed from us . . . and which she had 
 always worshipped decently, once a week, in church 
 . . . formerly . . . when she still went out. " O 
 God, no more, no more ! " 
 
 It was greater, the infinite Omnipotence, than 
 what they worshipped in church; it filled everything 
 
66 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 far and wide, to the utmost limits of her thought; 
 and it terrified and dismayed her: she saw it 
 threatening from afar; and why, why now? Oh, 
 why had it not all come earlier, when she would have 
 had more fortitude, when she would have borne 
 everything as her natural share, a mother's share, of 
 trouble? . . . She would have been so glad just 
 now to grow old peacefully, amongst her wide circle 
 of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 
 But, alas, there was so much to bear and . . . per- 
 haps there was still more coming! 
 
 "O God, no more, no more!" she implored: 
 was it not enough that one of her children . . . had 
 gone mad, surely the most terrible thing that can 
 happen? 
 
 She moaned in spirit, then felt a little eased as 
 the rain began to patter heavily on the expectant 
 leaves and the lightning flashed and the thunder 
 rolled and the sky was rent asunder. But the tears 
 kept flowing in spite of her relief that the rain had 
 come at last; and, because of the thunder which 
 filled her fast-aging ears, she did not hear the door 
 open softly, did not hear some one come through 
 the drawing-room and approach the conservatory, 
 did not at once see the slender little figure that 
 stood quietly before her, solicitous not to intrude 
 upon the grief of the weeping old woman. 
 
 " Granny," the younger woman said, gently. 
 
 The old woman looked up in surprise, blinked her 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 67 
 
 eyes, tried to see through the flowing tears, did not 
 recognize the one who called her granny: 
 
 11 Eh? " she said, plaintively. V Who is it? " 
 
 And the girl did not answer at once, because it 
 had given her a shock to see those silent tears 
 flowing down the cheeks of that lonely old woman. 
 She remained standing quietly, a pretty, almost 
 fragile little figure, like a Dresden-china doll, but a 
 very up-to-date doll, like a sketch by one of the 
 ultra-modern French draughtsmen, with the pointed 
 little face below the elaborately-waved hair under 
 the very large hat, a hat which, in the shape of its 
 crown and the sweep of its feathers represented the 
 very latest extreme of fashion and consequently 
 attracted immediate attention in Holland, in these 
 dignified rooms, while the light tailor-made costume 
 looked too dressy for a summer morning at the 
 Hague and a touch in every accessory — the sun- 
 shade, the tulle boa — proclaimed that the young 
 woman was no longer of the Hague and of Holland, 
 short though the time was since she had run 
 away. 
 
 The old woman, still sensitive in all social matters, 
 remained looking at Emilie a little suspiciously, 
 failing to recognize her and at once noticing, just 
 by those touches — the large hat, the tulle boa — the 
 exaggeration that displeased her. 
 
 " But who is it?" she repeated, wiping her eyes 
 to see better. 
 
6S THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 And now the pretty little doll knelt down beside 
 her and said: 
 
 " Don't you know me, Granny? It's I . . . 
 Emilie." 
 
 u Oh, my child ! " cried the old woman, brighten- 
 ing up, glad, delighted. " Is it you, Emilietje? 
 And Granny who didn't know you again ! . . . But 
 then you've got such a big hat on, child. And 
 Eduard: how is he and where is he? " 
 
 "But, Granny! ..." 
 
 Under the arm which she had at once put round 
 Emilie, the old woman felt a shudder pass through 
 the dainty little doll, who had knelt down beside 
 her so impulsively and affectionately; but she did 
 not understand: 
 
 "Well, where is Eduard?" 
 
 " Why, Granny," cried Emilie, " you know that 
 we're divorced! " 
 
 The old woman now shuddered in her turn and 
 closed her eyes and sat rigid. What was this? 
 Was she becoming old, like her old sisters Christine 
 and Dorine, who always muddled up all the children, 
 who never knew anything correctly about their big 
 family? What was this? Was she getting con- 
 fused? And was this the first time that she had 
 utterly forgotten things ... or had it happened 
 before, that she had doted like an old, old woman? 
 
 She opened her eyes sadly and the tears ran down 
 her cheeks: 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 69 
 
 " Ah, Emilietje, my child, my child . . . don't be 
 cross with Granny! She's growing old, dear. She 
 had forgotten it for a moment. Yes, yes, she had 
 forgotten all about it. . . . Of course, child, you 
 got a divorce. Oh, it's very sad! You oughtn't 
 to have done it so soon, you should have gone on 
 being patient. You see, child, a divorce in a family 
 is always a very sad thing. You know, there was 
 Aunt Constance. . . . Well, she had had a lot of 
 trouble. You had plenty of trouble too. He used 
 to strike you: yes, Granny knows. But you ought 
 not to have let the world know about it. You were 
 quite right not to let him strike you. But you 
 should have shown him, by remaining gentle and 
 dignified, that he was doing wrong. . . . No man 
 strikes a woman, my child, if she preserves her 
 dignity. But you used to lose your temper, child, 
 and stamp your foot and call him names and invite 
 scenes. Yes, yes, Granny knows all about it, Granny 
 remembers everything. Mamma used to say it was 
 all right, but Granny knew, Granny saw that it was 
 far from right. ... If you had not lost your dig- 
 nity, child, he would never have dared to strike you. 
 And who knows: you might gradually have made 
 him gentler, have made him respect you . . . and 
 you might still have had a very tolerable life. You 
 see, dear, there's always something, in marriage. 
 It's not as young girls imagine, when they are in 
 love. There are always difficulties : you have to get 
 
7 o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 used to each other, to fall into each other's ways. 
 Do you think that Grandmamma never had any 
 differences with Grandpapa? Oh, there were ever 
 so many . . . and later on even, after years of 
 marriage! How often didn't Grandmamma and 
 Grandpapa differ about poor Aunt Constance ! . . . 
 And Mamma and Papa: do you think they always 
 agreed? . . . Temper, Emilie, is a thing we all 
 have in our family, but one has to keep it under. 
 A woman must preserve her dignity towards her 
 husband. What a pity, what a pity it was! . . . 
 Well, child, and where are you living now? Not 
 with Mamma at Baarn, I know." 
 
 " I'm living in Paris, Granny, with Henri." 
 "What do you say? In Paris? Are you living 
 in Paris? With Henri? Well, you see, Henri 
 too — yes, Granny isn't quite in her dotage yet — 
 leaving Leiden like that! For shame! Why not 
 have finished his college course and gone to India? 
 . . . And what do you do there, in Paris? It's 
 very nice, for the two of you to be together; but 
 it's not natural, Emilietje. Yes, I remember now: 
 they told me you were living in Paris. I had heard 
 it before. But that's no sort of life : to go running 
 through the bit of money which your poor father 
 left you, in Paris! What will people say! For 
 shame ! . . . No, Grandmamma isn't pleased with 
 you. Instead of remaining quietly with your hus- 
 band . . ... instead of Henri's quietly finishing his 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 71 
 
 time at the university! What does it all mean, what 
 you and he have done? " 
 
 The old woman rejected Emilie's caresses: 
 " No, child, don't kiss me; Granny is vexed; she 
 doesn't want to be kissed. . . . The family isn't 
 what it was. It is a grandeur dechue, child, a 
 regular grandeur dechue. The Van Lowes were 
 something once. There was never much money, but 
 we didn't care about money and we always man- 
 aged. But the family used to count ... in India, 
 at the Hague. Which of you will ever have a 
 career like your Grandpapa's, like your Papa's? 
 No, we shall never see another governor-general in 
 the family, nor yet a cabinet-minister. It's a 
 grandeur dechue, a grandeur dechue. . . . Ah, 
 child, Granny has too much trouble to bear, too 
 much trouble in her old age! Your Papa's death 
 was a great blow to Granny; Mamma has changed 
 so much since, changed so much. And Granny 
 never sees Mamma now, never. Otto and Frances, 
 once in a way, and dear Louise; but the rest of you 
 are all scattered, you are all independent of one 
 another. Oh, it is so nice to keep together, one 
 big family together! Why need Mamma have gone 
 to Baarn? There's nothing but rich tradespeople 
 there, not our class at all. . . . And now — have 
 you heard, dear? — poor Uncle Ernst . . . Yes, 
 child . . . it's quite true: isn't it sad, poor fellow? 
 And hasn't Granny really too much to bear in her 
 
72 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 old age? . . . Dear Aunt Constance is taking him 
 to Nunspeet to-day: ah, where should we have been 
 without Aunt Constance? . . . Addie now is a great 
 consolation to Granny. He is a dear, clever boy; 
 and he works hard; and he will enter the diplomatic 
 service : he is the hope of the family. Yes, yes, I 
 know, Frans is doing well; but Henri, Emilietje, 
 has done the wrong thing, going to Paris . . . with 
 you. . . . No, child, don't kiss Granny; she's 
 vexed. . . . And Karel isn't behaving at all well, 
 so Uncle van Naghel says. They don't always tell 
 Granny; but Granny hears, when they think she's 
 deaf and whisper things to one another. Ah, child, 
 it would be better if Granny died! She's getting 
 too old, dear, she's getting too old. . . . She 
 could have borne all this trouble once, but she 
 can't do it now, Emilietje, she can't bear it 
 now. ..." 
 
 And the old woman sobbed quietly; the tears 
 flowed without ceasing. She now let Emilietje em- 
 brace her passionately; and she listened to all the 
 caressing words with which her granddaughter over- 
 whelmed her. 
 
 Constance entered; and Mamma knew her at 
 once: 
 
 " Connie! Connie! Have you taken him there? 
 Have you come back? " 
 
 Constance, surprised at seeing Emilie, first kissed 
 her and then said: 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 73 
 
 u Yes, Mamma, I've taken Ernst down, with Dr. 
 van der Ouwe and Dr. Reeuws. He was quite quiet. 
 We had reserved a cowp<?-compartment; and he 
 travelled down with us very nicely. He did not 
 speak; and he held my hand the whole time. He 
 pities me, I don't know why. . . . Mamma, don't 
 cry: he's really quiet; and he is very comfortable 
 there. He has a pleasant room, with a bright out- 
 look; Dr. van der Heuvel and his wife are kind, 
 homely people. He will not be by himself: he has 
 his meals with the other patients. It is hard on 
 him to have to do without his books and curios. 
 He misses his books particularly; but the doctor 
 does not want him to read. And he must 
 walk ..." 
 
 44 But walk, Connie, walk? Alone? How can 
 he walk? All alone, on that enormous heath? He'll 
 lose his way, he's not responsible, he'll step into a 
 ditch and be drowned! " 
 
 44 No, Mamma, we shall look after him." 
 
 44 How do you mean, child?" 
 
 44 It will soon be Addie's holidays: Addie and 
 I are going to Nunspeet and we shall be with Ernst." 
 
 44 Oh, how kind of you, Connie! . . . But I shall 
 miss you." 
 
 44 I shall come and see you regularly, Mamma: 
 Nunspeet is not far." 
 
 44 Oh, child, child, what should I do without you? 
 Thank God, dear, that you returned to us at last! 
 
74 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 . . . And what will your husband do without his 
 boy?" 
 
 " He will come down occasionally. And he is 
 going away for a holiday with Van Vreeswijck. ... 
 I only came back to tell you that Ernst is all right. 
 I'm going back to Nunspeet this afternoon. And 
 from there I shall look Bertha up, at Baarn." 
 
 " I'm going to Mamma's too/' said Emilie, softly. 
 
 When they saw that the old woman was tired, 
 Constance and Emilie rose : 
 
 "We must go, Mamma. ..." 
 
 " Yes, child. But don't leave me too long alone. 
 When shall I see you again?" 
 
 " In three days." 
 
 " So long?" 
 
 " The others will come and see you : Aunt Lot, 
 Dorine, Adolphine. ..." 
 
 " Yes, but I am too much alone. I can't under- 
 stand it : I never used to be alone. I don't like being 
 alone. I'm not accustomed to it. What do all of 
 you do? . . ." 
 
 " Suppose you took Dorine to live with you, 
 Mamma? ..." 
 
 M No, no . . . not to live with me, not to live 
 with me. Every one should be free. But they 
 might come and see me sometimes. I never see 
 Adeline's children now. ..." 
 
 " Why, Mamma, I know they were here two days 
 ago!" 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 75 
 
 " No, no, it's longer . . . it's longer than that. 
 I never see your boy either." 
 
 M I'll send him this afternoon." 
 
 44 Yes, do. Why are we all so separated now? 
 It never used to be like that, never. . . . Well, 
 good-bye, dear. Will you send Addie? Will you 
 come yourself soon? " 
 
 44 You must wait a day or two." 
 
 44 Yes, very well, stay with poor Ernst. You are 
 doing a good work. And tell Adeline too that she 
 is neglecting me and that I never see the children 
 now, never. . . ." 
 
 They both kissed the old woman. When their 
 mother and grandmother was alone, she nodded her 
 head up and down, looked out at the rain; and the 
 tears ran down her cheeks, without stopping . ,., ,.. 
 without stopping. . . . 
 
 Emilie had a cab waiting: 
 
 44 I'll drive you home, Auntie." 
 
 They stepped in. 
 
 44 It's months since we saw you, child." 
 
 4 Yes, Auntie. I've come straight from Paris. 
 I'm going to see Mamma at Baarn." 
 
 44 And then?" 
 
 44 1 shall go back to Paris. I'm living there now 
 1.. ,. . I intended to come and see you too, Auntie." 
 
 44 Come in then, dear, and stay to lunch." 
 
 14 1 should like to, Auntie." 
 
 They got out at the villa in the Kerkhoflaan. 
 
76 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 Emilie dismissed the fly. Indoors, she removed her 
 hat, took off the tulle boa, lost something of her 
 exaggerated smartness. . . . 
 
 11 We have an hour left before lunch, Emilie," 
 said Constance. u Come up to my bedroom. I want 
 to talk to you." 
 
 They went upstairs; Constance shut the door: 
 
 " T«ll me, Emilie . . . how are you living, in 
 Paris? ..." 
 
 " With Henri, Auntie." 
 
 " With Henri . . . but why, Emilie? Why keep 
 your brother from his work? ..." 
 
 " I don't, Auntie. He doesn't want to do that 
 sort of work. He wants to be free; and so do I." 
 
 "Free . . . in what way?" 
 
 "We don't feel ourselves suited ... to Dutch 
 life. ..." 
 
 "But why not?" 
 
 "I don't know: an exotic drop of blood in our 
 veins, perhaps. Try to understand, Auntie . . . 
 you have lived abroad a long time yourself. 
 Holland is so narrow . . . and I ... I have 
 suffered too much in Holland." 
 
 "Dear, I suffered . . . away from my country; 
 and I longed for my country when I had not seen 
 it for years." 
 
 " You will understand all the same. Auntie, do 
 understand. I can't possibly live in Holland again; 
 nor Henri either." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 77 
 
 "How do you live there? Tell me." 
 
 i% We are both living on the money we had left 
 us." 
 
 44 1 know how much that is. There were heavy 
 debts. You did not receive much: not enough to 
 dress as you are dressed. . . . Emilie, if you care 
 for me at all, tell me everything frankly. I am not 
 inquisitive, but I am fond of you, fond of all of 
 you; and I take an interest in all of you. You 
 can't live on the money you came into from your 
 father." 
 
 44 I work, Auntie." 
 
 41 In Paris? What at? What do you do?" 
 
 44 I paint. I paint fans . . . and screens. You 
 know I have a bit of a gift that way. I paint them 
 with a good deal of chic. People in Holland 
 wouldn't care for the way I do them. But in Paris 
 I sell them for twenty francs, fifty francs: my 
 screens fetch a hundred francs. I turn them out in 
 half an hour. They have something about them, 
 I don't know what: chic, I suppose, that's all. But 
 I sell them: they are quite nice." 
 
 44 1 see nothing against that, child." 
 
 44 I've been very lucky with them, Auntie. I've 
 brought a screen with me for Granny . . . one for 
 you too . . . and a fan for Aunt Lot. . . . They're 
 presents: I knock them off in a moment. It's not 
 art exactly, but chic rather, actual chic. ..." 
 
 And her delicate little fingers outlined a delicate 
 
78 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 gesture of sheer twentieth-century artisticity. Con- 
 stance had to laugh in spite of herself. 
 
 " And Henri ? " asked Constance. 
 
 Emilie suddenly turned very red: 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 "What does Henri do?" 
 
 " He does ..." 
 
 "Nothing? ..." 
 
 " No. He does something. But don't ask me to 
 tell you." 
 
 " Why can't you tell me? " 
 
 " You wouldn't understand. Henri is making 
 money, a lot of money." 
 
 "What at?" 
 
 " I can't tell you, Auntie. It's not my secret, you 
 see: it's his." 
 
 " Is it a secret?" 
 
 " Yes, it's a secret." 
 
 " Then I won't ask." 
 
 " It's a secret ... to the others. Perhaps not 
 ... to you." 
 
 She was burning to let it out. 
 
 " I don't ask you to tell me, Emilie." 
 
 " I'll tell you ... if you promise me not to tell 
 anybody else . . . not a soul ! Henri is .., r ., c « a 
 clown! " 
 
 "Emilie! No!" 
 
 " Yes, he's a clown." 
 
 "No! . . , No!" 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 79 
 
 Emilie gave a loud, shrill laugh : 
 
 11 You see, you refuse to believe it ! I should 
 have done better not to tell you. You can't under- 
 stand it. If you saw him as a clown, you would. 
 He is splendid, he is unique. He is not a vulgar 
 clown, not a dummer August. He is simply mag- 
 nificent. He has turned the art of the clown into 
 something really artistic, something all his own. 
 He makes the audience laugh and cry as he pleases. 
 He invents his own scenes, designs his own dresses, 
 or else I design them for him. He has a way of 
 making up. . . . He has discovered the melancholy 
 side of the clown: he's sublime in that. ... He 
 has one turn in the circus with quite fifty butterflies 
 flitting on wires all round him ... he tries to 
 catch them and can't . . . and, when he does that 
 turn, the people begin by laughing and end by crying. 
 You see, it's symbolical. . . . Really, you ought to 
 go to Paris to see him. He's so good, so artistic. 
 ... He does a lot of exercises, to keep himself 
 supple. He looks much better than when he was 
 racketing about at Leiden. He's very good-looking 
 and he knows it : he never makes up ugly. A modern 
 sculptor wants to make a statue of him: very 
 fanciful, you know; something art-nouveau; in that 
 part, with the butterflies all round him. He is 
 always being asked to sit to artists. . . . You would 
 never have thought it of him, Auntie. Here, he was 
 just the ordinary undergraduate, racketing about, 
 
So THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 blewing his money. ... I was always fond of him. 
 The moment he got to Paris, he understood that 
 he must do something, show what he was made of, 
 strike out a line for himself; and it came to him with 
 a flash: he would be a clown! But a very, very fine 
 clown, something quite new, not one of your vulgar 
 clowns! He makes heaps of money, I don't know 
 how much. . . . And that's how we live, Auntie: 
 free and independent of everything and everybody. 
 . . . Auntie, you look shocked. But you mustn't 
 blame us! Here, I was unhappy, so was he; there, 
 we are happy, happy together. I am fond of him 
 and he of me. I don't know what it is, but we can't 
 live without each other. In Paris, the people think 
 that we are lovers; they won't believe that we are 
 brother and sister. And there you are : we're happy 
 and we don't care what horrible things they say 
 about us in Holland. Do you think I've come back 
 to Holland for any other reason than to see Grand- 
 mother, you, Mamma, Otto? I longed to see you; 
 I have no feeling for the others. I am sorry for 
 Uncle Ernst. But I want to lead a free life, inde- 
 pendent of Holland, of the family . . . and I had 
 to make it independent of my husband, whom I 
 married in mistake . . . and who beat me and 
 ill-treated me! We want to live, Auntie, and not 
 merely exist! " 
 
 But Constance did not know what to say and 
 shut her eyes as if she had been struck in the face. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 81 
 
 She turned pale. They wanted to live, not merely 
 to exist! Was it for her to blame them, for her, 
 who herself, very late, when she was quite old — 
 too late and too old — had felt the need to live and 
 not merely to exist? But . . . had they really 
 found their life in what they now considered their 
 life? Did she not now know that the real life is 
 not for one's self, but for others? Did she not 
 know it even though she had never reached the 
 radiant cities of the new life which had shone far 
 off on those unattainable horizons? Had she not 
 guessed that it was there; and had she herself not 
 seemed very small when she had had to leave out 
 of her reckoning the man who had become so dear 
 to her that she was able to forget everything for 
 his sake, even her son, the comfort of her existence, 
 if not of her life? Was not she herself small and 
 had she the right to condemn, merely because she 
 was older and therefore saw the purest truths gleam 
 at times out of some shimmering mist of self- 
 deception? No, she did not condemn . . . but that 
 did not prevent her from being shocked. She could 
 understand now . . . and yet the rooted prejudice 
 was there. She was willing to accept their new, 
 fresh, free happiness in a life without conventional 
 bonds; and yet those bonds bound herself, despite 
 her new powers of understanding. She understood; 
 and yet she felt a shudder at those who did not 
 tread the beaten path, the smooth track of their 
 
82 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 decent respectability. Did not a vague suggestion 
 of tragedy show dimly at the far ends of the new 
 roads? Could they possibly persevere? And what 
 would be the result of so unconventional a view of 
 life? Was anything but convention possible for 
 people such as all of them? Were they not born 
 for it, trained for it? She herself had found new 
 roads that led up to cities of light, but she had not 
 trodden those roads. These . . . were these new 
 roads leading up to cities of light? Or was it 
 merely wantonness, youthful levity, turning aside 
 from the smooth tracks, the beaten paths? . . . 
 
 " Emilie," she said, " if what you tell me is true, 
 don't tell any one else, don't talk about it ! If 
 Grandmamma heard, it would hurt her so much! 
 And Mamma too! " 
 
 11 No, Auntie, I won't; besides, it is a great se- 
 cret ... a secret from the family, from all our 
 friends. I have mentioned it to nobody but you; 
 and I shall mention it to nobody. But come, Auntie, 
 it's not so bad as all that: you look quite upset! 
 We have different ideas from our parents. We 
 can't help it. Who's to blame ? " 
 
 " When I think, dear, of your house, as it used 
 to be!" 
 
 "And now Henri is a clown . . t . and I paint 
 fans for my living! " 
 
 She gave a loud, shrill, almost triumphant laugh, 
 followed by a laugh that sounded sadder : 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 83 
 
 " Poor Grandmamma ! " she said. " Poor Grand- 
 mother! She called our family a grandeur dechue. 
 And she is right, from her point of view. I am 
 very sorry for her. I found her sitting there so 
 melancholy, so forlorn; and the tears were running 
 down her cheeks. . . . Auntie, you're a darling; I 
 feel that you are better than I. But I can't live 
 here. Your trouble made you want to come back. 
 Mine made me want to get away. You felt that 
 there were bonds that drew you here. I felt, on the 
 contrary, that I must throw off every bond. My life 
 began with a mistake." 
 
 11 So did mine." 
 
 14 Is it always like that?" 
 
 41 Often . . . often. ..." 
 
 11 Don't we know ourselves, then . . ,. when we 
 begin to live? ..." 
 
 44 No, every truth comes to us later, much 
 later. ..." 
 
 44 Then you don't think that I know my truth? " 
 
 44 No, Emilie." 
 
 44 You are not pleased with me? " 
 
 44 Pleased, child? It is not for me to judge you. 
 All I say is,, take care. Don't play with your life. 
 Don't waste it. Our life is a very serious thing; 
 and you treat it as . . ." 
 
 44 As what, Auntie?" 
 
 44 An artistic caprice." 
 
 44 How well you have put it, Auntie ! I never 
 
84 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 thought of that, never said it. An artistic caprice! 
 Henri too: an art-nouveau caprice? Why not?" 
 
 " Oh, no, Emilie . . . take care! " 
 
 " Auntie, we are so small. We don't make any 
 difference. What do people like us matter, women 
 like us, girls such as I was? Nothing. Nothing. 
 Why make tragedies of our lives? Why not rather 
 make them into something fanciful, something 
 fanciful and artistic?" And she made a painter's 
 gesture with her fore-linger and thumb. " When 
 we are dead, it's finished. . . . What do we matter, 
 that we should be tragic? That is all very well 
 for heroes and heroines . . . but not for us. I 
 will not have my life a tragedy. I started with a 
 mistake. Since then, I have conquered my life and 
 given it a definite aim. Do try and see, 
 Auntie. ..." 
 
 41 1 see, Emilie. But you forget ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "The bonds ..." 
 
 "Which I unloose ..." 
 
 " Which you cannot unloose." 
 
 " Yes, I can." 
 
 u No." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 M No. You'll see, later, when you're older." 
 
 " I sha'n't grow old, Auntie." 
 
 u Oh, child, what do you know, what do you 
 know? How can you tell what you will become, 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 85 
 
 how tragic your life may easily become, if you 
 don't think of it more seriously . . . more seri- 
 ously?" 
 
 She rose: an irresistible impulse made her em- 
 brace the girl passionately. 
 
 Emilie gave a start: 
 
 " What are you thinking of, Auntie? . . . What 
 do you mean? ..." 
 
 But what was the use of saying anything now 
 of her presentiment, when presentiments always 
 deceive? Constance said nothing more; she did not 
 know indeed what more to say; she merely stared 
 in front of her, strangely, vaguely; and what had 
 shone for a moment was gone. 
 
 And she looked deep into Emilie's eyes and saw 
 there only a vision: Paris, a circus, a clown, butter- 
 flies, quite fifty or more. . . . 
 
 The front-door downstairs was opened; there 
 were sounds of footsteps and voices. Ordinary life 
 was beginning again. 
 
 " There are Uncle and Addie," said Constance. 
 " Emilie, I'm going to Nunspeet this afternoon. " 
 
 " I'm going to Otto and Frances after lunch. Let 
 us meet at the station; and I'll go to Nunspeet with 
 you. I want to see Uncle Ernst. And then we'll 
 go to Baarn together." 
 
 " Very well, dear. But will you do one thing, to 
 please me? " 
 
 41 Yes, Auntie." 
 
86 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Dress a little more simply. Remember that 
 we're in Holland." 
 
 Emilie gave a shrill laugh : 
 
 " Yes, Auntie. I'll go and buy myself a sailor- 
 hat. All my hats are too exciting for the Hague. 
 The butcher-boys were shouting after me: 'Hat! 
 . . . Hat ! ' And, at Nunspeet and Baarn, I know 
 the whole village would turn out to look at me I " 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Marietje sat in Marianne's room staring out at 
 the road. The road, white with dust and sunlight, 
 gleamed through the green of the trees, described 
 a curve and wound round the creeper-clad station, 
 which stood in the shade close by. A train came 
 thundering in, making all the walls of the little villa 
 shake. Each time that a train rumbled past, 
 whether it stopped or steamed through almost 
 without slackening speed, it shook the little 
 villa. . . . 
 
 Marietje was bored. She was home for the holi- 
 days from her Brussels boarding-school, spending a 
 few weeks at Baarn with Mamma and Marianne, 
 and she was bored. She would rather have stayed 
 at school. Of course madame was a beast, but 
 Brussels at any rate was better fun than Baarn, 
 even for a schoolgirl. . . . She wondered how she 
 would be able to stand a month of it. She had 
 reckoned on an invitation from Uncle and Aunt van 
 Naghel to their beautiful country-place in Overijssel, 
 where she would have cycled and played tennis with 
 her boy cousins; but Uncle had not said a word 
 about it: Uncle wanted her to put in her month with 
 
 87 
 
88 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 Mamma, at Baarn. Lord, how could Mamma go 
 and live here, in such a house ! It would come 
 tumbling down on her head one day, with that ever- 
 lasting rumble of the trains. She simply could not 
 get away from the rumble of the trains. . . . 
 Marianne said that Mamma did not mind it and 
 that she herself had become so used to the noise that 
 once, when there was an accident at Hilversum and 
 the something p.m. train did not arrive at Baarn, 
 she had woke up because of the unwonted silence! 
 Well, that was a bit stiff, thought Marietje. Still, 
 perhaps the rumble of the trains did keep Mamma 
 and Marianne from going to sleep. For what a life 
 it was, in this little villa at Baarn ! Neither Mamma 
 nor Marianne knew anybody; and they saw nobody. 
 They had no carriage; and how can one live in the 
 country without keeping a carriage? Even if it was 
 only a dog-cart, or a governess-car, with a pony; 
 but you must have something. ... It was a rotten 
 way of living. A brilliant idea of Uncle Adolf's, 
 wasn't it, to insist that she should come and bury 
 herself here for a whole mortal month and bore her- 
 self to death with Mamma and Marianne! . . . 
 Karel hadn't come, the brute ! Oh no, he had gone 
 to Uncle's. Marietje knew why: because Uncle 
 wanted to keep an eye on him! So she didn't even 
 see her brother. . . . Oh, how dull it all was! 
 . . . Silly little walks to the Beukenkom, to Soest- 
 dijk: once in a way, there'd be the excitement of 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 89 
 
 seeing the Queen drive past. But that was over in 
 a flash — whoosh ! — and then there was nothing more 
 to see. Well, if she had been the Queen, she would 
 never have come and spent the summer at Soestdijk! 
 ... A month! She would never live through it. 
 She counted the days. She simply longed to go back 
 to Brussels. Madame had a young nephew who 
 used to make love to her in great secrecy, even 
 leaving notes under her napkin. It was risky, but 
 it was great fun. He wrote so thrillingly. . . . 
 Ah, when you compared the life that awaited her, 
 when she came home for good in eighteen months, 
 with what Emilie and Marianne had had: parties 
 at Court; dances at the Casino, with all the smartest 
 people in the Hague; the grand dinners at home: 
 her sisters had had all that. . . . Pretty frocks too. 
 . . . And she, what would she have? Nothing at 
 all. She'd just go to Baarn, for you might be 
 sure that Uncle and Aunt would never, never ask 
 her to stay with them! And at the Hague . . . 
 who was going to invite her to the Hague? The 
 whole winter at Baarn . . . good Heavens! No, 
 she must absolutely get herself invited to the 
 Hague, once she had left school ! Granny had a 
 big house . . . but Granny didn't like people 
 staying with her; Aunt Adolphine: bah, such a crew, 
 she wouldn't go there if she could; Uncle Gerrit: 
 no, he had too many children, she wouldn't care 
 about that and they hadn't a spare-room either; 
 
90 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 Uncle Karel was no use thinking about. . . . No, 
 there was only Aunt Constance, who never saw 
 anybody, and Uncle and Aunt Ruyvenaer, who had 
 no smart friends, nothing but East-Indian people. 
 . . . Yes, it was an awful nuisance, but she saw 
 no prospect of an invitation. But one thing she did 
 promise herself, to get married as soon as she could 
 '. . . and to make a good match while she was 
 about it, some one with lots of money! A nice 
 thing she called it: Papa and Mamma brought you 
 up in luxury and, the moment you began to grow up, 
 they let you eat your heart out at Baarn ! She was 
 decent-looking, thank goodness, and her figure was 
 going to be all right . . . and then she would 
 marry a lot of money! You had to be practical: 
 that was the great thing. There were a. few 
 rich men left. But she . . . she would show some 
 sense and not behave like Emilie, who had got mar- 
 ried by mistake or by accident, so it seemed, and 
 accepted Eduard just as you accept a partner for a 
 waltz. . . . Nor like Marianne either, who had 
 fallen in love with her uncle ! No, mark her words, 
 she promised herself that much : since she had been 
 brought up in luxury, now that the luxury was gone, 
 she would see that she married money . . . for 
 money was everything. She wasn't going to trouble 
 about a title or a name: if a rich bounder came 
 and proposed, he'd do. But a fine house, fine 
 clothes . . . and a carriage . . . and jewellery: 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 91 
 
 all that she must have and all that she meant to 
 have; for, without it, life wasn't worth living. To 
 go on vegetating at Baarn, with that incessant 
 rumbling of the trains, which made the walls of the 
 villa shake as if the whole house were going to 
 tumble down on her head: never! She had made 
 up her mind to that: never! 
 
 Marianne came into the room, which was her 
 own boudoir, with a conservatory leading into the 
 garden: it was the pleasantest room in the house; 
 the only others on the ground-floor were a small 
 drawing-room and a gloomy dining-room. Marietje, 
 lost in thought, was staring out at the sunny, dusty 
 white road. 
 
 41 Shall we go for a walk, Marietje ?" asked 
 Marianne. 
 
 11 Beukenkom?" asked Marietje, languidly. 
 
 "No, farther than that . . ." 
 
 "Soestdijk?" 
 
 u No, farther still, through the Overbosch and 
 across the moor, if you like." 
 
 " No, thank you : it's too hot and there's too 
 much dust and glare. Can't we hire the pony-cart? 
 Then I'll drive you." 
 
 "That mounts up, you know, Marietje; we can't 
 take it every morning." 
 
 u Every morning! " growled Marietje. " Listen 
 to you: every morning! . . . Well, then let's stay 
 and look out of the window." 
 
92 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Why don't you play the piano or do some 
 painting? " 
 
 " Thank you for nothing. I can do that at 
 school. I have no accomplishments." 
 
 " Then take a book and read." 
 
 "Oh, rot! The books that amuse me I'm not 
 allowed to read; and the books I'm allowed to read 
 don't amuse me. It's one of the drawbacks of my 
 awkward age! Why haven't you joined a tennis- 
 club?" 
 
 " Yes, I'm sorry I didn't. I'll see that I do next 
 year." 
 
 " Next year . . . that's a long way off. You 
 ought to have thought of it before: you knew that 
 you were expecting your sister and that there 
 wouldn't be much for her to do here. But you 
 can't think of anything here, you can't take your 
 eyes off that horrible white road. It hurts your 
 eyes too. . . . My poor child, how can you stand 
 this place . . . after the Hague ! Don't you long 
 for the Hague?" 
 
 " Not a bit." 
 
 u But what do you do here all the win- 
 ter?" 
 
 "Nothing, Marietje." 
 
 "Oh, I know! You've grown pi. You go in 
 for good works. Sewing for the poor." 
 
 " There are two poor families for whom I make 
 things sometimes." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 93 
 
 " There, what did I tell you? I knew it! Well, 
 give us some nighties, in Heaven's name ! M 
 
 14 Oh no, Marietje, never mind about that! M 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes, hand over your nighties and let's 
 sew them! " 
 
 Marianne had sat down at her work-basket and 
 Marietje, out of sheer boredom, also took up a 
 " nightie." But she did no sewing: 
 
 "Just imagine if we wore this sort of thing, 
 Marianne ! It would tear my skin. ... Oh Lord, 
 there's another train! What a row, what an 
 awful row! Aren't you afraid the house will 
 fall in?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Do you like that noise?" 
 
 M Yes, one gets used to it." 
 
 44 You could sleep to it, eh?" 
 
 " Yes, it lulls one." 
 
 Marietje shrieked with laughter: 
 
 " Oh, Marianne, how sentimental . . . you 
 . . . have . . . be-come, as Aunt Cateau would 
 say. ..." 
 
 And, to herself, she thought: 
 
 " No, I'm not like that, you know. You won't 
 catch me falling in love with my uncle for nothing. 
 I mean to marry money, lots of money ..." 
 
 But she said nothing, just stared out at the sunny, 
 dusty road. A few people came along from the 
 station. 
 
94 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 "There's the rank and fashion of Baarn!" 
 sneered Marietje. "The great sight of the day: 
 three tradesmen and a hunch-backed shop-girl. 
 Uncle Paul would say, three and a half atoms of 
 human wretchedness. . . . Another tradesman and 
 another shop-girl. . . . Two ladies. . . . Look, 
 as I live, two ladies ! . . . Goodness me, it's Aunt 
 Constance and . . . and Emilie ! " 
 
 "Nonsense!" 
 
 4 Yes, yes, it's Aunt Constance and Emilie ! 
 Hurrah!" 
 
 And Marietje, in sheer wild ecstasy at the unex- 
 pected distraction, threw the " nightie " right up 
 to the ceiling, where it caught in the chandelier, 
 and rushed through the garden down the road. She 
 flung one leg up in the air with delight. 
 
 " Auntie ! Emilie ! " Marianne heard her yell- 
 ing, quite beside herself. 
 
 Marietje embraced her aunt and her sister madly 
 at the gate of the villa, conducted them indoors, 
 thanked them personally for the surprise which they 
 were giving her, for the welcome distraction which 
 their arrival provided. . . . 
 
 "And Uncle Ernst?" asked Marianne. "Poor 
 Uncle Ernst! We had a letter from Frances. . . ." 
 
 Constance told her how he was getting on at 
 Nunspeet, that he was still rather restless, because 
 he would look all over the house for fettered souls 
 that moaned and implored him to help them. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 95 
 
 "Will the delusion never leave him?" asked 
 Marianne, with tears in her eyes. 4< Auntie, will he 
 never get better? " 
 
 " The doctor has every hope that it will not be 
 permanent. •.-.•" 
 
 Marietje had taken possession of Emilie: 
 
 "And so you're living in Paris? With Henri? 
 What do you do there, the two of you? Come, let's 
 hear ! Aren't you going to ask me to stay ? Haven't 
 you a spare-room? Look out: I shall come tearing 
 in from Brussels, suddenly 1 Just imagine if I 
 did!" 
 
 But by this time they had passed through the 
 dining-room into the drawing-room, where they 
 found Bertha. She was sitting at the window; she 
 looked up. 
 
 44 Here's Aunt Constance, Mamma. And Emilie." 
 
 Bertha merely stood up, kissed her sister and her 
 daughter and at once dropped into her chair again. 
 She scarcely seemed surprised at seeing them so 
 unexpectedly. She barely asked after Mamma, after 
 Ernst, after Henri. She seemed rooted to her seat 
 at that window, through which she gazed at the 
 shadows of the trees. She had grown thin, her eyes 
 stared blankly and miserably in front of her and, in 
 her black dress, she gave an impression of weary, 
 listless resignation. She spoke scarcely more than 
 a word or two, as if it were quite natural that Con- 
 stance and Emilie should be sitting there. 
 
96 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Henri sends you his best love, Mamma," said 
 Emilie. 
 
 Bertha gave a faint smile, just blinked her eyes, 
 as though to say yes, it was very nice of Henri. 
 But she asked no questions. 
 
 11 1 have just come from Ernst, Bertha," said 
 Constance. " I took him to Nunspeet with the 
 doctor. I went down again yesterday, to see him; 
 and, once I had started, I thought I would come and 
 look you up." 
 
 11 It's nice of you," said Bertha, vaguely, taking 
 Constance' hand. " Is Ernst very bad? We had a 
 letter from Frances." 
 
 11 The doctor is very hopeful." 
 
 u Yes," said Bertha, as if it went without saying, 
 14 he's sure to get over it." 
 
 And she seemed tired from talking so much and 
 said nothing more. 
 
 Presently Marianne, when she was alone with 
 Constance, said: 
 
 "You'll stay to lunch, of course, Auntie?" 
 
 44 Yes, dear, if I may." 
 
 44 Are you staying for the night? " 
 
 44 At the hotel." 
 
 41 I'm sorry that we haven't a spare-room. Emilie 
 can sleep here; then I'll sleep on the sofa. ... I 
 must just go and see about lunch." 
 
 44 Don't put yourself out for me, dear." 
 
 44 No, Auntie, but I must see what there is. You 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 97 
 
 know, with just the three of us, we live very 
 simply." 
 
 She flushed; and Coiistance realized that they had 
 to be careful and that they could not keep the same 
 generous table as in the old days. 
 
 They exchanged a sad smile. Suddenly, Mari- 
 anne flung herself into Constance* arms. 
 
 44 My darling, how are you yourself?" 
 
 44 Quite well, Auntie." 
 
 44 You don't look at all well. My child, how 
 thin you've grown! And how drawn your little 
 face looks! And your poor cheeks: why, they've 
 gone to nothing! . . . Aren't you happy here, 
 dear?" 
 
 44 Oh yes, Auntie ! " 
 
 44 No, but tell me, honestly: are you happy at 
 Baarn?" 
 
 44 Yes, Auntie, I am." 
 
 44 Do you regret the Hague? " 
 
 44 Regret? . . . No. . . ." 
 
 44 Still, just a little? ..." 
 
 44 No ... no. . . ." 
 
 Her eyes were full of tears; she began to sob on 
 Constance' shoulder: 
 
 44 Forgive me, Auntie. I oughtn't to break down 
 like this." 
 
 44 My darling . . . tell me all about it . . ." 
 
 44 No, Auntie, it's nothing, really. I feel so 
 ashamed, but, as you know, I always let myself go 
 
9 8 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 with you . . . because I feel that you do love me 
 ... a little . . . and that you are not angry with 
 me . . . and that you forgive me. ..." 
 
 " I have nothing to forgive, Marianne. ..." 
 
 " Yes, you have, yes, you have, Auntie. . . . Oh, 
 forgive me, forgive me! Tell me you forgive 
 me! . . ." 
 
 " How do you spend your time here, dear?" 
 
 11 Quietly, Auntie, but I'm quite satisfied. I try 
 to be of some little use ... to Mamma . . . and 
 others. I have some poor people whom I look 
 after. But I can't do much, I haven't much. . . . 
 In the old days, you know, Mamma used to do a 
 lot of good ... in between all her rush and worry; 
 and I try to do a little now. But it is hard work 
 . . . and rather thankless work. . . . However, 
 that's all that's left: to live a little for others . . . 
 and do a little for others. But sometimes . . . 
 sometimes I find it too much for me. ..." 
 
 u Poor Marianne ! " 
 
 " Yes, sometimes it's too much for me. I am so 
 young still . . . and I feel as if I had done with 
 everything, for good and all! . . ." 
 
 " No, dear, no. . . . If you only knew! You're 
 a child still, Marianne . . . And life, real life, will 
 come later ..." 
 
 " It will never come for me, Auntie. Oh, forgive 
 me ! I feel ashamed of myself. I don't want to talk 
 like this . . . but with you, just with you, because 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 99 
 
 you're fond of me, I can't restrain myself. . . . Oh, 
 tell me that you forgive me, say it, say it ! " 
 
 44 My child, if it does you any good to hear me 
 say so, though I have nothing to forgive, very well, 
 I forgive you." 
 
 44 Oh, thank you, thank you, Auntie ! . . . You 
 are good and kind; you understand." 
 
 44 Yes, dear, I understand. But the real thing 
 will come later." 
 
 " No, nothing will ever come, nothing can 
 come ..." 
 
 44 Can't it?" 
 
 44 No, how could it?" 
 
 44 If you had the strength and courage not to give 
 in, Marianne, there would be happiness for you in 
 days to come." 
 
 44 But I have neither courage, Auntie, nor strength. 
 What am I? Nothing. There is a great, big 
 river, which rushes and flows, carrying everything, 
 everything with it, like a deluge. And then 
 there is . . .a tiny twig, a leaf. That's what I 
 am, Auntie. . . . How can I hope to . . . ? " 
 
 44 You're talking in parables, my child. Shall I 
 do the same? " 
 
 44 Do, Auntie." 
 
 44 Come and sit here beside me. Put your head 
 on my shoulder. There. And now listen to my 
 parable. . . . There was once a soul, a very small 
 soul, like yours, Marianne. A very small soul it 
 
ioo THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 was, quite an insignificant little soul. It knew no- 
 thing about anything, it seemed to be walking blindly, 
 walking in a dream, a child's dream, light and airy 
 and fragile. There was water and there were 
 flowers . . . and there was a far-away light, to- 
 wards which it moved. As the soul went on, the 
 flowers and the trees disappeared; and in their stead 
 a palace and every sort of pomp and vanity gleamed 
 in front of the small soul. . . . But all that glitter 
 was just as much a dream as the water and the 
 flowers; and the small soul . . . made its second 
 mistake. It walked blindly in that dream of pomp 
 and vanity and thought that it saw all that radiance. 
 It gave itself away, Marianne, gave everything it 
 had to any one who might make it shine still more 
 brilliantly . . . gave away everything it possessed, 
 for nothing . . . for an illusion. And it already 
 felt unhappy, thinking, ' There is nothing more 
 coming; I've had everything now.' It thought that, 
 even before its fate arrived. It saw its fate arrive 
 and could still have avoided it, but did not, remained 
 blind, blind to everything. Its fate swept it along; 
 and it thought, Marianne, that everything was over, 
 over for good and all; that it would wither like a 
 flower, like a twig, like a leaf; and that the river 
 would carry it along with it. And then, Marianne, 
 then something else came, after it had been swept 
 along by fate : there came a great revelation, a vision 
 of rapture, an ecstasy of glory. And the small soul 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 101 
 
 saw that it was that; but its fate forbade it to accept 
 that great happiness, that vision of ecstasy. . . . 
 And once again it thought, ' Now, now, I have 
 really had everything. After that, nothing more can 
 possibly come.' And yet something did come. 
 And, after that revelation, it was no longer a dream, 
 but a reality, as tangible as it could hope to be . . . 
 for such a poor small soul. . . . What came, 
 Marianne, was not so very much; but the small soul 
 does not want much: an atom, a grain of absolute 
 truth and reality; a tiny grain, but all-sufficing. . . . 
 For small souls do not need much. . . . Just an 
 atom, a grain. And of that grain, Marianne, it even 
 communicated a part ... to others. My child, 
 that is the whole secret: to share your grain, to 
 give, though it be but of your superfluity, to others. 
 But, Marianne, you will have to wait for that grain; 
 it will only come later; and, before you can possess 
 it . . . you must first go through everything . . . 
 you must pass through all that unreality, that vain 
 dreaming . . ." 
 
 M And, Auntie, have you the grain ?" 
 
 " Oh, child, the grain is so small, so small! So 
 tiny, so wee, such a very little grain ! But what are 
 we ourselves? And, we being what we are, is not 
 that little tiny grain enough? . . ." 
 
 11 For happiness . . . some day, later, much 
 later, after long, long years? ..." 
 
 "Happiness? Happiness? ... ., . Yes, the happi- 
 
102 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 ness of knowing, of understanding; the happiness of 
 resignation; the happiness of accepting one's own 
 smallness . . . and of not being angry and bitter 
 because of all the mistakes . . . and of being 
 grateful for what is beautiful and clear and 
 true. . . ." 
 
 "Grateful . . ," . 
 
 " For the great dream. . . . And the happiness 
 of satisfying hunger and thirst . . . with that one, 
 solitary little grain . . . and of no longer yearning 
 for the great, great dream ! M 
 
 "But yet remaining grateful ..." 
 
 " Yes, grateful that the dream has been vouch- 
 safed to us, that its radiance ever smiled upon 
 us. . . ." 
 
 " But, Auntie, suppose it was no dream . . . but 
 the very bread of life ! " 
 
 " My child, who can tell you now what is the only 
 bread of life? Now, you are only hungry for your 
 dream . . . and, later, much later ..." 
 
 "Have I hungered then . . . after nothing?" 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " After nothing? Oh no!" 
 
 "Who can tell?" 
 
 "Auntie, is every one of life's parables so cruel 
 in its worldly wisdom? Do they all teach that the 
 great dream is nothing and the little grain, which 
 comes so late, everything? ..." 
 
 " I fear so, child." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 103 
 
 M Oh, Auntie, it's all words . . . soft, gentle 
 words ! . . . I understand you : it is your own story, 
 your parable. But, until now, mine ... is nothing 
 but the river . . . and the leaf. ..." 
 
 44 And later perhaps there will come ... the 
 tiny treasure, the grain. ..." 
 
 Then they were silent; and Constance thought: 
 
 44 Every soul must first go through that, must have 
 its dream. . . . Not until very late does it find the 
 grain . . . for itself. What another communicates 
 to it never satisfies its hunger as does its own grain 
 . . . the grain it has found for itself ..." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Addie was nearly sixteen. He did not grow much 
 in stature, he promised to have the same build as 
 his father, for there was something sturdy and yet 
 delicate, something robust and yet gentle about him : 
 strength and refinement combined. He continued to 
 look older than he was, as though he could never 
 quite catch himself up: his face, carved in firm and 
 yet delicate lines, wore an air of calm serenity that 
 did not belong to his years; his cheeks were co- 
 vered with a golden down : indeed, his mother would 
 have liked him to start shaving, which however he 
 was not willing to do yet; and so the vague strip 
 of golden velvet above his upper lip had become a 
 decided moustache. His hair, with its soft, short, 
 brown curls, was exactly like his father's; and his 
 eyes also were his father's eyes, but they had grown 
 still more serious, if possible, calm and tender, with 
 a smiling sadness in their depths, and, above all, 
 Addie's eyes were of a clear, untroubled blue, with 
 none of the boyishness which shone in Van der 
 Welcke's. Addie's were northern eyes, as his 
 mother said: Dutch eyes, she called them, as dis- 
 tinguished from the Creole eyes of all her family, the 
 Van Lowes. 
 
 104 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 105 
 
 " Addie, how Dutch you are ! M his mother would 
 say, meaning thereby that they all, the Van Lowes, 
 were specimens of the languid, less robust East- 
 Indian type and that his father also had become 
 more or less un-Dutch through his long residence 
 abroad. " Addie, how Dutch you are ! For a boy 
 born on the Riviera, brought up in Brussels, who 
 had never been in Holland before his thirteenth 
 year, how is it possible that you should be the most 
 Dutch of us all! You have nothing of the cosmo- 
 politan about you ! " 
 
 His mother used to tease him like this, especially 
 when she looked into his eyes, his clear, calm, Dutch 
 eyes, as into two blue mirrors, with a smile in them 
 like a reflexion . . . and beneath that smile, a vague 
 shadow of sadness. And then he would give a sober 
 nod of assent, laughing quietly, as though to say 
 that she was right, that he felt quite Dutch and 
 neither a languid East-Indian nor a mongrel cosmo- 
 politan. He was a Dutch boy above all things, but 
 here, in this little village of Nunspeet, he felt even 
 more Dutch than at the Hague, especially as he 
 looked out of his window at the hotel and saw the 
 glittering white dunes undulating towards those 
 vast skies, saw the piled-up clouds, the immensities 
 of grey-blue rolling clouds, drifting by in their 
 puissant majesty: all the glory of a small land; 
 grandeur and might and majesty towering above 
 the small lowlands, which bowed humbly beneath 
 
106 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 their awfulness . . . Those clouds, those Dutch 
 clouds: Addie loved them, those awful powers 
 throned high above the gently undulating lands 
 . . . and Mamma, who teased him so, loved them 
 too, her Dutch clouds, so vast, so vast, as though 
 they were islands and fields, larger than the fields 
 and islands of Holland itself. . . . 
 
 It was early, six o'clock; and he looked out of 
 his window into the pearly morning and, with a 
 characteristic gesture of enthusiasm, flung out his 
 arms towards the clouds. Then he laughed at him- 
 self, hoped that no one had seen him from the 
 road. No, the peasants going to their work did 
 not look up at his window; and now he dressed 
 himself quickly, ran downstairs, breakfasted hur- 
 riedly on bread-and-butter and a glass of milk and 
 went along the high-road and down a shorter road 
 to Dr. van Heuvel's villa. The house stood some 
 way back, in a large garden, quiet and shady; and, 
 as the house stood high, it looked out over the 
 undulating, sparkling dunes, past the dark-green 
 masses of fir-trees on the moor which shimmered 
 purple in the early morning sunshine, towards low 
 horizons of just a streak of green, broken only by 
 the needle-point of a steeple: just a narrow strip 
 beneath the awful majesties of the vast clouds which 
 drifted calmly by, one after the other, on and on, 
 unceasingly, ever vast and majestic. 
 
 The doctor came out to meet Addie. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 107 
 
 " Here I am, doctor." 
 
 44 That's right, Van der Welcke, you're in good 
 time. Would you mind going for a walk with your 
 uncle presently? " 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 u For I can't manage to come to-day." 
 
 14 There's no reason why you should, doctor." 
 
 11 It's the first time you'll have been out alone 
 with him. When will your mother be back? " 
 
 " This afternoon." 
 
 M Of course, I could send the keeper with you. 
 But it's better that your uncle should not see more 
 of. him than's necessary." 
 
 44 Don't worry, doctor; it'll be all right." 
 
 44 Don't go too far, you know." 
 
 44 No, close by, on the dunes." 
 
 44 1 can rely on you? " 
 
 44 Yes, doctor, absolutely." 
 
 44 Here he comes." 
 
 Ernst came shuffling into the garden from the 
 verandah; he knew Addie and smiled: 
 
 44 Where's Mamma? " he asked. 
 
 44 She'll be back this afternoon, Uncle. Are you 
 coming for a walk with me?" 
 
 44 No, I'm going to wait for Mamma," said Ernst, 
 in a suspicious voice, with a glance at the doctor. 
 
 Nevertheless, Addie succeeded in coaxing him 
 outside, down the road. And then Ernst took Addie 
 by the arm and said: 
 
108 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 44 Do you know what's so rotten? That fellow's 
 hidden Mamma." 
 
 44 No, Uncle, really he hasn't." 
 
 " Yes, he has, my boy. The fellow's buried her, 
 somewhere in the dunes. Shall we go and look for 
 her?" 
 
 44 Uncle, I'm quite ready to go for a walk, but 
 Mamma is not hidden or buried: she's gone to 
 Baarn, to see Aunt Bertha, and she'll be here this 
 afternoon." 
 
 Ernst shook his head and grinned contemptuously : 
 
 44 You people are always so obstinate. Do you 
 mean to say you don't hear Mamma? Can't you 
 hear her moaning? She's been moaning all night. 
 That fellow's buried her, I tell you." 
 
 44 1 don't believe it, Uncle, but at any rate we 
 can go for a walk. ..." 
 
 44 Yes, we'll look for her." 
 
 They went through a pine-wood: it was cool 
 and dark as a church. Ernst kept poking the ground 
 with his stick, kept listening to the ground : 
 
 44 She's farther on," he said, 4 ' in the dunes. Her 
 voice comes from farther away. Don't you hear 
 it?" 
 
 44 No, Uncle." 
 
 Ernst shrugged his shoulders: 
 
 44 You people are so dull-witted. You have no 
 senses . . . and no souls," he said, roughly. And 
 he immediately added, as though afraid that he had 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 109 
 
 given pain, as though anxious to make atonement 
 without delay, " Mamma is kind. You too, you're 
 a good boy. I may make something of you yet." 
 
 They walked along, up and down the dunes, Ernst 
 continually stopping and Addie continually forcing 
 him to go on. At last, Ernst went down on his 
 knees and dug a big hole with his two hands: 
 
 " It's here," he said. " I can hear Mamma's 
 voice sighing. O God, O God, how she's moaning! 
 She'll be suffocated, she'll be suffocated. Her 
 mouth, her throat, her eyes are full of sand. What 
 cruel wretches people are! What harm has poor 
 Mamma done them? The wretches, the savages! 
 . . . It's here, it's here: yes, wait a bit, Constance, 
 wait a bit. I'm digging you out, I'm digging you 
 out!" 
 
 He dug away, with his stick and his hands, dug 
 away till the sand flew all round him, making his 
 clothes white with dust. Addie had stretched him- 
 self on the ground and was letting him have his way, 
 looking on quietly with his serene blue eyes, which 
 seemed to study each of Ernst's movements. He 
 said nothing more, finding no words with which to 
 dispel the hallucination. At that moment, all words 
 were vain. The hallucination was so vivid that 
 Ernst actually saw Constance through the sand, saw 
 her lying four or five yards beneath the surface, 
 stuck fast in the sand, with its myriad grains pressing 
 so tightly round her that she could not move and 
 
no THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 that, when, through her sighing and moaning, she 
 was compelled to open her mouth, the sand at once 
 trickled into it. He saw her body, as in a black 
 garment, glued tightly to her limbs, stiff and mo- 
 tionless in that tomb of sand, in that winding-sheet 
 which pressed closer and closer to her until the 
 pressure threatened to choke her, especially now that 
 her mouth was full of sand. Ernst could just see 
 her black eyes faintly gleaming through a screen 
 of sand; sand trickled into her ears; and the sand, 
 though there was no room for it below, kept 
 trickling faster and faster, till it became an eddy 
 of trickling sand. The trickling grains of sand 
 were now gyrating madly around Constance like a 
 great cyclone . . . and Ernst dug and dug, with 
 furious hands. He dared not use his stick . . . for 
 fear of hurting Constance. He dug, like an animal, 
 with frantic hands. He dug away, dug out a 
 regular pit; and the sand became wetter and wetter: 
 he was now flinging out great lumps of sand. . . . 
 Then, as he dug, he saw the dark body sinking, 
 for ever sinking a yard lower: he could not reach 
 his sister. The body sank and sank; and he re- 
 flected that, however deep he might dig his pit, he 
 would never reach Constance: 
 
 " Addie ! " he cried. " Addie ! Help me, can't 
 you? Help me! " 
 
 Addie, lying at full length, with his chin on his 
 hand, looked quietly at his uncle, with all the 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 1 1 1 
 
 serenity of his searching blue eyes. Suddenly Ernst 
 stopped his digging, quickly turned his head half- 
 way towards Addie; and his restless eyes looked 
 into Addie's eyes. Then Addie shook his head 
 gently, as if in denial, as if to explain to Ernst, 
 without words, that it was not as Ernst thought, that 
 there was not a body under the sand. . . . 
 
 They looked at each other like that for a few 
 minutes. Ernst lay on his knees by the pit, his 
 fingers still cramped with the effort of digging. 
 Suddenly, his feverish energy seemed to subside; he 
 shivered and cried: 
 
 44 O my God, O my God, O my God! . . ." 
 
 Then he bent over the pit and looked down. He 
 saw nothing now : the body was not there ; there was 
 nothing but the hard, impenetrable subsoil. Then 
 he listened, with his head on one side, for the 
 plaintive voice. There was no voice: there was 
 nothing but the great subterranean silence. There 
 was nothing now: no body, no voice. He looked 
 around: around him lay the sand which he had flung 
 up, those senseless heaps of sand. 
 
 44 O my God, O my God, O my Godl " he cried. 
 
 Addie looked at him, very quietly; and Ernst 
 shuddered under the blue serenity of that com- 
 passionate, studying glance. Then, with a jerk 
 which shook his whole frame, the tension relaxed 
 and his body seemed to go slack. But he still 
 scraped some sand together and carefully filled up 
 
ii2 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 the pit to a certain depth, so that the wet sand 
 was powdered over with dry, white sand. Finally 
 he stretched himself at full length, with his legs 
 straight out and his arms under his head. He was 
 very tired, especially in his head. He could not 
 have spoken a word. Heaving a deep sigh, he lay 
 staring up at the tremendous clouds. They drifted 
 past like something unearthly in their immensity, 
 drifted very, very slowly, before his upturned 
 gaze. . . . 
 
 Then he closed his eyes, as if he were becoming 
 frightened, as if it were all too big for him, too 
 tremendous, too unearthly. And at the thought of 
 his smallness he was oppressed with melancholy, a 
 darkness that clouded his soul. He could not help 
 it: under his closed eyes, the slow tears forced them- 
 selves; a sob shook him; and he lay weeping, still 
 stretched at full length, still with his eyes closed. 
 A big tear trickled down his cheek. . . . 
 
 Addie never took his eyes off him. Now he rose, 
 came nearer and gently stroked Ernst's long, black 
 hair. . . . 
 
 And Ernst just raised his eyelids and saw Addie 
 stooping over him: blue eyes looking into black 
 eyes. Then he closed his own again, breathed 
 heavily, let Addie stroke his hair. The big tears 
 trickled slowly. . . . 
 
 There was no need, thought Addie, to speak to 
 the tired man. The hallucination had gone ; it must 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 113 
 
 have left him utterly fagged out. Round both of 
 them, man and boy, hung the haze of the summer 
 morning; a steady droning filled the sultry air. 
 Overhead, clouds drifted endlessly, everlastingly, 
 cloud after cloud, drifting on and on. . . . 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 It had gone very, very still. The tired man had 
 dozed off; it seemed as though his nerve-taut limbs 
 had relaxed and lay loose and slack: the thin legs 
 in the wide, creased trousers; the chest sunk under 
 the rumpled coloured shirt; the narrow shoulders, 
 the lean arms in the old coat, with its tired creases. 
 And the features of his face had also fallen in, 
 now that the nerves were at last resting; they had 
 fallen in like an old man's : queer wrinkles furrowed 
 the forehead and etched lines under the eyes and 
 round the nose and mouth; the short, scanty beard 
 formed a stubble around the long chin; and the hair 
 too was thin and stubby, a little thin behind the 
 ears. Addie looked at the hands of the sleeping 
 man: long, thin fingers, in which a nervous tremor 
 still lingered, a very slight tremor, as though quivers 
 were passing under the skin, over the veins. . . / 
 The boy looked curiously at the hands, for he was 
 always interested in hands, judging people more by 
 their hands than by anything else : he did not exactly 
 know why and certainly could not analyze it. And 
 he could see those long, thin hands not only reaching 
 out vaguely and ineffectually after art, but also 
 laying hold of books with a more confident grasp, 
 
 114 
 
 \ 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 115 
 
 turning them page by page. He saw too a tremor 
 of pity in the tapering finger-tips, which seemed not 
 to dare to touch things; and those finger-tips struck 
 him particularly because of the short nails, which 
 nevertheless showed breeding, with their almond 
 shape and the little crescent-moon at the quick; only, 
 the nails were bitten short, as though in fits of 
 nervousness. Then, mechanically, as he always did 
 when studying people's hands, he looked at his own: 
 his father's hands, but still boy's hands, though they 
 were already becoming manlier, short and broad, 
 white and strong, hands that would take a close, 
 steady grip of things. He no longer bit the nails, 
 but would cut them swiftly, with a pen-knife, when- 
 ever they bothered him. And from his own hands 
 he glanced once more towards his Uncle Ernst's and 
 seemed to read in them a soul highly susceptible 
 to art and of extreme sensitiveness; a soul ready to 
 assimilate the contents of books; a soul evolved 
 out of loneliness, out of lonely life and lonely 
 knowledge and, above all, out of lonely, very lonely 
 feeling; a soul so lonely and shrinking that it had 
 fallen ill of that loneliness and appeared to see and 
 hear actually the thousand reflexions of all that it 
 had read in books, seen in art and felt in its lonely 
 hypersensitiveness. . . . 
 
 The tired man slept on. . . . And Addie stretched 
 himself at still fuller length, while around him the 
 white dunes rippled away in the summer haze under 
 
n6 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 those wide, unearthly skies. He felt well and not 
 unhappy, though there was just a streak of sadness 
 running through his reverie, sadness because people 
 and things were what they were. It was a pleasant, 
 benevolent sort of secret reverie; and through it 
 all there was the desire to grasp things, to hold 
 them as with the close, steady grip of his own hands, 
 that close, steady grip, firm but tender, with which 
 he meant to grasp everything in this wavering, un- 
 certain life, earnestly and charitably and above all 
 with a great longing for absolutely understanding, 
 for divine knowledge, for the sake both of others 
 and of himself. . . . And, because he had made 
 up his mind, he ceased dreaming and began to reflect, 
 thinking over how he was going to tell his parents 
 what he knew so well in his own heart. He had 
 loved them with such earnest love from early 
 childhood that he understood them very well, 
 both of them, knew them as thoroughly as it is 
 possible for one being to know another. His 
 father had always remained young, despite what 
 he called the ruin of his life, despite that other 
 thing which had brought great sorrow to him 
 recently. His mother had grown older but more 
 serious and lately, when she talked to him, Addie, 
 had expressed views on all sorts of subjects which 
 he used to think rather ... or was it because 
 he himself was growing older and understood more 
 and fathomed more of the depths of this deep life ? 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 117 
 
 Had Mamma always been like this? Were his 
 childish memories at fault and had she always been 
 the serious woman that she now was? . . . No, 
 that was impossible, he thought; but nevertheless 
 this was more an intuitive feeling than a definite 
 ability to assert it positively and unhesitatingly. 
 . . . And now he reflected — he had admitted it to 
 himself — that, for as far as his love was greater 
 for one than for the other, it was greater for his 
 father, however much he would have liked it to be 
 equally great for both. . . . Still, he would not 
 speak to his father this time: he would speak to his 
 mother. She would understand him more quickly 
 than Papa; and what he had to tell her would hurt 
 Papa more than it would Mamma. He would speak 
 to Mamma first. . . . True, it appeared to him 
 difficult to speak of this matter at all and to destroy 
 in them a thought, an expectation, a hope which 
 they had always cherished. But yet his idea had 
 sprung up with such force from his innermost con- 
 sciousness that he felt that he could not do otherwise. 
 He would have to speak and tell them what 
 he had resolved to do with his life, whose 
 impenetrable future he saw unfolding before him, 
 clearer every day, as though wide doors were 
 being opened, till he saw what things would be 
 like and where he would go to, a long, long way 
 ahead. . . . 
 
 He would tell her that afternoon, would tell his 
 
n8 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 mother first. And, as he made up his mind to this, 
 he felt that in his case it would be a vocation, that 
 the voice was a distinct one, as though it were calling 
 to him and beckoning him, through the wide doors 
 that had opened. The voice that called to him so 
 distinctly he would answer. . . . 
 
 But Ernst was stirring and now woke from his 
 sleep. 
 
 " Do you feel rested, Uncle? " 
 
 Ernst sadly nodded yes. 
 
 " Well, then shall we walk a bit? Else the doctor 
 won't be pleased, Uncle." 
 
 They rose and walked on, in silence, up and down, 
 down and up the rippling dunes. Ernst was very 
 gloomy and, at last, said: 
 
 " You see, it's beyond my powers to help all of 
 you, all of you. . . . There are so many of you, 
 you see, that I can't possibly take care of every one 
 of you . . . however much I should like to. Then 
 again you mustn't forget that there are thousands 
 swarming round me as it is. True, they are no 
 longer alive . . . but they feel, all the same. Those 
 are the souls. They never leave me in peace. And 
 then to look after all of you, who are alive, as 
 well . . . it's beyond me; sometimes it's beyond 
 me. . . . There's Mamma, poor woman. The 
 whole world is at her heels; and, if I didn't see to 
 it, they would hide her away and bury her. . . . 
 Then I have to look after Papa and you and Uncle 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 119 
 
 Gerrit and Uncle Paul and all the rest of them. I 
 have all of you to look after. You never see any- 
 thing and you know nothing, you live in a dream, 
 you walk blindly ... to your ruin, all of you. . . . 
 Who would look after you if I wasn't there? Who 
 would look after you if I died to-morrow? ... If 
 I worried about it, instead of quietly doing my duty, 
 it would send me mad to think of it ! . . . And you 
 never stay by me, you keep on running about, with 
 the wretches at your heels, waiting to hide you away 
 and bury you. Why, they had hold of Uncle Gerrit 
 the other day, in chains, under my room! I heard 
 him all through the night and I couldn't release him 
 until . . . until . . ." 
 
 He had lost the thread of his thoughts, passed 
 his hand over his hair and said, mournfully: 
 
 11 Addie, my dear boy, you mustn't come and see 
 me any more. Uncle is in a bad house. It's a bad 
 place, that doctor's house. Terrible things happen 
 there at night. You're too young, Addie, to come 
 to such a bad house. Promise me that you won't 
 come again. ..." 
 
 " Uncle, the doctor's is not a bad house. . . ." 
 
 " Of course you would know better than I ! 
 You're young; and you don't know and don't see 
 things. There are scandalous goings-on at night, 
 scandalous things in every room in the house. I 
 shall tell Mamma to take you away: I can't look 
 after all of you . . ." 
 
120 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Uncle, you should stop thinking of such things 
 and enjoy your walk and the air and the woods and 
 the dunes and the clouds ..." 
 
 "Yes, that's what you say: stop thinking . . « 
 and enjoy . . . and enjoy . . ." 
 
 " Yes, enjoy nature around you ..." 
 
 "Nature? 
 
 His restless black eyes encountered Addie's clear 
 glance. And suddenly he stopped and said: 
 
 " Tell me, do they leave them alone, in my rooms 
 on the Nieuwe Uitleg? " 
 
 " Uncle, there's nothing there; and all your books 
 and china are well taken care of. ..." 
 
 " Is there nothing there? " 
 
 " No, Uncle, not what you think." 
 
 " And in the doctor's house? " 
 
 " There's nothing there either, Uncle." 
 
 " Here, round about us? " 
 
 " There's nothing, Uncle." 
 
 "Then what I hear ..." 
 
 u Is an hallucination, Uncle." 
 
 "What I see ..." 
 
 " That too." 
 
 " Why do you say that? " 
 
 " Because it's the truth, Uncle." 
 
 " How do you know what is the truth? " 
 
 " Through my senses, Uncle. Through my rea- 
 
 son. 
 
 "Are they healthy? Are they infallible?" 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 121 
 
 44 Perhaps not infallible, but healthy. And yours 
 are ailing." 
 
 44 Are mine ailing? " 
 
 44 Yes, Uncle." 
 
 " My senses?" 
 
 44 Yes. And your reason too." 
 
 44 You know that?" 
 
 44 Yes, I know it for certain." 
 
 It was as though the sick man for one moment 
 doubted himself, while he kept his eyes fixed on the 
 boy's steady, blue eyes and read a strange lucidity 
 in them. But something inside him made him 
 unable or unwilling to overstep a certain boundary 
 which was like a line of suffering in his sick 
 mind, a grievous horizon, an horizon which was 
 too near, which he could not look at from a 
 distance, which had neither light nor darkness 
 behind it, but only mist. 
 
 44 And what about this? " he asked, pointing with 
 his stick to the dune on which they stood. 
 
 44 What, Uncle?" 
 
 44 This, this, underneath us! This moaning and 
 sighing and imploring for help! " 
 
 He threw himself flat on the sand; he dug furi- 
 ously: 
 
 44 Yes ! " he shouted. 44 Wait ! Wait a moment ! 
 I'm coming, I'm coming! " 
 
 And, rooting with his hands, like an animal, he 
 sent the sand flying around him. 
 
122 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Oh," thought Addie, " if he would only make 
 one more effort suddenly to see, to hear, to feel 
 that he was dreaming . . . that he was dreaming! 
 Oh, to have him get well ... to see him get well, 
 all at once, so that one knew it by the brightness 
 in his eyes . . . and the untroubled look on his 
 face! . . ." 
 
 Then he put his hand on Ernst's shoulder. The 
 sick man stood up, walked along: 
 
 " Come on," he said, beckoning to Addie. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 That evening, in the lane in front of the little hotel, 
 Addie walked arm-in-arm with his mother. The 
 deepening shadows gathered round them, pierced 
 by the bright light of the lamp outside the house. 
 
 11 Mummy, I want to talk to you. ..." 
 
 They were strolling slowly up and down; and the 
 pressure of his hand urged her gently forward, 
 through the deepening shadows, out of the fierce 
 glow of the lamp and farther along the road, 
 whence, under the starry skies, the meadows receded 
 to remote distances towards the last streak of light 
 on the horizon. 
 
 M What about, my boy? M 
 
 How old he was for his years and how serious! 
 She felt his hand lying heavy on her arm, like a 
 man's hand; she heard his voice in her ear, full of 
 deep resonance, sounding a little more caressing 
 than usual. He was still a boy, a schoolboy, but 
 that was in years; in his soul she realized him to 
 be a man, her big son; and, though this made her 
 feel very old, it also made her feel calm and con- 
 tented and safe in the possession of him ... so 
 long as she did not lose him. . . . And what did 
 he want to talk about now? For he had not spoken 
 
 123 
 
i2 4 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 yet, but was walking on, silently. And, all at once, 
 she began to be curious, wondering what it could 
 be that he wanted to tell her in that suddenly 
 caressing voice, what he wanted to obtain from her. 
 For she felt that he was going to ask her for some- 
 thing, a favour almost, a gift. Because he was 
 leaning on her like that, she felt that something 
 was weighing on his mind, some oppressive anxiety 
 which he would tell her in order to make it lighter 
 to bear. What could be troubling him? What 
 would it be? It could not be money: he was too 
 sensible ; he knew exactly how much she could spare. 
 Was he in love? A boy's love-affair? Yes, she 
 was convinced that that was it. She had always said 
 that, when Addie fell in love, it would be once and 
 for all; and she had grown a little afraid for her 
 big son, with that serious heart of his. . . . 
 
 "Well, what is it?" she asked; and she added, 
 playfully, " Are you in love?" 
 
 He only laughed: 
 
 11 No, I'm not in love. But still I have something 
 very important to say to you, something that will 
 distress you perhaps, because you always pictured 
 it differently. ..." 
 
 " What is it, Addie ? " she asked, feeling a little 
 frightened and bewildered. 
 
 44 It's this, Mamma," he said, quietly and very 
 calmly. " I can't go into the diplomatic service 
 .., ;.•; . because I want to be a doctor." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 125 
 
 She was silent, walked on, with his arm in hers; 
 and it seemed to her that new vistas suddenly 
 opened out before her. No, she never thought that 
 he was going to speak to her of his future. It had 
 always been so positively settled, from the very be- 
 ginning, that her son should take up the life and the 
 career which she had ruined for his father. She 
 had always looked upon it as a vague form of com- 
 pensation which Addie, her son, would pay to her 
 husband, to his father. She had never imagined 
 that it would be otherwise. It could be done: he 
 bore a distinguished name, he would have money 
 later on and, once he had entered the profession 
 which in their set had always been considered so 
 eminent and honourable and illustrious — the most 
 eminent, honourable and illustrious of all — he would 
 console his father for the ruin of his career and 
 restore to his mother something of her old position 
 in society. . . . She had always, almost uncon- 
 sciously, looked at it like that. And then there was 
 still a grain of vanity in her, dormant, it was true, 
 of late, but still an eternal, ineradicable germ: the 
 vanity inherent in her, the vanity of thinking that 
 her son would pursue that most eminent, honourable 
 and illustrious career. Now her whole world 
 seemed to be turned upside down: the shock, the 
 surprise, the disappointment made her dizzy; and 
 through it all there came a sudden impulse to say 
 no, no, no, that it was impossible, quite impossible, 
 
126 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 that it would give too much pain to Papa, to herself, 
 to poor old Grandmamma and certainly to his 
 grandparents as well; and, if he insisted, to say to 
 him imperiously, almost in a tone of command, that 
 it was out of the question, out of the question. But 
 for the moment she said nothing; and he said no- 
 thing either; and they walked on, along the grey 
 ribbon of the road, which ran on through the 
 meadows fleeing on either side to the last streak of 
 light on the horizon, under the great starry skies. 
 He said nothing, as if he had said all that he had 
 to say, quietly and simply. And she was too much 
 under the influence of that tumult of shock, surprise 
 and disappointment. . . t 
 
 "Does it upset you, Mamma?" he asked, at 
 last. 
 
 " It comes as a blow, Addie. ... I never ex- 
 pected it. . . . " 
 
 " Can't you understand that I . . . ? " 
 
 "Understand? I don't know, Addie. We al- 
 ways thought ..." 
 
 "Yes, I know: you and Papa always thought 
 differently. I understand that it must upset you and 
 that it is a disappointment." 
 
 " You had better speak to Papa first. ..." 
 
 " No," he said, calmly and quietly. " I want to 
 speak to you, first, Mamma. You know how fond 
 I am of my father, what chums we are. But I can't 
 speak to him first, because he would not understand. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 127 
 
 And I want to speak to you first, Mamma, because 
 you will understand." 
 
 There was something soothing to her vanity in 
 his words, but also something deeper underlying 
 them, which was not at once clear to her; for she 
 knew that he loved his father more than her and 
 yet he wanted to speak to her first. . . . 
 
 " You will understand, Mamma, when I tell you. 
 I don't feel in any way cut out for a career in which, 
 no doubt, one can rise very high if one happened 
 to be one of the four or five great men who stand 
 out in it. . . . And even so . . . even if I were 
 one of those four or five — always supposing I had 
 the brains or the genius for it, which I haven't 
 and never shall have — then there would still be 
 something in me which would make me feel 
 that I had missed my vocation, that it was all 
 purposeless, that I had got into the wrong path, 
 into the wrong sort of work. I should always be 
 too simple, Mamma, and too natural, your Dutch 
 boy. ..." 
 
 He turned towards her with a little laugh; and 
 she suddenly pictured him, faultlessly attired, in a 
 white tie and a dress-coat, among the young diplo- 
 matists whom she remembered in the old days, in 
 Rome. No, he did not resemble his father as much 
 as all that. . . . 
 
 44 Whereas the other thing, doctoring, I feel quite 
 different about. It's the only thing which attracts 
 
128 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 me and in which I feel that I shall do well. Let 
 me just tell you what I do feel about it. First of 
 all, there's nothing that interests me more than 
 people . . . and studying them, both their outsides 
 and their insides. That's my head, Mummy. And, 
 as well as that, there's something else, a question of 
 feeling. I feel for nothing so much as for any one 
 who suffers, physically or mentally. And then I get 
 a sort of impulse, which comes to me as naturally 
 as sitting or walking or talking, to help as much as 
 I can. That's how I feel; and I can't tell it you 
 in any other way. It's no use my trying to explain 
 it in a lot of words; I couldn't say more than I have 
 already said. But, just telling it you like this, I 
 do hope that you understand it, Mamma, and that 
 you get the same feeling as I do. . . . And then, 
 Mummy, there's something else, something I hardly 
 dare say to you, because you will perhaps think that 
 I am imagining. ..." 
 
 "Say it, dear. ..." 
 
 " It's this, Mamma : I feel inside me the power 
 of curing people. And I feel that that power is 
 growing. . . ." 
 
 His great seriousness startled her. 
 
 "But I'm only saying this to you, Mamma; I 
 won't say it to any one else . . . not even to Papa, 
 because I feel that he would not understand. I am 
 only saying it to you; and I shall never say it to 
 any one but you; and I'm only saying it to you as 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 129 
 
 a sort of justification for what I mean to do. And, 
 if I'm wrong and it doesn't turn out as I think, then 
 you'll forgive me, won't you? For I'm quite in 
 earnest now." 
 
 "My darling. ..." 
 
 44 Who can tell me for certain that I am mis- 
 taken, Mamma, and that I have not that absolute 
 conviction deep down in my soul? It is a wonderful 
 thing to have an absolute conviction like that about 
 yourself. I would almost say that to be certain 
 about other people ... is not so wonderful as to 
 be certain about yourself. . . . But still . . . but 
 still ... I feel that this is my vocation. Who can 
 deny the existence of what I feel so very plainly 
 within me, even though I am sometimes amazed at 
 my own consciousness of it? . . .1 know, Mamma, 
 that all this sounds very strange and that I am not 
 talking like a boy of my age. But that is because 
 I am being very, very confidential and letting you 
 know my most private thoughts. . . . It is so calm 
 and peaceful out here this evening, Mamma, and 
 the stars are shining so bright, as if they knew 
 everything for quite certain. I . . . I do not know 
 for certain: I only feel . . . and I wish. And I 
 am telling you my most private thoughts, just freely 
 and in the strictest confidence, so that you may not 
 be unhappy. . . ." 
 
 A thrill of tenderness went through her. 
 
 44 Darling, I am not unhappy." 
 
i 3 o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " What I have told you . . . is a disappoint- 
 ment." 
 
 "A disappointment? ... Is it a disappoint- 
 ment? I don't think so now, dear. . . . Not after 
 the first shock of hearing it. It's not a disappoint- 
 ment any longer. If there is clearly something inside 
 you which tells you what your vocation is . . . oh, 
 why shouldn't you follow it? So few of us feel 
 clearly about anything. . . . Let's sit here, on the 
 sand, under the trees. ... So few people feel 
 things clearly. Everything was vague with me . . . 
 until quite late in life, dear. We all cling to small 
 things, to small interests . . . both in our own 
 case and in the case of the small people around 
 us. . . . Do you still remember . . . that friend 
 of ours . . . whom Mamma liked so much? 
 Things weren't clear to him. . . . Darling, if 
 they're clear to you, already, and if you are almost 
 certain that you are not mistaken . . . then obey 
 your vocation. No one has the right to hold you 
 back; and why should I hold you back . . . for 
 small reasons, while much greater things perhaps 
 are urging you on? For small reasons . . . for a 
 touch of vanity, perhaps . . . Ah, you see, darling, 
 I am small. I should have loved to see you, you 
 my own boy, in the diplomatic service. Papa would 
 have been satisfied; and you would perhaps have 
 given me back something of the past. . . . Do you 
 understand? It would not be honest of me if I did 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 131 
 
 not confess that I should have been glad to see it. 
 But that is because I still cling to small things . . . 
 while you are urged on by greater things. And, if 
 it is really so, then I am proud of you, proud of you. 
 You see, my darling, there's always that about your 
 mother: her little bit of vanity. She is so glad that 
 you did not inherit it . . . that perhaps she gave 
 you other things — something very small, but the best 
 she had — which may become very great in you, an 
 atom which in you will grow into a world . . . No, 
 I am not disappointed any longer. ..." 
 
 44 You see, Mamma, I feel it so clearly when I 
 am alone with Uncle Ernst: not that I can do any- 
 thing yet, but I am certain that I shall be able to, 
 later. ... I feel that, if he were to come a fraction 
 of an inch towards me . . . and if I had the power 
 to go another fraction of an inch towards him, we 
 should get near to each other, he and I. ... It 
 doesn't happen now; but I feel ever so clearly that 
 I am looking for something in him, the secret spot 
 from which I could cure him if . . . if I was older, 
 more advanced and stronger. ..." 
 
 But he pulled himself up: 
 
 11 Perhaps it's better not to say that." 
 
 44 Why not, dear?" 
 
 44 One shouldn't say those very private things. 
 . . . But I wanted to talk quite frankly to 
 you. ..." 
 
 4< You have, darling. Don't force your words, if 
 
132 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 they won't come. Just tell me quietly, when talking 
 comes to you more easily. Mamma will try to 
 understand you. Mamma does understand you." 
 
 " And you forgive me . . . for the disappoint- 
 ment?" 
 
 " It has gone." 
 
 "Then what is left?" 
 
 41 A great sense of peace, dear. It will all be 
 for the very best, I think. Do as you think, go to 
 what calls you." 
 
 She leant against him, laid her head on his 
 shoulder. He kissed her. A kindly, health-giving 
 stream seemed to be flowing through her. 
 
 " He knows already, he is certain about himself," 
 she thought, looking up at the understanding stars. 
 " He knows his own mind . . . definitely, definitely. 
 O God, let him always know his own mind ! " 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Old Mrs. van Lowe had taken a furnished villa at 
 Nunspeet for a few weeks and gone to stay there 
 with Adeline and her flaxen-haired little tribe. She 
 wanted to be near Ernst; and the doctors had not 
 objected to her going to Nunspeet and even seeing 
 him once or twice: there was no question of an 
 isolation-cure; on the contrary, the patient had 
 always been too lonely; and something in the way 
 of kindly sympathy, which would counteract his shy- 
 ness, might even have a salutary effect. 
 
 Gerrit ran down once or twice from the Hague. 
 But there was hardly room for him in the villa, 
 which was full up with the children's little beds; 
 and also he was secretly hurt that Ernst had taken 
 a dislike to him. And, when he was back at the 
 Hague, alone in his house, he pondered over it all, 
 over the difference and the resemblance between 
 them: Ernst belonging to the dark Van Lowes, 
 Papa's blood; he, like Constance and Paul, to the 
 fair ones, Mamma's blood, though they all had 
 black or at least very dark-brown eyes, with that 
 rather hard, beady glance. But what struck him as 
 very singular was that he more or less understood 
 why Ernst had become as he was: a little odd, he 
 
 133 
 
134 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 called it, nothing more; whereas Ernst saw nothing 
 in Gerrit, saw nothing but a nature entirely anti- 
 pathetic to his own: no doubt his deceptive mus- 
 cular strength, which was antipathetic to the morbid 
 sensitiveness of the shy, lonely, studious brother. 
 . . . But did any one see him, Gerrit, really as 
 he was? And had it not always been so, from the 
 time when he was a child, a boy, a young man? It 
 gave him a melancholy sense of security, in these 
 days, that he was living by himself, living a life 
 taken up exclusively with his military duties, captain 
 for the week, out very early, in the stables from 
 six to seven seeing to the grooming of the horses, 
 the cleaning of their boxes, thinking even more of 
 the horses than of the men and caring more, hussar 
 that he was, for a fresh, clean-smelling stable, with 
 a litter of fresh, clean-smelling straw for the animals, 
 than for the details of the troopers' mess. When 
 the horses had been fed and watered came the ride 
 with his squadron: drilling, target-practice or field- 
 duty; then back again, handing in his report, finish- 
 ing any business in the squadron-office. This took 
 up the whole morning; and in the exercise of those 
 minor duties which he loved he had hardly time for 
 thinking; and the officers for the week saw him 
 as they had always seen him : the big, strong, yellow- 
 haired Goth, brisk in his movements, flicking his 
 whip against his riding-boots, broad-chested in his 
 red-frogged uniform, his voice loud and domineer- 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 135 
 
 ing, with a note of kindliness under the bluster, his 
 step quick and firm, giving an impression of energy. 
 . . . That was all that officers and men saw of 
 him; and he, for the time, was what he appeared, 
 even to himself. . . . But then he would go home 
 and bolt his sandwich, alone, and would ride his 
 second charger, before going back to barracks in the 
 evening, to supervise the foddering of the horses 
 again. And it was during this afternoon interval 
 that he was accustomed to pick out lonely roads, 
 where he would meet none of his brother-officers; 
 it was then, in that afternoon interval, when loneli- 
 ness was all around him, that he saw himself and 
 knew himself to be different from what he seemed 
 to his acquaintances, different even to himself. . . . 
 He saw himself again as a child in Java, a small boy 
 playing with his sister Constance, on the great 
 boulders in the river behind the palace at Buitenzorg. 
 He could see her still in her white baadje? with the 
 red flowers at her temples. The thought of it gave 
 him a curious sentimental pang, which made him 
 melancholy, he did not know why. Then he saw 
 himself grown a few years older and in love, per- 
 petually in love, with the earnest amorousness of 
 East-Indian schoolboys for girls of their own age, 
 little nonnas 2 who learn so rapidly that they are 
 women and that they attract the boys who ripen so 
 rapidly into men under the burning sun. He, Gerrit, 
 
 1 Shirt. ' Half-castes. 
 
136 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 had always been in love, sometimes in romantic 
 fashion, like the fairy princes in the stories which 
 his little sister Constance used to tell him, but more 
 often in rougher style, longing to satisfy his greedy 
 mouth and greedy hands, the gluttonous senses of 
 his lusty, growing body, the body of a schoolboy 
 and of a young man in one. . . . Oh, he still 
 laughed at those recollections. He could see the 
 school distinctly and, at play-time, the boys slyly 
 looking through the reeds by the ditch-side at the 
 schoolgirls* little carts; the young nonnas } in their 
 white baadjes, peeping through the curtains of the 
 rickshaw; the boys throwing them a kiss with 
 quivering fingers, the girls throwing back the kiss 
 to their boyish lovers in the reeds. And the as- 
 signations in the great, dark gardens; the burning 
 and glowing in the childish breast: oh, he remem- 
 bered it all! . . . And he saw, as he went on his 
 lonely ride — although he now laughed the laugh of 
 his mature years — he saw before his eyes all the 
 girls with whom he had been in love, as a schoolboy, 
 at Buitenzorg. . . . 
 
 There was one delicate, fair-skinned girl, very 
 pale and very pretty. She soon acquired the purple, 
 laughing lips of the child who, by the time that she 
 is thirteen, becomes a full-grown woman, with a ripe 
 bust and riotous black curls. . . . And he also 
 remembered a coffee-plantation in the hills, with a 
 young married woman of barely twenty, who had 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 137 
 
 taken him, a lad of fifteen, in her arms and had 
 not released him until the boy had become a man. 
 She had taught him the secret that was seething in 
 his blood, throbbing in his veins, the secret that 
 flushed his cheeks and took away his breath the 
 moment he approached anything in the shape of 
 a woman : the secret which the boy knew by hearsay 
 but not by experience. And, ever since she taught 
 it him, there had been in him, like a healthy hysteria 
 or vigorous sensuality, a great lustiness of his 
 adolescent body; a surplus of strength which he must 
 needs dissipate: he never came near a woman now 
 but he at once swiftly appraised her arms, her 
 swinging gait, her bust, the look in her eyes, the 
 laugh on her lips; if he passed her in the street, a 
 quick glance printed her whole figure like a photo- 
 graph on his sensual imagination until the next 
 woman whom he met effaced it with her own, later 
 print. 
 
 And, when he came to Holland as a young man 
 and entered as a cadet at Breda, the need for lust 
 had developed into an overpowering obsession, as 
 it were an unquenchable thirsting of those new- 
 found senses which were fermenting in the young 
 male body. Afterwards, as a young officer, he had 
 known one quick sensual passion after the other, 
 taking each laughing enjoyment with all the careless- 
 ness of a youthful conqueror. His strong constitu- 
 tion and open-air life had enabled him to triumph 
 
138 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 like that with impunity, for years on end; but 
 even at that time he had often suffered from sudden 
 fits of depression, a secret, silent hopelessness, when 
 everything seemed to be going black before him with 
 needless, useless, menacing gloom. None of his 
 fellow-officers saw it; none of his brothers or sisters. 
 If he put in an appearance on one of those days, 
 he was the same blunt, jovial soldier, the fair- 
 haired, burly giant, rough and noisy, with the mock 
 fierceness in his voice and the love of women in his 
 brown, questing eyes, that went up and down, doing 
 their appraising in a moment. But, secretly, there 
 was within him so great a discontent with himself, 
 that, as soon as he was alone, he would think: 
 "O God, what a rotten, filthy life! . . ." 
 Then he would fling himself on a couch, under his 
 sword-rack, and wonder whether it was because he 
 had drunk champagne yesterday, or because of 
 something else . . . something else ... a strong 
 feeling of discontent. He did not know, but he made 
 up his mind on one point, that he must knock off 
 champagne: the damned fizzy stuff didn't suit him 
 and he wouldn't drink it again. Indeed, he wouldn't 
 drink much at all: no beer, no cocktails, for it all 
 flew straight to his temples, like a wave of blood* 
 and throbbed there, madly. And so it came to a 
 secret abstemiousness, of which he never spoke and 
 which he calculated so cunningly that his friends, 
 though they knew that he was no great drinker, did 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 139 
 
 not know that he could not support a drink at all. 
 Sometimes he was fierce about it, allowed the drink 
 to be poured out and emptied the glass under the 
 table or broke it deliberately, knocked it over. That 
 beastly drinking drove him mad; the other thing, 
 on the contrary, kept him calm and cool, cleared 
 his blood and his brain. It was after drinking, 
 especially, that he felt depressed; after the other 
 thing, he felt as if he were starting a new life. He 
 was like that as a young officer, like that for years 
 at Deventer, Venlo and the Hague; and his sudden 
 rough outbursts — of insolent gaiety rather than 
 anger — had given him his name as a big, blustering, 
 brainless sort of ass: a pane of glass smashed, 
 without the slightest occasion; a quarrel with a 
 friend, without occasion; a duel provoked for no 
 reason and then a reconciliation effected, with the 
 greatest difficulty, by the other officers; a need some- 
 times to go for houses and people like a madman 
 and destroy and break things, more from a sheer 
 animal instinct of wanton gaiety than from anger. 
 When he was angry, he knew what he was doing; 
 a kind of soft-heartedness prevented him from be- 
 coming really angry; it was only that madness of 
 his which allowed him to go really far, letting him- 
 self be carried away by a strange intoxication, the 
 same intoxication which he felt on horseback, when 
 riding in a steeplechase : a longing to rave and rage 
 and go too far and trample on everything under him, 
 
1 4 o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 not out of malice but out of madness. That again 
 cooled him, made him feel clear and calm: it 
 was only the confounded drink that drove him 
 mad. . . . 
 
 But, as he grew older, he quieted down and 
 mastered his hot blood, so that he was satisfied with 
 a quiet liaison with a little woman whom he went to 
 see at regular intervals; and suddenly, in his secret 
 fits of gloom and blackness, it was borne in upon 
 him that he must get married, that it was that con- 
 founded living alone in rooms which gave him the 
 deep-lying discontent which he never spoke about, 
 for it would never have done to let the others notice 
 things which they would think queer and of which 
 he himself was at heart ashamed. And then, as he 
 lay quietly, under his sword-rack, he would think, 
 ah, to get married, to have a dear little wife . . . 
 and children, heaps of children . . . and not to 
 dissipate your substance for nothing! . . . But 
 children . . . Lord, Lord, how jolly, to have a 
 whole tribe of children round you! . . . All that 
 was kindly in him and friendly, not to say very 
 romantic and extremely sentimental, now made him 
 wax enthusiastic, under the sword-rack, the great, 
 strong fellow who made the couch crack under him 
 with his weight: Lord, Lord, how jolly! A whole 
 tribe of children: not two or three, but a tribe, r 
 tribe! ... He smiled at the thought; after his 
 riotous youth, it was a pleasant prospect: a nice 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 141 
 
 little house, a home of his own, a dear little wife, 
 children. . . . He talked to his mother about it; 
 and she was delighted; because she had long been 
 thinking that he ought to get married. . . . He 
 was thirty-five now; yes, really, it would be a good 
 thing to get married. . . . And she looked about 
 and found Adeline for him : a good family, of 
 French descent; connections in India, which was 
 always nice; no money, but the Van Lowes never 
 looked at money, though they hadn't so very much 
 themselves, comparatively, professing a laughing 
 contempt for the dross which, all the same, they 
 could very well do with. A dear little girl, Adeline, 
 young — she was thirteen years younger than her hus- 
 band — fair-haired and placid: a regular little 
 mother even as a girl. And Gerrit, though he had 
 had a brief vision of other women, other girls, had 
 thought : 
 
 "Oh, well, yes, a bit bread-and-buttery; but you 
 want a different sort for your wife than you do for 
 your mistress! M 
 
 And, after all, she was round and plump, a little 
 round ball, even as a girl, and nice to hug, even 
 though she was a bit short and though her figure 
 was badly deficient in the lines that set his blood 
 tingling. He never for a moment fell in love with 
 t Adeline; but he saw her for what she was: his 
 wife and the mother of his children, the little tribe 
 for which he longed, because it was such a pity 
 
1 42 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 and almost mean to go dissipating your substance 
 for nothing, especially when you were getting a bit 
 older and sobering down. He would have a healthy 
 little wife in Adeline; she would give him a healthy 
 little tribe. . . . She, in her placid way, had come 
 to love him, very simply, because he was big and 
 good-looking and because he was offering her, a 
 penniless girl, a modest position. They had got 
 married and were still living in the same little house, 
 quite a small house, but big enough to harbour 
 what Gerrit had looked for from the start, one 
 citizen of the world after the other. 
 
 He thought it rotten now to be alone; and, when 
 Mamma had asked Adeline and the children to the 
 little villa at Nunspeet, he had grumbled that they 
 were leaving him all alone, but gave in: a few 
 weeks in the country would do the wife and the 
 children good; and he ran down once or twice to 
 Nunspeet on Sundays. But the loneliness was bad 
 for him; and the house that had suddenly become 
 lifeless and silent oppressed him with a gloom which 
 weighed upon him so heavily that he could not throw 
 it off: a cursed heavy weight which bore down on 
 his chest. Add to this that, in order not to be alone 
 in the evenings, he allowed the other fellows, at 
 whose mess he dined these days, to persuade him 
 to go with them and have a drink at the Witte . . . 
 and it was those confounded drinks which finished 
 him, simply finished him. . . . He was home by 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 143 
 
 one, at the latest; but he felt, after those drinks, 
 as if he had been up all night: he could not sleep; 
 if he fell asleep at last, he kept on waking up; his 
 heart bounced as if it were trying to reach his 
 temples; he turned about and turned about, dabbed 
 his face and wrists, lay down again, ended by splash- 
 ing cold water all over his body; then he crept into 
 bed again, huddling himself up, with his knees 
 drawn up to his chin, like a child; he stuffed the 
 sheets into his ears, hid his watch, so as not to 
 hear it ticking louder and louder, and at last went 
 to sleep. When he woke in the early morning, 
 whole landscapes of misty mountains pressed upon 
 his brain, as though his poor head were the head 
 of an Atlas supporting the world on his neck; per- 
 sistent, slow-rolling, rocky avalanches crumbled all 
 the way down his spine; and, with his legs stretched 
 out wide in bed, he was so horribly depressed by 
 that waking nightmare that he felt as if he could 
 never make a move to get up, as if he could not 
 stir his little finger. Then, at last, with a groan, 
 he got up, cursing himself for drinking the damned 
 stuff, took his bath, did his dumb-bell exercises, full 
 of wondering admiration for his powerful arms and 
 ingenuously thinking, if he was so strong in his 
 muscles, why couldn't he carry off a drink or two? 
 . . . Then he would look at his arms with the 
 smiling vanity of a woman contemplating her beau- 
 tiful curves; and, though his eyelids still hung heavy 
 
144 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 and round, too weary to roll up, the waking night- 
 mare vanished under the influence of the water and 
 the exercises and the misty mountains rose higher 
 and higher till they vanished out of sight and the 
 avalanche of rocks just tickled his back with a last 
 gritty hail of pebbles. Then he became himself 
 again: his orderly was waiting outside with his 
 horse; in barracks he was the zealous captain, who 
 carefully performed his military duties; none of the 
 officers saw anything the matter with him. . . . 
 
 But, though, of course, there were always the other 
 fellows, loneliness seemed to envelop him, an almost 
 tangible loneliness that pressed upon him, some- 
 thing that alarmed him. What was it this time, he 
 would ask himself: was he ill, or had he the blues? 
 Blast those moods, which you couldn't understand 
 yourself! Was he ill, or had he the blues? Was 
 it that beastly worm, rooting away in his carcase 
 with its legs and eating up his marrow, or was he 
 just thinking it rotten that his wife and children 
 were away? . . . His brain was whirling with it 
 all: first that rotten feeling and then the beastly 
 worm. Sometimes it became such an obsession with 
 him that, during his afternoon rides when he let his 
 horse gallop wildly, he would see the thing wriggling 
 along in front of him. . . . Then he would think 
 of Ernst ; and he felt sorry for the poor chap. What 
 a queer thing it was, a diseased soul; and could he 
 . . . could he himself be diseased . ... . in his 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 145 
 
 soul . . . or at any rate in his body? . . . If he 
 told people what he suspected, nobody would be- 
 lieve him. Outwardly he was such a sturdy fellow, 
 such a healthy animal. But if only they could take 
 a peep inside him! . . . That wretched worm thing 
 had been at it again, rooting away in his carcase 
 with its beastly legs, its hundreds of legs, never 
 leaving him in peace. Was it just a queer feeling, 
 was it an illusion, like Ernst's hallucination ... or 
 could it really be a live thing? . . . No, that was 
 too ridiculous: it wasn't really alive. . . . And yet 
 he remembered stories of people who always had 
 headaches, headaches which nothing could cure; 
 and, after their death, a nest of earwigs had been 
 found swarming in their brains. . . . Imagine, if 
 it should be some beastly insect! But no, it wasn't 
 alive, it wasn't alive: he only called it a worm or 
 centipede because that described the beastly sensa- 
 tion. . . . Should he go and see a doctor, some 
 clever specialist at Amsterdam? . . . But what was 
 he to say? 
 
 " Doctor, there's something crawling about inside 
 my carcase like a beastly centipede ! M 
 
 And the doctor would tell him to undress and 
 would look at his carcase, still young and fresh, not- 
 withstanding his earlier rackety life, with the muscles 
 in good condition, the joints flexible, the chest 
 broad, the lungs expanded, and would stare at 
 him and think ... he would think . . . the 
 
i 4 6 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 specialist would think that he was mad ! He would 
 ask questions about his brothers and sisters . 
 and he would want to see Ernst . . . and he would 
 draw all sorts of learned conclusions, would the 
 clever specialist. . . . No, hanged if he would go 
 to a doctor; he would be ashamed to say: 
 
 u Doctor, there's something crawling about inside 
 my carcase, like a beastly centipede." 
 
 He would be ashamed, absolute ashamed. . . . 
 
 Or to say: 
 
 M Doctor, a gin-and-bitters upsets me." 
 
 " Well, captain," the doctor would say, " then 
 you'd better not take a gin-and-bitters." 
 
 What was the use of going to a doctor, or even 
 a specialist? He would not do it, he would not. 
 . . . The best thing was to be abstemious, cer- 
 tainly not take any drinks . . . and then grapple 
 with that damned sensation — come, he wasn't a girl ! 
 — and not think about it, just stop thinking about 
 it. . . . He must have a little distraction: he was 
 leading such a lonely life these days. And, in that 
 loneliness, without his wife and children, he began 
 to think, with that incurable sentimentality which 
 lay hidden deep down in him, of the comfort it was 
 to belong to a large family, of the way it cheered 
 you up. . . . Theirs had been a big family: but 
 how it was scattering now ! Bertha's little tribe had 
 all broken up. . . . The others Mamma still kept 
 together; and that Sunday evening was a capital 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 147 
 
 institution of Mamma's. . . . And so he would 
 look in on Karel and Cateau towards dinner-time, 
 hoping that they would ask him to stay and that for 
 once he would not have to dine with the other fellows 
 at the mess; but they did not ask him and, when it 
 was nearly six, Gerrit, feeling almost uncomfortable, 
 heaved his big body out of his chair and went 
 and joined the others, reflecting that Karel and 
 Cateau had little by little become utter strangers. 
 . . . And, though he was not awfully keen on 
 Adolphine, he sank his pride, invited himself to her 
 house and stayed on for the whole evening; and 
 he had to confess to himself that, upon his word, 
 Adolphine was at her best in her own house and 
 that the evening had not been so bad. Constance 
 was at Baarn one day, at Nunspeet another; Van 
 der Welcke was abroad; but Aunt Ruyvenaer was 
 at the Hague — Uncle had gone to India — and Aunt 
 Lot was always jolly: 
 
 11 Yes, Herrit. . . . You showed a ghood nose 
 to come here. . . . We're having nassi. 1 . . . 
 You'll stay and lhunch, take pot lhuck, eh, Herrit, 
 what?" 
 
 He accepted gratefully, felt a sudden radiant glow 
 inside him, just where loneliness gave him a feeling 
 of icy cold. Yes, he would stay to lunch: he loved 
 the East-Indian " rice-table," the way Aunt and 
 Toetie made it; and he was secretly glad that Uncle 
 
 1 Malay: rice, currie. 
 
148 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 was away, for he didn't like Uncle. In Aunt Lot's 
 big, roomy house there was a sort of genial warmth 
 that gave him a delicious sensation and almost left 
 him weak, as though a smell of Java pervaded 
 everything around, reminding him of his childhood. 
 The house was full of Japanese porcelain; there 
 were stuffed birds of paradise; under a big square 
 glass cover was a whole passer, 1 with tiny dolls as 
 toys: little warongs, 2 little herds of cattle; there 
 were Malay weapons on the walls; in Aunt's con- 
 servatory there were mats on the floor, as in Java; 
 and Gerrit thought it fun to tease Alima, though she 
 was dressed as a European, and he was only sorry 
 that she was not latta? because that reminded him of 
 the latta servants whom he used to tease, in Java, 
 as a child: 
 
 " Boeang, baboe; baboe, boeang! " 4 
 
 And from the Japanese porcelain and the birds 
 of paradise and the passer there came that same 
 smell, the smell that pervaded the whole house, a 
 smell of akar-wangi 5 and sandalwood; and, while 
 Aunt was making " rice-table " and Alima running 
 from the store-room to the kitchen with a basket 
 full of bottles of Indian spices, Gerrit felt his mouth 
 water : 
 
 1 Market-place, bazaar. 
 a Booths. 
 
 * Attractive, pretty. 
 
 * " Put the baby down, nurse ; nurse, put baby down." 
 5 Cedarwood, or any other scented wood. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 149 
 
 u Aunt, we're going to have a great tuck-in ! " 
 
 "Allah, 1 that boy Herrit!" chortled Aunt Lot, 
 looking terribly fat, with her vast, pendulous bosom, 
 wearing no stays, indoors, but with brilliants the 
 size of turnips in her ears. "Allah, that Herrit: 
 he'd murder his own father for nassif " 
 
 And Aunt went into ecstasies: Aunt, turned into 
 a mobile Hindu idol, ran from kitchen to cellar and 
 store-room; Toetie ran too; Alima ran too. The 
 aromatic fragrance filled the whole house. There 
 would be pens, black and scented and hot. 
 
 44 Oh, for rice, with a dried fish, and petis!" 
 Gerrit rhapsodized. 
 
 And Aunt laughed till the tears came, happy and 
 glad because Gerrit was fond of nassi. 
 
 But there would also be kroepoek, 2 golden and 
 crisp: the dried fish which, when heated, swelled 
 up into brittle flakes, flakes that cracked in your 
 fingers as you broke them and between your teeth as 
 you crunched them; and then there would be lodeh, 3 
 with a creamy sauce full of floating vegetables and 
 tjabc; and, to follow on the rice, Aunt had made 
 djedjonkong, the Java sugar-cake, with the icing 
 of white maizena* on the top; only Aunt was sorry 
 that she could get no santenf in 4< Gholland," and 
 
 *Lord! 
 
 a The dried fish known in British India as Bombay duck. 
 
 * A sort of cocoa-nut. 
 
 * Indian cornflour. 
 
 * Cocoa-nut milk. 
 
150 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 had to do the best she could with milk and 
 cream. . . . 
 
 And, when at last they sat down to table — Aunt, 
 the three girls and Gerrit, the enthusiastic Gerrit — 
 Aunt and the little cousins would laugh aloud : 
 
 "Allah, that boy Herrit!" 
 
 And they vied with one another who should help 
 him, very carefully, so that the rice should not make 
 a messy heap on his plate: 
 
 " No, don't mix up your food!" Aunt Lot en- 
 treated. " That Dhutch totok l way of mixing 
 up everything together : I can't stand it. Keep your 
 rice clean, as clean as you can." 
 
 " Yes, Aunt, as maidenly as a young girl ! " cried 
 Gerrit, with sparkling eyes. 
 
 And Aunt again laughed till the tears came : too 
 bhad, you know! 
 
 " And now your lodeh in the little saucer . . . 
 that's it . . . so-o! . . . And the sambal, 2 neatly 
 on the edge of your plate : don't mix it up, Herrit ! 
 . . . Oh, that boy Herrit ! . . . Take a taste now : 
 each sambal with a spoonful of rice . . . that's it 
 . . . so-o! . . . The kroepoek on the table-cloth 
 . . . that's it . . . so-o ! . . . And now ghobble 
 away . . . Allah, that boy Herrit: he'd murder 
 his own father for nassi! . . . Kassian, Van 
 Lowe!" 
 
 1 The nickname given by the half-castes to the pure bred Dutch. 
 * Red pepper, capsicum. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 151 
 
 This last exclamation was meant to convey that 
 Van Lowe, Gerrit's father, was dead long since 
 and that Gerrit therefore could not murder his 
 father for nassi if he wanted to; and this time 
 Aunt's eyes filled with tears of real emotion, not of 
 laughter: kassian, Van Lowe! 
 
 Gerrit no longer felt lonely and ceased thinking 
 of those queer feelings of his. He ate his rice 
 with due respect, ate it slowly, so as to spin 
 out the enjoyment as long as he could; but it 
 was an effort, you know, with Aunt and Toetie 
 and Dotje and Poppie vying with one another in 
 turns : 
 
 11 Herrit, have some more sambal-tomaat ' . . . 
 Herrit, fill up your lodel-sauccr. . . . Herrit, take 
 some ketimoen: 2 that's nice and cool, if your 
 mouth's burning. ..." 
 
 And, though Gerrit's palate was on fire, though 
 the sambal rose to his temples till it congested his 
 brain like a cocktail, Gerrit went on eating, took 
 another spoonful of clean rice, took another taste 
 of black petis. . . . 
 
 14 Herrit, there's djedjonkong coming I" Aunt 
 warned him. " You won't leave me in the lurch 
 with my djedjonkong, will you, Herrit?" 
 
 And Gerrit declared that Aunt was making heavy 
 demands on his stomach, but that he would manage 
 to leave room for the djedjonkong ; and he banged 
 
 1 Tomato-capsicum. * Cucumber, gherkin. 
 
1 52 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 one fist upon the other, to express that he would 
 bang the nassi together in his stomach, to make room 
 for the sugar-cake. Aunt was radiant with pleasure, 
 because Gerrit thought everything so delicious ; and, 
 after the djedjonkong, as Gerrit sat puffing and 
 blowing, she suggested: 
 
 44 Come, Herrit, nappas 1 a bit now!" 
 
 And Gerrit took the liberty of loosing a few 
 buttons of his uniform and dropped, with legs wide 
 outstretched, into a wicker deck-chair, while Aunt 
 invited him to be sure and not leave her in the 
 lurch, next day, with the remnants. 
 
 The curry lunch at Aunt Lot's put Gerrit in good 
 spirits for the whole day. He puffed and blew more 
 in fun than in reality; he extolled the "rice-table," 
 which is never heavy, the tjabe, which clears your 
 blood and your brain; and it was as though Aunt's 
 aromatic and very strong sambals filled him with 
 the joy of life, for that day, and also with a certain 
 tenderness, because it all reminded him of his child- 
 hood at Buitenzorg. He took his afternoon ride 
 quietly and pleasantly: excellent exercise, after the 
 generous meal; arrived at the mess in good spirits 
 and did not eat much, gassing about Aunt Lot's 
 nassi; and, when he went home, at a reasonable 
 hour in the evening, he asked himself: 
 
 44 If I can have such good days, why should I 
 
 1 Take breath. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 153 
 
 have such rotten ones? I shall tell Line to give us 
 nassi every day; but Line can't do it as Aunt Lot 
 does. . . . ,: 
 
 Another day, Gerrit, with that sentimental long- 
 ing for his own people, went and looked up Paul. 
 He found him in his sitting-room, the place beauti- 
 fully tidy, Paul lying on the sofa in a silk shirt 
 and a white-flannel jacket, reading a modern novel. 
 And Paul was very amiable, even allowed Gerrit 
 to smoke a cigar: one of his own, for Paul did not 
 smoke; only, he asked Gerrit not to make a mess 
 with the ash and to throw the match into the waste- 
 paper-basket at once, because he couldn't stand used 
 matches about the place. 
 
 44 Aren't you going away this summer?" asked 
 Gerrit. 
 
 44 Not I, my dear fellow!" said Paul, decidedly. 
 44 It's such dirty work, travelling: your skin gets 
 black, your nails get black in the train; your clothes 
 get creased in your trunk; and you never know what 
 sort of bed awaits you. No, I'm getting too old 
 to go away. ..." 
 
 44 But aren't you even going to Nunspeet? " 
 
 44 Oh, my dear Gerrit," Paul implored, 44 what is 
 the use of my going to Nunspeet? Mamma has 
 Adeline and the children with her; Constance is 
 devoting herself to Ernst: what earthly use would 
 it be for me to go to Nunspeet? ... All that 
 
154 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 travelling is such a nuisance ; and going to Nunspeet 
 would make me almost as dirty as going to Switzer- 
 land. . . . No, I shall stay where I am. The 
 landlady's very clean and so is the maid; and, 
 though I have to see to a lot myself, of course, 
 things are fairly well cared for . . . and not too 
 dirty. ..■'.•» 
 
 " But, Paul," said Gerrit, with a sort of " Look 
 here, drop it ! " gesture, " that cleanliness of yours 
 is becoming a mania ! " 
 
 " And why shouldn't I have a mania as well as 
 any one else ? " asked Paul, in an offended voice. 
 " Every one has a mania. You have a mania for 
 bringing children into the world. Mine is compara- 
 tively sterile, but has just as much right to exist as 
 yours." 
 
 " But, Paul, you're becoming an old fogey at 
 this rate, never moving, for fear of a speck of 
 dirt. If you go on like this, you'll get rooted in a 
 little selfish circle of your own, you'll cease to take 
 an interest in anything . . . and you're young still, 
 only just thirty-eight. ..." 
 
 " I've taken an interest in the world for years," 
 said Paul, " but I consider the world such a vile, 
 dirty rubbish-heap, such a conglomeration of human 
 wretchedness, such a rotten, scurvy, stinking, filthy 
 dustbin ..." 
 
 "But, Paul, you're absurd!" 
 
 " Because I choose at last to retire into my room, 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 155 
 
 where at least things are clean!" said Paul, with 
 a gesture of irritation. 
 
 14 My dear chap, you don't mean what you say: 
 I can't tell if you're serious or humbugging." 
 
 11 Serious? You say I'm not serious? " cried Paul, 
 grinning scornfully and working himself into a real 
 temper. " Do you think I'm not serious? " 
 
 " Well, if you're serious, then I say that you're 
 simply diseased." 
 
 "Diseased?" 
 
 44 Yes, diseased: just as much as Ernst is dis- 
 eased. That tidiness of yours is a mania; that way 
 of looking upon the world as a dustbin is a disease. 
 You were always a humbug, but at least you used 
 to be good company, you used to be a brilliant 
 talker; and nowadays, for some time past, you show 
 yourself nowhere, you shut yourself up, you're be- 
 coming impossible and a bore ..." 
 
 44 I'm becoming older," said Paul, soberly. " A 
 brilliant talker? I may have been, perhaps. But 
 it's not worth while. The moment you fashion a 
 thought into words and try to express it, no one 
 listens to you. People are just as sloppy and messy 
 in their conversation as in everything else. It's not 
 worth while. . . . And yet," he said, with a touch 
 of melancholy, u you're right: I used to be different. 
 But it's really not worth while, old fellow, in my 
 case. You have your wife and your children: not 
 that I'm yearning for a wife and children, especially 
 
156 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 such an ant-hill as you've brought into the world. 
 But what have I? The club bores me. Doing 
 anything bores me. I am too modern for the 
 old ideas and not modern enough for the new 
 ones." 
 
 His eyes lit up as he heard himself beginning to 
 talk: 
 
 "Yes, the old ideas," he repeated; and his voice 
 became fuller and recovered the rather sing-song 
 rhythm of earlier days, when he used to unbosom 
 himself at great length of all sorts of ironical 
 theories and mock philosophy, very often superficial, 
 but always brilliant. " The old ideas. There's 
 rank, for instance. I've been thinking about it 
 lately. I like rank. But do you know how I like 
 it? Just as Ernst loves an antique vase, even so I 
 am sometimes attracted by an old title. I should 
 like to be a count or a marquis, not from snobbery : 
 don't imagine that I want to be a count or a marquis 
 out of snobbery, for that's not the idea at all. But 
 just as Ernst admires an antique vase, or an old 
 book, or a piece of brocade, I admire a count's or 
 marquis' title; and my title, besides, would be much 
 cleaner than the piece of brocade, which is full of 
 microbes. But, for goodness' sake, don't run away 
 with the idea that I want to be a count or a marquis 
 out of snobbery. You understand, don't you? 
 I should only care for it from the decorative and 
 traditional point of view. ... But a modern title 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 157 
 
 of jonkheer, 1 Gerrit, dating back to William I., 2 I 
 wouldn't have if you paid me ! To begin with, I 
 think jonkheer an ugly word; and then I think that 
 a title of that sort looks like a modern-art sign- 
 board, like one of those art-nouveau posters with 
 their everlasting stiff, upright, squirmy lines; and 
 those conventional poppies are positively revolting 
 to my mind because they symbolize to me the cant 
 and hypocrisy of our modern world. . . . Yes, 
 there's a great deal of poetry, Gerrit, in old ideas. 
 We people are crammed full of old ideas: we in- 
 herited them; they're in our blood. And we live 
 in a society in which the new ideas are already 
 putting forth shoots, the real, new ideas, the true, 
 the beautiful ideas, the three or four beautiful ideas 
 that already exist. But I, for my part, have my 
 blood so full of old ideas that I can't advance with 
 the rest. . . . New ideas: look here, one new idea, 
 a really beautiful new idea, in our time, is pity. 
 Gerrit, what could be more beautiful and more de- 
 lightful and newer than pity: genuine pity for all 
 human wretchedness? I feel it myself, even though 
 I never leave my sofa. I feel it myself. But, even 
 as I feel it and never leave my sofa, so the whole 
 world feels the new idea of pity . . . and never 
 
 1 The lowest title of nobility in Holland, ranking after the 
 barons and hereditary knights or ridden. The highest title is 
 that of count. There are no marquises or dukes in the Northern 
 Netherlands. 
 
 1 1814. 
 
158 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 leaves its sofa. . . . Lord, my dear chap, there's 
 blood sticking to everything; the world is nothing 
 but mean selfishness and hypocrisy; there's war, 
 injustice and all sorts of rottenness; and we know 
 it's there and we condemn it and we feel pity for 
 everything that is trampled underfoot and sucked 
 dry. . . . And what do we do? Nothing. I do just 
 as little as the great powers do. The Tsar does 
 nothing; there's not a government, not an individual 
 that does a thing. You don't do anything either. 
 . . . Meanwhile, there is war, there is injustice, 
 not only in South Africa, but everywhere, Gerrit, 
 everywhere: you've only to go outside and you'll 
 come upon injustice in the Hoogstraat; you've only 
 to go travelling and get black with grime and dirt 
 . . . and you'll find injustice everywhere. . . . 
 And, meanwhile, that idea is stirring in this filthy 
 world of ours: the idea of pity. . . . And, just as 
 I am powerless, everything and everybody is power- 
 less. . . . Then am I not right to withdraw from 
 the whole business into my room . . . and to stay 
 on my sofa? ..." 
 
 He went on talking; and at last Gerrit got up, 
 glad that he had been to see Paul and that Paul 
 had talked as usual, long-winded though he might 
 have been. But he was hardly gone, before Paul 
 rose from his sofa. He flung open the shutters, 
 to air the room of Gerrit's smoke ; he rang the bell, 
 to have the ash cleared away; he put the chairs 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 159 
 
 straight and removed every trace of Gerrit's 
 visit: 
 
 11 There, I let myself be persuaded into talking 1 " 
 thought Paul, irritably. " But d'you think the chap 
 grasped it and valued it for a moment? Of course 
 he didn't: not what I said of the old and not what 
 I said of the new ideas ! . . . It's not worth while 
 taking the trouble to be a brilliant talker. . . . 
 The world is dirty and stupid . . . and Gerrit is 
 stupid also, with his nine children, and dirty, with 
 those cigars of his . . . and besides he's a melan- 
 choly beggar, who has his manias . . . just as 
 Ernst has . . . and I . . . and everybody. . . ." 
 
 And he flung himself angrily on his cushions and 
 read his modern novel, all day long, without so 
 much as stirring. . . M 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Dorine also, Gerrit remembered, had remained in 
 the Hague; and he looked her up at her boarding- 
 house, where she occupied two small, comfortless 
 rooms. He had not seen her for days ... or was 
 it weeks? He called twice without finding her in: 
 the servant did not know where she had gone, for 
 Miss van Lowe was nearly always out. At last, 
 Gerrit caught her at home, at twelve o'clock, when 
 she was hurriedly having a makeshift lunch, on the 
 edge of the table, with her chair askew, taking 
 nervous bites and timid sips. 
 
 " My dear Dorine, where have you been hiding 
 all this time?" asked Gerrit, with boisterous 
 geniality. 
 
 She was out of sorts at being taken by surprise: 
 
 "Where have I been hiding? Where have I 
 been hiding? I never have a moment to hide any- 
 where. I'm far too busy for that! " 
 
 44 But what have you got to do?" 
 
 "What have I got to do? The day flies . . . 
 and I never have time to do what I've got to do." 
 
 " But what have you got to do, Dorine? " 
 
 " My dear Gerrit, I won't bore you with a list 
 of my doings. Take it from me that my life is 
 
 160 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 161 
 
 sometimes too busy and that I never know a second's 
 rest. ..." 
 
 He sat down and looked at her lunch. 
 
 44 I came to take a snack with you and just to 
 have a chat. But I see that you're in a great hurry 
 and that you haven't a great deal to eat, so I don't 
 expect you want me. ..." 
 
 11 Do you think I sit down to an elaborate meal 
 all by myself? No, Gerrit, I've no time for that." 
 
 "Have you a mouthful for me?" 
 
 44 A mouthful, yes. I'll ring and order a couple 
 of eggs for you." 
 
 She rang, ordered the eggs; and Gerrit was given 
 a plate on the edge of the unlaid table: 
 
 44 I'm glad to see you again, Sissy," said Gerrit. 
 44 I never see you at all, now that we don't meet 
 at Mamma's." 
 
 44 Well, you don't miss much." 
 
 44 I can't say you're very amiable to-day. Have 
 you such a thing as a glass of beer for me?" 
 
 44 No, I haven't any beer." 
 
 44 What are you drinking then?" 
 
 44 Water, as you see." 
 
 44 Oh, do you drink nothing but water? Well, 
 then I'll have a glass of water too. I'm not very 
 hungry either," said Gerrit, fibbing, for he was 
 always hungry. 44 And, tell me, Dorine : don't you 
 intend to run down to Nunspeet?" 
 
 4 Ye-es," said Dorine, dubiously. 44 1 ought 
 
1 62 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 really to go to Nunspeet. . . . Mamma's written 
 to me, so has Adeline . . . but I don't know how 
 to fit it in." 
 
 44 How do you mean, to fit it in? " 
 
 44 Well, with the things I've got to do here." 
 
 " But what is it you've got to do? " 
 
 " Oh, Gerrit, nothing really that would interest 
 you ! . . . The point is that I'm good enough for 
 Nunspeet . . . but then of course they only want 
 me to be nurse to your children." 
 
 " Why, Dorine ! " 
 
 " That's it, of course ! " she said, tartly. " To 
 be nurse to your children ! " 
 
 44 I don't think you need be afraid of that. Line 
 has the governess with her. ..." 
 
 44 Well, then why does everybody want to get me 
 down to Nunspeet: Mamma, Adeline, you? ... I 
 can't do anything for Ernst, because Ernst upsets 
 me too much. ..." 
 
 " But, Dorine, to give you a change . . . as 
 you're so lonely here. . . ." 
 
 44 Lonely? . . . Lonely?" echoed Dorine. 
 
 She drank her last sip of water and said: 
 
 44 1 don't mind being lonely. ..." 
 
 44 Yes, I know that, but still it's rather comfort- 
 less." 
 
 44 1 like being lonely. I think it very cosy and 
 comfortable." 
 
 44 You think it cosy?" 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 163 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Here, in this bare room of yours? " 
 " Yes, here, in this bare room of mine." 
 "But, Dorine, that's not possible!" 
 11 But, good gracious, Gerrit, don't I tell you that 
 it is!" 
 
 She stamped her foot angrily and gave him a 
 resentful glance. Behind her dark eyes he saw ;i 
 whole world of secret bitterness, a fierce grudge 
 which smouldered in the depths of her soul. And 
 it suddenly struck him that she looked very old, 
 though he knew that she was only just thirty-nine. 
 Her hair, drawn into a knot at the back, was begin- 
 ning to go grey, there were deep wrinkles in her 
 forehead, now that she was out of temper; and the 
 lines of her cheeks and chin and her sharp, bitter 
 mouth gave her almost the look of an old woman. 
 Her figure too appeared withered and shrunken. 
 And he suddenly thought her so much to be pitied 
 in her lonely life as an unmarried woman without 
 interests, over whose head the years had passed 
 bringing none of the sweetness of the changing 
 seasons — for it seemed as if she had never known 
 a spring, as if she would never know a summer, as 
 if there would only be the dreary autumn which 
 was now beginning to loom dimly before her, as if 
 there had never been anything for her in life, as if 
 there never would be anything for her, never any- 
 thing but that weary passing of the monotonous, 
 
i6 4 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 lonely days, so lonely and so monotonous that she 
 created for herself a bustle and flurry that did not 
 exist, interests that were not there, an activity which 
 she imagined, running in and out of shop after shop, 
 for a box of stationery or a skein of thread, with, 
 in between, a casual charitable call, done in a fussy, 
 unpractical fashion — he suddenly thought her so 
 much to be pitied in her loveless, cheerless life that 
 he said: 
 
 "Shall I tell you what would be nice of you? 
 And sensible? ... To pack up all your traps, say 
 good-bye to your landlady below . . . and come 
 and live with us! " 
 
 She stared at him with angry eyes and pressed 
 her thin lips together : 
 
 " Come and live with you?" she asked, in aston- 
 ishment. "What do you mean?" 
 
 " What I say. The house is small, but we can 
 manage with the children; you would have a tiny 
 bedroom: that's the best I could do for you. Line 
 is very fond of you and so are the children. And 
 then you'd be living with us and have a jolly time." 
 
 " Live with you ? " she repeated. 
 
 And he saw a shadow of hesitation in her eyes, 
 for, indeed, it seemed to her that a heavenly warmth 
 suddenly lapped her round; and she felt her dark, 
 angry eyes grow moist, she did not know why. 
 
 " Yes. Wouldn't you think that jolly? " 
 
 " But what put it into your head, Gerrit? " 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 165 
 
 " Because I don't think it's jolly for you here." 
 
 " I'm all right here, I'm quite contented." 
 
 " Yes, I know; but surely you'd be more com- 
 fortable with us? " 
 
 She made an effort to force back the tears in her 
 eyes. It was always so, with those tiresome, nervous 
 tears: they came for nothing, for no reason at all. 
 It was not sensitiveness in her, it was sheer miserable 
 nervousness, so she herself thought; and she hated 
 herself for it, hated herself for those tears which 
 sparkled so readily. But Gerrit's words had sur- 
 prised her and touched her, surprised and touched 
 her to such an extent that she was ashamed to let 
 him see it and so blazed out, purposely, in order to 
 hide herself behind that assumption of bitter resent- 
 ment and ill-temper: 
 
 " More comfortable? More comfortable in your 
 house? I'd be a nursemaid in your house, that's 
 what I should be ! No, I've had enough in the end 
 of living for everybody who wants me and who can 
 make use of me! I'm going to live for myself at 
 last, for myself and nobody else. ..." 
 
 44 But, Dorine ..." 
 
 He did not complete his sentence. He did not 
 wish to be cruel and tell her that she had never 
 lived for anybody but herself: not because she was 
 selfish, for she was not that at heart, but because 
 she had never found the right path, along which 
 she could have trudged valiantly, urging her lonely 
 
1 66 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 steps towards a point which would have formed a 
 centre for her small life, for the small circle of 
 herself and that which she would have loved. Year 
 after year had passed over her head, bringing none 
 of the sweetness of the changing seasons : the illusion 
 of spring she had never known; the fierce heat of 
 summer she had never known; kindly shelter she 
 had never known; nor had she ever known aught of 
 blowing winds and raging storms: all that was 
 sensitive in her had shrivelled like flowers which no 
 sun has ever shone upon; what was feminine in her 
 had withered like flowers which no dew has watered; 
 and everything in her had become soured and em- 
 bittered into an almost unconscious exasperation at 
 her aimless existence, at her loveless life, which had 
 gone on for years and years. Was it now nothing 
 but autumn in front of her and around her, like 
 twilight in her soul, like twilight around her 
 soul? . . . 
 
 He stood up, she made him feel sad. He went 
 away; and his parting words were merely: 
 
 " No, Dorine, you would not be a nursemaid in 
 our house. If you care to think it over, do; and be 
 sure that Line and I will think it very jolly if you 
 do come to us. . . . " 
 
 And he took his afternoon ride, picked out his 
 lonely road. With a horse, like that, it was like 
 being with a friend. He patted the animal's neck; 
 and it shivered, like a woman under a caressing 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 167 
 
 hand. He talked to it; and it shook its pointed 
 ears, as though it understood, as though it answered 
 with a graceful movement of its neck and head. 
 And, while he let the horse go at a foot's pace, 
 with the reins held loose in his hand, he thought 
 how lonely it had all become, now that the twilight 
 was deepening around them. In bright flashes he 
 thought just once more of his childhood, out there : 
 Buitenzorg; the white palace; the delicious garden, 
 unique of its kind and world-famous, with its 
 precious trees, its clustering palms, its giant ferns, 
 its strange, huge giant creepers with stems as thick 
 as pythons slung from tree to tree. . . . And, 
 behind it, the river . . . where he used to play with 
 Karel and Constance. . . . Oh, how vivid it all 
 was! To think of it almost brought the tears to 
 his eyes, now that the twilight was gathering round 
 him and these memories were but the last reflection 
 of those sunny days when they were all children 
 together! ... It had begun very slowly, slowly 
 but irrevocably: the gradual separation and drifting 
 apart, the ties loosened until they were all detached 
 . . . now, just now, in the sombre twilight that 
 was drawing nigh. . . . Slowly, slowly, with every 
 year in which the brothers and sisters grew bigger 
 and older, in which they developed from children 
 into persons who themselves drew a circle around 
 them, their own circle of marriage, their own circle 
 of children, of which they themselves were now the 
 
168 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 centre, even as his father and his mother had been 
 in their family-circle, in their circle of children and 
 even grandchildren. . . . Slowly, slowly it had hap- 
 pened, year by year, really almost unnoticeably, that 
 all the brothers and sisters who had been one family 
 in the white palace over there — which in that garden 
 yonder, so very far away in miles and years, seemed 
 to him part of the fairy-tale of his boyhood, with 
 Constance* fairy figure flitting through it, red 
 flowers at her temples — that all the brothers and 
 sisters had drawn a circle round about themselves, 
 a circle of their families or of themselves alone; 
 and, though those circles for the first few years had 
 sometimes intersected one another, slowly, slowly 
 they had shifted farther and farther apart; and, 
 just as that gloomy twilight drew nigh, they re- 
 treated still farther. . . . Had Mamma always 
 secretly foreseen it; and was that why she had clung 
 so obstinately to that one evening a week, the 
 evening at which formerly he had laughed and joked 
 with the others: always that Sunday evening of 
 Mamma's, the " family group," that gathering at 
 regular intervals, with cards and cakes, which they 
 all sometimes thought extremely boring, but never 
 neglected, for the sake of the old mother, who 
 wished to keep the children together ? Had Mamma 
 always foreseen it? Oh, it still existed, the family- 
 group, with the cards and cakes, every Sunday; but 
 was it not really losing its significance more and 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 169 
 
 more . . . because the circles had shifted so very 
 far apart? . . . The twilight was gathering around 
 them all, sombre and menacing; and he felt its 
 chilling influence even now as he rode along on that 
 warm summer's day: the twilight was deepening 
 around Dorine and around Paul, growing darker 
 and darker with their growing loneliness, the loneli- 
 ness of a lonely man and a lonely woman who had 
 not sought or had not found the warm light for 
 their later years, the still young but yet later years 
 of the small soul that just exists and, consciously or 
 unconsciously, is for ever asking itself the reason 
 of its small existence. . . . The twilight was per- 
 haps not yet so dark around Adolphine, for she still 
 had her own circle; but even that circle had already 
 shifted far from the original family-circle, was 
 moving farther and farther away. . . . And the 
 twilight had fallen, black as night, so suddenly, 
 around poor Bertha, now that she was dozing away 
 in a small house in a village where she knew nobody 
 and did nothing but look out of her window at the 
 garden, while the roar of the trains deadened her 
 already dull memories. It seemed too as if Bertha's 
 circle had broken up, like a ring of light that breaks 
 up into sparks which die out in the distance, now 
 that she had no one with her but Marianne, poor 
 girl, pining away in her unhappy lot, the victim of 
 a destiny too big for her small soul. . . . Karel, 
 his brother: was Karel his brother still? Or had 
 
i 7 o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 not Karel, with his wife, who had never been 
 admitted to the family as an intimate, also shifted 
 his circle far, far away from the circle of them 
 all? . . . And, as for poor Ernst, had the twilight 
 not deepened around poor Ernst, his gloomy solitude 
 growing ever darker, until he had fallen ill, ill in 
 his soul and in his senses? . . . And, now that all 
 those circles were shifting so far away from one 
 another and becoming ever wider, what consolation 
 would there be for Mamma, around whom loneliness 
 and darkness were closing, closing just around her, 
 poor Mamma, to whom the family circle meant so 
 much, who had always wanted to remain the centre 
 of the love and warmth of all her children? . . ,. 
 And it was strange that, when he thought of Con- 
 stance, her circle, on the contrary, seemed to be 
 moving closer, as though there were a new light 
 dawning for her and Addie; and strangest of all was 
 when he thought of himself and of his little tribe, 
 which, it was true, had left him for the moment, 
 but still belonged to him and was always, always 
 round him . . . as if there were no twilight there 
 at all . . . as if it were always dawn, a radiant 
 dawn, flinging wide its golden beams. . . . Oh, 
 children were everything! Had he not done wisely 
 to create his golden dawn? . . . He did not think 
 of his wife: he thought of his children; he was 
 a father more than a husband. . . . Had he not 
 done well? Was it not there that hope smiled upon 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 171 
 
 him, upon all of them, upon poor Mamma: upon 
 poor Mamma who, at that very moment, was sun- 
 ning her lonely old age in the light of that golden 
 dawn? . . . Had he not done wisely? But why, 
 if he had done wisely, must he doubt sometimes 
 and be astonished and even anxious about all that 
 young, radiant life which he had begotten and which 
 shed forth a warmth and light in which he now 
 felt his strange soul happily basking, warmer and 
 lighter than the sunlight in which he was riding? 
 Why should he doubt and be astonished and even 
 anxious? . . . Oh, he saw it, suddenly: because, 
 later on, the rays of that golden dawn also would 
 shine far away from their centre and that golden 
 radiance would gradually become dim and dark in 
 its turn ! . . . But, suppose it were a law of nature, 
 suppose it were bound to be, that all that was united 
 at first in sunny affection and sunny fellowship 
 should scatter in all directions; suppose it were 
 bound to circle away and fade into sombre twilight; 
 suppose it were a law of nature that brothers and 
 sisters should become estranged, as though they had 
 not been born of one mother and begotten of one 
 father! Suppose that had to be! Then why have 
 so many doubts, why feel astonishment and anxiety 
 and why not enjoy the warmth, as long as the 
 morning sun still shone, after the first gleams of 
 the cheerful dawn? . . . Oh, how he longed for 
 his dawn, his little tribe of laughing children ! He 
 
172 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 would go to them to-morrow, to-morrow! To see 
 them all around him, to hold them all in one vast 
 embrace, to toss them in his arms, to let them ride 
 on his back and on his shoulders, to dandle them on 
 his knee, to romp with them till they all rolled in 
 a heap, to press his lips to their soft childish skins, 
 giving himself sheer ecstasy in those simple caresses ! 
 He would go down to-morrow, to-morrow ! . . . 
 
 Yes, the gloom might deepen around all the rest, 
 but light was still dawning before him, as it had 
 shone, long years ago, before his father and 
 mother, when they had all — he and his brothers and 
 sisters — been children together and their sunny 
 radiance had been their parents' dawn yonder in 
 India, in the grand white palace, in the fairy gar- 
 dens. . . . Yes, light was still dawning in front 
 of him . . . and, though later that light would 
 surely circle away from him also, though the twi- 
 light would gather around his head, around his soul, 
 as it was now beginning to gather, with such gloomy 
 darkness, around his poor mother, there was still 
 the present and he had no right to feel doubt or 
 anxiety. 
 
 He rode back; and the evening dusked along the 
 wooded roads. But straight before his eyes was a 
 whirl of golden dust, because he had forced his 
 thoughts to be glad and sunny: his fair-haired little 
 tribe, at Nunspeet, whirled before his eyes. It 
 whirled all radiant light, straight before his eyes. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 173 
 
 When he was back in town, seated at the officers' 
 mess, where he dined these days, not one of them 
 noticed that he had seen that deepening twilight, 
 nor that he had seen the first gleam of dawn; and 
 he was just a big, yellow-haired fellow, a great, 
 burly officer, with a jovial, blustering voice and 
 rough movements that made his chair creak and his 
 glass in constant danger of breaking; and all the 
 time a stream of noisy oaths came from his mouth 
 and his jokes set the whole table ringing with 
 laughter. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Months had dragged by, when Gerrit, riding out 
 with his squadron, had a meeting that gave him a 
 shock. It was on the Koninginnegracht, one dank 
 autumn morning, dull and dark at that early hour, 
 as if it would not get light all day; the whole 
 roadway was taken up by the horses, whose hoofs 
 clattered in rhythmical trot over the even cobbles; 
 the maids, in their lilac-print dresses, hung out of 
 the windows to look at the fine hussars. A closed 
 cab came towards the squadron and had to pull up 
 beside the pavement to let the horses pass. And, 
 with a swift glance, Gerrit saw through the dimmed 
 panes of the carriage the face of a woman with 
 a pair of laughing eyes: two brown-gold sparks of 
 laughter, lasting scarce two or three seconds, those 
 two gleams of gay gold. The laughing eyes were 
 all that he saw in the vague expanse of face, pale 
 in the shadow of the cab, under the dark frame of 
 a large hat; but that laughing glance gave him such 
 a shock that he flushed purple, while his blood flew 
 to his temples and set them throbbing as if he had 
 taken a cocktail. He felt a stinging sensation in 
 his neck; and the thought flashed through him: 
 " I'll be hanged if that wasn't Pauline! I'll be 
 174 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 175 
 
 hanged if that wasn't Pauline ! Can she be back 
 at the Hague?" 
 
 But he pulled himself together, settled himself 
 stiffly and firmly in the saddle and tried to forget 
 his shock and the two brown-gold sparks of those 
 laughing eyes. Well, suppose it were she: what 
 about it? It was all so long ago; and did he not 
 often come across the live memories of his past, 
 looming up suddenly on his path, just like that, in 
 the street, and did he not pass them with hardly 
 a smile of reminiscence lurking under his moustache 
 and just lingering in his glance? Suppose it were 
 she: what then? Was he, who had brought all his 
 old madness within respectable, middle-aged bounds, 
 going to let himself be shocked by a pair of 
 laughing eyes out of tfye past? . . . No, he felt 
 himself quiet and strong, in the soberness of his 
 later years. If his blood went coursing through 
 hi9 veins like that at the glance of a woman, at a 
 memory looming up on his path, he couldn't help 
 it. . . . Nevertheless, all that autumn day — a day 
 which had opened dull and dark and which had 
 remained dull and dark, with its heavy, clouded 
 sky — was lighted for him by the two or three 
 seconds' gay, golden gleam from those eyes. Yes, 
 what eyes that girl Pauline had . . . Lord, what 
 a pair of eyes! Eyes that laughed even when her 
 mouth did not, eyes full of golden mockery, eyes 
 which knew that they sent him raving mad with 
 
1 76 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 their glance, as if he were a brand which a spark 
 from them set on fire! . . . And she knew it, she 
 knew well enough that she sent him mad with her 
 eyes! . . . Was she back at the Hague? At the 
 time, she had suddenly gone to Paris and he had 
 not seen her for years . . . for at least twelve 
 years. He was twelve years older now; she was 
 twelve years older. How rotten, that getting old, 
 that wearing out of your miserable carcase, of the 
 one body which you got in this world and which you 
 took to the grave with you and which you couldn't 
 change, as you change into a new uniform! . . . 
 Well, his was still fit and strong; and Pauline's eyes 
 laughed as they used to do. . . . 
 
 Twelve years ? Come, he wouldn't think about it 
 any longer ! If he once started remembering every- 
 thing that had happened years and years ago, the 
 day would be too short for his recollections! 
 
 And, in the staidness of his riper years, he forgot 
 the meeting on the Koninginnegracht and even 
 thought that he might easily have been mistaken 
 and that it wasn't Pauline at all. . . . He was no 
 longer lonely in his house, now that his wife and 
 the children filled the home once more; and he felt 
 that he must always have it like this in future: the 
 warmth of the snug home around him; that other- 
 wise he would feel unhappy and queer and lonely, 
 as in those months last summer. And the first 
 Sunday evening at Mamma's sent a cheerful glow 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 177 
 
 all through him; and yet it seemed empty here and 
 there in the once crowded drawing-rooms. For the 
 two old aunts no longer came: Mamma, it was true, 
 had not held them accountable for the upset which 
 they had caused with their shrill, childish voices on 
 that most unfortunate evening, when poor Con- 
 stance had been so excited as it was; Mamma had 
 forced herself always to remain nice to them; but 
 gradually they had fallen into their dotage alto- 
 gether and never went out now, living in their little 
 villa with a nurse; they had become very badly- 
 behaved and fought and quarrelled with each other; 
 they slept in one bed and refused each other a fair 
 share of the sheets; and once Aunt Rine pushed 
 Aunt Tine on the stairs, so that she fell down and 
 hurt her old ribs severely. So they no longer came. 
 And it was strange, but Gerrit missed the queer, 
 old figures of those two antiquated spinsters, who 
 used to sit, each with a great piece of crochet-work 
 in her bony hands, on either side of the conservatory- 
 doors all through the Sunday evening, now and 
 again hissing into each other's ears spiteful observa- 
 tions which the children heard and understood and 
 laughed at; looking with their greedy old eyes, 
 sweet-toothed old ladies that they were, at the cakes 
 and lemonade; consuming them at last, with gloating 
 satisfaction; then getting up suddenly, both at the 
 same time, and going downstairs, under the careful 
 conduct of the little nieces, to the four-wheeler with 
 
178 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 the reliable driver, who always brought them safe 
 home. The Sunday evenings were no longer the 
 same, thought Gerrit, without those two character- 
 istic, traditional figures, about whom they all cracked 
 a lot of jokes, but who nevertheless had so long 
 retained something of life's immutability and pa- 
 thetic monotony . . . until suddenly the change 
 came and the two figures disappeared. . . . They 
 would go on living for years, perhaps, wrangling 
 and quarrelling, clinging desperately to the world 
 with their bony hands: for years, as though death 
 couldn't get at them ; but they would never sit there 
 again, one by each of the conservatory-doors. . . . 
 But a great void had been caused by the dispersal 
 of Bertha's little band. For Bertha never came to 
 the Hague now; and all who had been to see her 
 at Baarn were agreed that she was becoming very 
 strange and sat in a very strange way at her window, 
 almost without moving, as if, after her busy, stirring 
 life, she, the society-woman, had suddenly, upon her 
 husband's death, felt that there was no need to do 
 anything more and had let that atmosphere of list- 
 lessness and apathy submerge her and become the 
 element in which she vegetated. She hardly ever 
 spoke, took no interest in anything, just sat and 
 looked out of the window, never going outside the 
 house ; and, though she had the full use of her senses, 
 she had lapsed into a sort of staring torpor, sub- 
 mitting to the passing of the years, the unnecessary, 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 179 
 
 sombre years that would glide noiselessly over her 
 soul, bringing with them the dreary twilight, un- 
 illumined by a ray of hope, in which her soul would 
 sit, waiting for the coming darkness. ... In that 
 house of mourning, in her silent, passionless grief, 
 she had kept no one with her but Marianne, though 
 Marietje was to come home later. The family knew 
 about Emilie and Henri now, for Emilie, proud of 
 her new life, had been unable to hold her tongue, 
 had bragged of what they were doing and how they 
 were making money in Paris; and the whole family 
 had been astounded and shocked at it. Adolphine 
 and Cateau had made them all swear never, what- 
 ever they did, to let out that Emilie painted fans 
 or that Henri had become a circus-clown! True, 
 they had not been able to hide Emilie's fans from 
 Mamma van Lowe, because Emilie herself had pre- 
 sented her grandmother with one; but that scandal 
 about Henri the old woman fortunately had not 
 heard: it might have given her a shock that would 
 have been fatal. . . . Gerrit knew that people at 
 the Hague were incessantly telling stories about 
 Emilie and Henri and he would rather have told 
 the thing out, so that people should know the 
 truth; but the others, even Constance, implored 
 him to hold his tongue and so he would hold his 
 tongue with the rest, as if it concerned a disgraceful 
 family-secret. . . . 
 
 Ernst, it is true, had never come regularly to 
 
1 80 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 the Sunday evenings ; but none the less his absence — 
 down at Nunspeet — cast a «sad shadow. What was 
 even sadder was that Aunt Lot still came with the 
 girls, but was full of bitter lamentation, saying 
 that things were going altogether wrong with the 
 sugar and that these were r-r-rotten times. And, 
 as a matter of fact, suddenly, one Sunday, Aunt 
 came with much emotion and tears, the girls more 
 resigned, good, simple souls that they were; and 
 Aunt told in a torrent of words how they were 
 as good as ruined — Uncle had sent cable after 
 cable from Java — as good as ruined: they were 
 leaving their big house at once; they already had 
 in view a tiny little house at Duinoord; and 
 they would manage there till better times came. 
 It created great consternation in the family, where 
 money never counted but had always been very 
 useful; yet Gerrit, in spite of Aunt Lot's tragic 
 attitude and the tearful voice in which she 
 lamented her fate all through the evening, admired 
 a certain keen practical sense in her; in the girls 
 there was also an unruffled calm, a quiet determina- 
 tion to accept the situation sensibly, without keeping 
 up the appearance of former luxury, and to retire 
 into poverty with a modest resignation that left 
 no room for false shame. ... A tiny little house, 
 one servant: yes, Herrit, but Aunt would ask him 
 to nassi all the same, for there was no living without 
 sambal, eh, Herrit? . . . And Gerrit admired it all, 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 181 
 
 admired that practical notion of at once cutting your 
 coat according to your cloth in spite of the tragedy 
 of tears and gestures and exclamations of " Ye-es, 
 kassian! " l And he said, speaking to Constance: 
 
 " Do you think that real Dutch people could ever 
 behave like that? No, to begin with, they wouldn't 
 trumpet it forth; then they would go quietly 
 abroad; but good old Aunt Lot trumpets it forth 
 and started being practical yesterday and isn't 
 ashamed to move into a smaller house; and, as I 
 live, she's already asking me to nassi! " 
 
 Yes, that was the good, old-fashioned East- 
 Indian way; the simple soul, the simple views of 
 life; the real thing, without show; the cordial hospi- 
 tality surviving, even though there was no money 
 left; and all this attracted Gerrit, for all Auntie's 
 East-Indian accent, for all her look of a Hindu idol, 
 with the capacious, rolling bosom and the brilliants 
 as big as turnips. . . . And the three girls, no 
 longer young — why had those good children never 
 married, in " Gholland " ? — so quiet and practical, 
 laughing already at the thought of the one servant: 
 they'd make their own beds; but Alima, of course, 
 was remaining — dressed just like a lady, stays and 
 all, splendid! — sharing prosperity and misfortune 
 with her njonja,* just simply, without stopping for 
 a moment to think whether she hadn't better look 
 out for a better place. 
 
 ^h, dear! * Mistress. 
 
1 82 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Yes, Constance, say what you like, it does me 
 good, in this cold Dutch air of ours, a glimpse 
 like that of the simple, warmhearted, old-Indian 
 way!" 
 
 And, in spite of all, there were still cards and 
 cakes on Sunday evenings; but, though Mamma 
 stuck to it, though she was still the centre of her 
 circle, though the children left her outside most 
 minor quarrels and difficulties, she still seemed to 
 feel that something was cracking and tearing and 
 breaking. No, she could no longer deny it to 
 herself; and her once bright old face had changed, 
 had lost its cheerfulness and had come to wear, 
 with those new wrinkles round the mouth, a 
 melancholy, moping look : the family was a grandeur 
 dechue! 
 
 And things were no better when Constance, 
 making her voice as gentle and sympathetic as she 
 could, spoke to her about Addie; and, on one of 
 those Sunday evenings, the old woman said to Van 
 der Welcke, in a harsh voice, which was beginning 
 to tremble with the sound of broken harp-strings : 
 
 " So Addie . . . has changed his mind. Con- 
 stance has told me." 
 
 It had been a great disappointment to Van der 
 Welcke too, so great that he could not forgive 
 Addie and would hardly speak to him. And he also 
 shrugged his shoulders, angrily, as if he couldn't 
 help it: 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 183 
 
 14 What am I to say, Mamma? Addie is such a 
 very determined boy. He spoke to his mother at 
 Nunspeet and his mother agrees with him. I 
 don't." 
 
 The old woman's head dropped to her breast and 
 went nodding softly up and down. 
 
 11 The older we become," she said, " the more 
 disappointment we find in life. ..." 
 
 She looked up; there was resentment in her eyes. 
 She beckoned Addie to her, with that imperative 
 gesture which she sometimes employed even to the 
 oldest of her children. 
 
 The boy came: 
 
 " What is it, Grandmamma?" 
 
 She looked at him; and something within her at 
 once grew softer, when she saw him standing before 
 her, with a grave, gentle smile on his fair boyish 
 face, the face which was at the same time so virile 
 in its strength. Still, she shook her grey head, as 
 though to say that she knew all about it; and there 
 was reproach in her flickering eyes. 
 
 " Well, well," she said. " Mamma has been 
 speaking to me, Addie. And Mamma tells me that 
 you have changed your mind . . . that you want 
 to be a doctor." 
 
 11 Yes, Granny." 
 
 "Well, well . . . and Papa and Mamma and 
 Grandmamma, who would so much have liked to see 
 you make your way in the diplomatic service." 
 
1 84 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Granny, really, I don't feel that I have the voca- 
 tion." 
 
 "And as a doctor?" 
 
 " As a doctor, yes, Granny." 
 
 " Then I suppose it can't be helped, Addie," said 
 the old woman; and she suddenly broke down and 
 began to sob quietly. 
 
 Van der Welcke looked gloomy. The boy looked 
 down upon them where he stood, in front of his 
 father and his grandmother. He liked the old 
 woman and he adored his father and had been hurt 
 by his father's fit of sulkiness. But he couldn't help 
 seeing that it was their vanity that was wounded; 
 and, without wishing to be cruel, he couldn't help 
 saying, very gently: 
 
 " Granny, Mamma understood. I should be so 
 glad, Granny, if you and Papa could also under- 
 stand. ..." 
 
 But Van der Welcke's jealousy of Constance 
 stabbed ruthlessly at his heart: he rose and moved 
 to the card-table. 
 
 " Mamma understood, Addie? " the old lady re- 
 peated, resentfully. " Oh, Mamma knows that she 
 can't refuse you anything, you see. Papa too; and 
 now he's upset, poor Papa. . . . Our illusions be- 
 come fewer and fewer, Addie, as we grow older; 
 and therefore it's so terribly sad, dear, when we 
 have to lose the very last of them. We had all 
 placed our hopes in you, my boy." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 185 
 
 44 But, even if I don't go in for the diplomatic 
 service, Granny, that's no reason why I . . ." 
 
 The old woman raised her hand almost angrily, 
 imposing silence upon him: 
 
 41 Diplomacy is the finest profession in the world," 
 she said, sharply. 44 There's nothing above it. . . . 
 It's just those new ideas, dear, which Granny can't 
 keep up with and which make her so sad, because 
 she doesn't understand them. ..." 
 
 44 Granny, I can't bear to see you crying like 
 this." 
 
 He sat down beside her, took her hand, looked 
 into her eyes. She mistook his gentleness: 
 
 44 Won't you think it over, Addie?" she asked, 
 softly and coaxingly. 
 
 44 No, Granny," he said, in a calm, decided tone. 
 44 I can't do that." 
 
 44 You mean, you won't." 
 
 44 I can't, I mustn't, Granny." 
 
 44 You mustn't?" 
 
 44 No, Granny. Do try to realize, Granny dear, 
 that I mustn't." 
 
 The old woman's head went up and down, nod- 
 ding bitter reproaches. . . . 
 
 44 Granny, may I promise you to try my hardest 
 . . . to do you credit, one of these days ... as 
 a doctor? " 
 
 She gave an angry, contemptuous smile through 
 her tears. He kissed her very tenderly. . . . 
 
1 86 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Ah," he thought to himself, " how we all drag 
 with us — every one of us — that burden of vanity 
 in our souls . . . which prevents us from living, 
 from really living/ > ., ■." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Yes, Gerrit had quite forgotten the golden glint of 
 those two laughing eyes which he had seemed to 
 recognize; he had only just reflected, lightly and 
 vaguely, that he must have been mistaken. And 
 great was his surprise, a few days later, when, on 
 his way to the Witte after dinner, a woman came 
 up to him near the club, in the dusk of the evening, 
 and, as she passed, flashed a laughing glance into his 
 eyes and whispered very tenderly, almost in his ear: 
 
 44 Good-evening, Gerrit! " 
 
 He knew the voice, even as he had known the 
 eyes: a drowsy, deep-throated note, with a slight 
 roll of the 44 r's." Yes, he recognized her: it was 
 really Pauline; she was back at the Hague. After 
 twelve years' time! . . . Well, he took no notice 
 of her, walked on, turned the corner and reached 
 the Witte at once. He ran up the steps, almost 
 as though fleeing from something outside; and his 
 face was red, his temples throbbed. He stayed 
 talking to his friends for an hour or so, curious to 
 learn whether they too had happened to see Pauline. 
 But the others — younger officers than himself, he 
 reflected — did not know her; and he did not hear 
 her name mentioned. . . . 
 
 187 
 
1 88 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 He went home early. The impudent wench, 
 to dare to speak to him! He went to bed early, 
 man of regular habits that he had become in the 
 course of years; and, while Adeline was already 
 asleep in the other bed, he saw the golden eyes 
 laughing, heard his name murmured by that drowsy, 
 provocative voice, heard it whispered almost close 
 to his ear. . . . He fell asleep and, in his dreams, 
 saw the golden eyes. . . . 
 
 Well, he thought next morning, if he was to 
 start dreaming of all the eyes into which he had 
 looked, his sleep would be one great firmament of 
 eyes! And, as he got up and took his bath, he 
 threw the thing off him, washed those eyes out of 
 his mind. . . . Then he breakfasted, quickly, with 
 his pretty children, vigorous and fair-haired, around 
 him; and then he rode to the barracks. . . . 
 
 But, two days later, walking back from barracks 
 with a couple of officers, at six or half-past, he 
 came upon Pauline under the fading trees beside the 
 Alexandersveld. He repressed a movement of im- 
 patience and thought: 
 
 " Is she mad? Is she pursuing me deliberately? " 
 
 But he did not let the others notice anything. 
 One of them said: 
 
 "A fine girl. Who is she?" 
 
 But none of them knew; and they went on. 
 Gerrit did not look round. 
 
 The thing began to get on his nerves. What did 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 189 
 
 the damned wench want to come back to Holland 
 for and why must she look at him and speak to 
 him, why must she go walking past the barracks? 
 Was she mad, was she mad? . . . He felt angry 
 and uneasy. . . . And, a day or two after, as 
 though he had a presentiment, he hung about the 
 barracks, so as to go away alone, quite late. 
 
 He met her; and, in the dim light under the 
 fading trees, her eyes laughed towards him through 
 the distance like gold, with that gay, wicked glint 
 of mockery. 
 
 44 Damn it all! " he cursed. 
 
 And, resolved to take up a firm attitude, he 
 squared his chest, put his shoulders back, appar- 
 ently wishing to fill the whole lane with his manly 
 determination to force his way through every 
 ambush and snare. But she stopped right in 
 front of him and said, in that drowsy, seductive 
 voice : 
 
 44 Good-evening, Gerrit!" 
 
 44 Look here, clear off, will you? And be damned 
 quick about it! " said Gerrit, angrily. 
 
 44 It's so nice, meeting you again ! " 
 
 44 Yes, but I don't think it a bit nice, see? So be 
 off!* 
 
 And he tried to walk on, broad-chested and im- 
 posing, the strong man who would trample on every 
 smiling and mocking temptation that blocked his 
 way under the fading trees. 
 
u 
 <( 
 
 190 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 11 Gerrit, I must speak to you," she implored. 
 
 " Yes, but I don't want to speak to you." 
 
 " Oh, but I must speak to you, Gerrit ! " mur- 
 mured the languorous, maddening voice. " I must, 
 I must speak to you. Not here, but just . . . just 
 inside the Woods." 
 
 " What do you want to speak to me about? " 
 
 " Only for a second I can't tell you 
 
 here." 
 
 Well, no, d'you see?" said Gerrit, roughly. 
 
 I don't want to have anything to do with 
 
 you. 
 
 " Yes, yes, Gerrit. . . . Please, Gerrit . . . only 
 for a second. ..." 
 
 And he walked on. 
 
 She followed him: 
 
 "Gerrit ..." 
 
 " I say, if you don't hurry up and clear 
 out . . . ! " 
 
 " Gerrit, just let me tell you something ... let 
 me speak to you for three minutes ... in the 
 Woods. ..." 
 
 The voice coaxed him and he saw that deep glint 
 of mockery in the laughing eyes. 
 
 " Only for three minutes . . . and then I sha'n't 
 worry you any more ..." 
 
 " Well ... go ahead then ! " said Gerrit. " You 
 go on. . . . I'll follow you. . . . But be quick . . . 
 I've no time. ..." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 191 
 
 " Where are you going? " 
 " Home." 
 
 "Are you married, Gerrit?" 
 11 Yes. Go ahead now." 
 
 II And have you any kiddies? " 
 "Yes, I have. . . . A jo! . . ." 1 
 
 II I expect they're charming kiddies, Gerrit?" 
 Once again the deep glint in those golden, mock- 
 ing eyes leapt out at Gerrit . . . and then she had 
 turned, walked away quickly, gone down the Timor- 
 straat, disappeared in the Woods. It was quite dark 
 there. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" 
 
 " I haven't seen you for twelve years, Gerrit." 
 " Is that all you have to say to me? . . ." 
 " No, listen," she said, swiftly, understanding 
 that she must make the most of this precious mo- 
 ment. " Listen. I've been twelve years in Paris, 
 Gerrit; I've had a lot of trouble there, I can tell 
 you. . . . But a lot of fun too. I was all the 
 rage : my photo used to be in the shop-windows 
 between the Tsar and the King of the Belgians and 
 under Otero's. That shows, doesn't it? . . . But 
 a lot of trouble too, Gerrit. Men are beasts, Gerrit: 
 they're not alllike you, so kind, so nice. I often 
 used to think of you. ..." 
 
 " Yes, but I don't care a hang about all 
 this. ..." 
 
 1 Malay: forward! 
 
1 92 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " I often thought of you, how nice you were and 
 how kind, though you often pretended to be rough 
 and put on such an angry voice. . . . Well, Gerrit, 
 I had to go back to the Hague — you see, it's too 
 long a story to tell you — and now, Gerrit, now I 
 want to tell you, I'm very hard up ... I haven't 
 got a penny just now. . . . Please, Gerrit, can you 
 give me fifty guilders?" 
 
 u Look here, if you think I'm well off, you're 
 very much mistaken. I can't give you anything." 
 
 " Well, Gerrit, couldn't you give me twenty-five 
 guilders? You'd be doing me a good turn." 
 
 " I haven't got it." 
 
 " Oh, but, please, Gerrit, can't you give me some- 
 thing?" 
 
 Gerrit fumbled in his pocket: 
 
 " Here's two rixdollars . . . and a ten-guilder 
 piece. That's all I've got. I'm not rich and I don't 
 go about with sheaves of notes in my pocket." 
 
 He gave her the fifteen guilders. 
 
 "Oh, Gerrit, thank you ever so much! Oh, 
 Gerrit, how sweet of you ! " 
 
 And, before he could stop her, she had thrown 
 her arms round his neck and was kissing him wildly 
 on the mouth. 
 
 He almost flung her from him: 
 
 11 Look here, are you mad? " 
 
 " No, Gerrit, but I love you and you're such a 
 dear. Thank you, Gerrit, thank you ever so much." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 193 
 
 He saw the golden eyes jeering. 
 
 M And now clear out! " said Gerrit, shaking with 
 fury, while sparks seemed to dazzle his eyes. u And 
 never speak to me again and don't go thinking that 
 you'll get any more money out of me, for I haven't 
 got it. So it's finished: understand that. You look 
 out for a young, rich fellow . . . and leave me 
 alone. ..." 
 
 " Oh, Gerrit, they're all beasts ... all but you 
 ... all but you ..." 
 
 " Well, beast or no beast," roared Gerrit, " you 
 go this way now and I that, see? " 
 
 And he released himself, panting, snorting, 
 quivering. He walked as fast as he could; and, 
 when he looked round, she was out of sight, must 
 have gone up the Riouwstraat. He breathed again, 
 managed to catch a tram, stood on the front plat- 
 form to get the wind in his face and cool his 
 throbbing temples. . . . And all the time he was 
 thinking: 
 
 44 The girl's mad, to speak to me ... to go 
 kissing me! ... I'd have done better not to give 
 her any money. . . . Twelve years! . . . She looks 
 older, but she's still a fine girl. . . . She's put on 
 flesh and she was painted, which she never used to 
 be. But she's still a fine girl. ..." 
 
 Her kiss lingered on his mouth, like a burning 
 pressure, as if she had sealed his lips with wax, the 
 hot, melting wax of her kiss. And suddenly he had 
 
i 9 4 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 to admit to himself that, for years and years, for 
 twelve years, no one had kissed him like that; and 
 the admission sent his blood racing through his veins 
 and set all sorts of memories, like swift spirals, 
 swarming before his eyes, in curving, waving lines, 
 between him and the wet autumn street, down which 
 the horse-tram jogged along, toiling slowly on its 
 rails. Memories flashed before his eyes, in glowing 
 visions before him and inside him and around him, 
 until it was as though he were standing there, on 
 the platform of the tram-car, in a blaze of recol- 
 lections which the wind fanned rather than ex- 
 tinguished. . . . But the tram was passing his 
 house; and he jumped down, wildly, almost 
 stumbling over his sword, hampered by his military 
 great-coat, which blew between his legs. He rattled 
 with his latchkey against the door, like a drunken 
 man, could not find the keyhole at once. . . . The 
 door of the dining-room was open, sending forth 
 a soft light of domesticity; the table was laid for 
 dinner. Gerdy and Guy ran out to meet him. Ade- 
 line, inside the room, called out: 
 
 " Is that you, Gerrit? How late you are! " 
 44 1 missed the tram," he fibbed; and he thrust 
 the two children away from him, a little roughly. 
 " Wait, children : Papa must go upstairs first and 
 wash his hands." 
 
 He stormed up the stairs, again nearly stumbling. 
 The noise shook the whole house; the door of his 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 195 
 
 bedroom slammed. He feverishly felt in his pocket 
 for matches, couldn't find them; his trembling hands 
 groped all round the room, knocking things over, 
 almost breaking things; at last he found the box, lit 
 the gas, looked at himself in the glass. He saw his 
 face red with fierce, raging blood, which glowed 
 under his cheeks and beat up towards his temples. 
 His eyes started from their sockets and contracted 
 to pin-points. He looked at his mouth, to see if the 
 kiss was visible that still burnt on his lips like a 
 hot seal of purple wax. His uniform felt too tight 
 for him and he undressed himself, savagely. He 
 washed his head in a basin full of water; he rubbed 
 his mouth with a handkerchief till his lips glowed, 
 went on rubbing them, as if they were dirty. He 
 crunched the handkerchief into a ball and flung it 
 on the ground. Then he quickly put on his indoor- 
 jacket and then . . . then he went downstairs. . . . 
 
 " How late you are ! " Adeline said again, very 
 gently. 
 
 He did not answer, made no jokes with the chil- 
 dren. He now, deliberately, let Gerdy kiss him, 
 with cool lips; and it was as a cool flower, pressed 
 flat on his glowing cheek. It calmed him; and he 
 suddenly felt safe, in that small room, under the 
 circle of light from the hanging lamp, with in front 
 of him the great piece of beef, which he began to 
 carve, with great art, and advised Alex to watch 
 how Papa carved, so that he could do it too when 
 
i 9 6 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 he was older. He now gave all his mind to the 
 beef, carved it in clean, regular slices, while Adeline 
 and the children looked on. 
 
 He ate heartily and, after dinner, fell into a 
 heavy sleep. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 No, nobody saw it in him. He could admit that now 
 without hesitation. Around him there appeared to 
 be — he became more and more conscious of it — 
 an opaque sphere, like a materialized phantasm, 
 through which no one could see him, through which 
 no one could penetrate and know him as he knew 
 himself. This evening, as he sat with Constance, 
 Constance did not see that he had met Pauline 
 yesterday and gone back with her to her room. His 
 wife did not notice it; Van der Welcke did not 
 notice it. There was nothing around him but the 
 everyday circumstances of an after-dinner chat in 
 Constance' drawing-room, in the soft, cosy light of 
 the lace-shaded lamps, while the wind outside 
 blew from a great distance and howled moaning 
 round the little house. ... In his easy-chair, 
 with the glass of grog mixed by Constance at his 
 side, he was just a big, burly, light-haired fellow in 
 his mufti; and his movements were brisk, his parade- 
 voice sounded loud. . . . His wife was sitting there, 
 gentle and placid, the quiet, resigned little mother; 
 the children were asleep at home. Oh, his children* 
 how he loved them 1 . . . Certainly, all of that ex- 
 isted, it was no phantasm, it was most certainly the 
 
 197 
 
198 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 truth; but behind that truth lay hidden another 
 truth; and that was why it seemed a phantasm, his 
 outward life as an officer, a husband, a father, while 
 the real truth was what he always kept to himself: 
 his strange gloom; the great worm that gnawed at 
 him; his hot, racing blood; his sentimental and 
 melancholy soul; that wriggling horror in his 
 marrow; that recrudescence of sensuality in his 
 blood. . . . The quiet, kindly words fell softly 
 round the room, like small, sweet things between a 
 brother and a sister who still have sympathy and 
 affection for each other amid the inevitable slow 
 moving apart of the family-spheres; but he — though 
 he talked, though he was lively, though he cracked 
 jokes — he saw Pauline before him, as he had held 
 her in his arms the day before. . . . Heavens, he 
 couldn't help it: why was he built like that? A 
 handsome woman, standing before his eyes, drove 
 him crazy! Well, for years, all the years of his 
 marriage, he had remained sober and sedate, but 
 he had gradually begun to feel that this sedateness 
 did not really suit him. It was no good his thinking 
 it rotten; it was no good his telling himself that he 
 was a husband and a father — the father of such 
 jolly children too — and that he oughtn't to think of 
 those things, that all that sort of thing belonged to 
 his youth, to which he had said good-bye. It had 
 been all very well to say it. But a thousand memo- 
 ries had gone curling into the air before his eyes, 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 199 
 
 like swarming spirals; and, when he met Pauline 
 again — by accident? — he had made an appoint- 
 ment with her for the next evening, in her room, 
 cursing himself as he did so and swearing at her, 
 with a torrent of rough words. . . . No, nobody 
 had kissed him like that for years! Besides, he was 
 sentimental. Didn't he himself know, damn it, what 
 a sentimental ass he was? Didn't he know that 
 sometimes, when he read a book or saw a play, 
 when Mamma told him her troubles, as she had 
 now got into the habit of doing, when he saw Dorine 
 and felt sorry for her: didn't he himself know, damn 
 it, that he was a sentimental ass and that he must 
 pull himself together and not let the tears come to 
 his eyes. . . . And Pauline, whether she did or did 
 not know how sentimental he was : he couldn't see as 
 far as that — not only kissed him as no one else did 
 and knew how to drive him crazy, but she also 
 worked upon his sentimentality. Was she making 
 a fool of him, or did she mean all she said? He 
 had never been able to trust those eyes of hers: 
 they always retained a glint of mockery; but, when 
 she said to him, " Men . . . men are all beasts, 
 every one of them, Gerrit . . . except you. . . .. 
 ■You're not . . . you're so nice and gentle . . . 
 however rough you may be," then she had 
 him by his sentimental side and he did not know how 
 to shake her off. . . . 
 
 11 I tell you, Gerrit, that's why I was so glad 
 
200 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 to see you again . . . oh, I was so glad, Gerrit ! " 
 
 He had cursed her, asked why she didn't go after 
 a young, rich fellow rather than him, who was 
 neither young nor rich; but her golden eyes had 
 gleamed and she had merely repeated: 
 
 44 Oh, men are all beasts, Gerrit . . . beasts, 
 beasts . . . every one of them ! " 
 
 And — perhaps that was the stupidest thing of 
 all — he had believed her, believed that he was the 
 only one whom she did not think a beast; and, 
 when a woman got hold of him by his crazy side 
 and his sentimental side as well, then he did not 
 find it easy to wrench himself away: oh, he knew 
 himself well enough for that! 
 
 Not one of them knew it, you see, while he sat 
 talking so quietly with them, while he sipped his 
 grog with enjoyment, his legs stretched out wide 
 in front of him, and while he heard the raging wind 
 outside come howling up from the distance. . . . 
 And now Paul came in, rubbing his hands: he had 
 driven up in a cab, declaring that he was too old 
 to walk from the Houtstraat to the Kerkhoflaan 
 in that weather and through such dirty streets. 
 Why didn't he take the tram? Thank you for 
 nothing: was there ever such a filthy conveyance as 
 a tram, in wind and rain too? And a volley of 
 sparkling witticisms flashed out for a moment, 
 tirades against his dirty country, where it was al- 
 ways, always raining; against people, against the 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 201 
 
 whole world, all dirty alike. . . . When he sat 
 down, he looked round, with a glance that had be- 
 come a second habit, to see that there were no bits 
 of fluff on his chair. And he at once ceased talking, 
 the battery of his words exhausted, sat still, not 
 thinking it worth while to talk, because nobody ap- 
 preciated what he said. Gerrit heard Constance 
 chide him, in her gentle voice, in a sisterly but 
 serious fashion, because he was growing so elderly, 
 shutting himself up, giving way to his mania for 
 cleanliness and for thinking everything dirty. He 
 answered with a couple of whimsical sallies. . . . 
 
 Then Constance said that she had asked Dorine 
 also, but that Dorine did not seem to be coming; 
 and that Aunt Ruyvenaer was too tired, because 
 she was fixing up the new small house with the girls. 
 And Gerrit felt — now that Mamma was getting old, 
 very old — how Constance was trying to keep the 
 elements of the family together in her place. Not 
 in such a wide and comprehensive manner as Mamma 
 used to do — and still did — but with some measure 
 of sympathy. Ah, she wouldn't succeed, thought 
 Gerrit! The circles were not moving closer to- 
 gether: each was just himself; he was no different 
 from the rest. Was he not thinking of Pauline? 
 Had he not his silent secret? Had not each of them 
 perhaps his silent secret, while they sat talking 
 together with such apparent sympathy? . . . 
 
 Addie came in, after finishing his school-work 
 
202 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 upstairs; and Gerrit noticed the conciliatory smile 
 with which he at once went up to his father, who 
 had been sulking of late because his boy had made 
 a choice of which he altogether disapproved. But 
 for weeks and weeks he had seemed unable to resist 
 the conciliatory smile; and Gerrit had noticed that 
 it was Van der Welcke himself who suffered most 
 from his sulking, which went on because he did not 
 know how to manage a gradual change of attitude, 
 while the boy's calm smile meant: 
 
 " Daddie will have to give in, for what I want is 
 only reasonable. . . ." 
 
 And Gerrit enjoyed looking at Addie, hoping that 
 his own boys would grow up like that; but Paul, as 
 soon as he saw his nephew, flashed forth into chaff, 
 a chaff which had a speculative interest underlying 
 it and which the boy took quietly, looking at Paul 
 with his serious, blue eyes, which gazed so steadily 
 out of his fresh, boyish face. 
 
 " Well, learned professor in ovo, my dear doctor 
 in spe, how are the patients ? Are they keeping you 
 busy just now? Has mankind increased in vitality 
 and primordial vigour since you entered the thera- 
 peutic arena? O great healer, on whom are you 
 going to try your powers first, iEsculapius? On 
 members of your family, I suppose ? Are you going 
 to make us live for ever, Addie ? Well, you needn't 
 trouble about me. . . . Can't you manage to make 
 the human body work a little more cleanly in future ? 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 203 
 
 That's the thing before which we're expected to 
 kneel in admiration: the Creator's masterpiece, the 
 human body; and what is dirtier than the human 
 body? A nasty house of flesh, with our poor small 
 soul pining away inside it. . . . Addie, when you 
 grow very clever later on, just remove all that: 
 entrails, intestines, the whole bag of tricks; and put 
 in its place a little silver machine which a fellow can 
 polish at least ... if there must be a machine of 
 some sort ! " 
 
 The boy never got annoyed, but stood in front 
 of his uncle and put his hand on Paul's shoulder 
 and looked at him and said: 
 
 44 Why aren't you always so lively, Uncle? " 
 "Lively? Do you think me lively? He thinks 
 I'm lively, while I sit here cursing human filthiness! 
 Is that your diagnosis, professor? Well, you're 
 quite out of it, my boy! You'll never get your ten 
 guilders for that! Lively? Heavens, boy, I'm far 
 from that! ... As long as life remains as dirty 
 as it is, I shall be as melancholy as melancholy can 
 be. . . . Cure me, if you like, but first clean the 
 Augean stable. . . . There's just one little clean 
 spot left in our soul; but all the rest is dirty! . . . 
 Tell me now: whom will you start on? Couldn't 
 you cure Uncle Gerrit? Give him a better appetite? 
 Sounder sleep? A healthier complexion? Teach 
 him to buck up that big carcase of his a bit? . . k .. 
 Just see how wasted he looks ! ... . .. " 
 
2o 4 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 There was something in Paul's chaff that grated 
 on Gerrit very unpleasantly; but he laughed, as 
 though he thought it the best joke he had ever 
 heard, that Paul should be wishing him a better 
 appetite and sounder sleep. Was Paul getting at 
 him? Did Paul see through his sham strength? 
 And would Addie do so, later? . . . No, nobody 
 saw through it: .the centipede rooted in him unseen 
 by them all. . . . 
 
 And he got up, to mix himself another grog; but 
 he mixed it so that it was hardly more than hot 
 water and lemon. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 He had never quite understood her, not even in the 
 old days. In the old days, as a young officer, he 
 had seen in her a fine girl, a delicious girl, of whom 
 he had been madly enamoured. He had never 
 understood her eyes, never understood her soul; but 
 formerly he had not thought so very much about 
 those eyes and that soul, because in those days he 
 didn't know much about himself either, did not know 
 what he knew now. In those days, he only now 
 and then had a vague glimpse of his own latent 
 sentimentality: to-day, he knew that sentimentality 
 to be there most positively, as a blue background 
 to his soul. And he was so much afraid of that 
 sentimentality, so much afraid lest he should miss 
 the truth, the naked, mocking reality of that cour- 
 tesan's soul, so much afraid lest he should make it 
 out to be finer than it really was, kinder above all 
 and gentler and more tender, that he could never 
 speak to her without abusing her or swearing at 
 her, his voice as rough as if he were roaring at one 
 of his hussars. 
 
 11 I mustn't let myself be put upon by her . . . 
 or by myself either," he constantly reflected. 
 
 «>5 
 
206 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 And he kept on his guard. Add to that a vague 
 resentment, at not having been able to keep away 
 from her, at having gone to see her in her room; 
 a vague resentment at the thought of his home, of 
 his children, of all that he went back to when he 
 left her room. The way you got used to anything, 
 he would reflect! Now, when he had been to her, 
 he would put his latchkey calmly into his front-door, 
 without feeling his heart beating with nervousness, 
 would undress calmly, would walk into the room 
 where Adeline lay in bed! The way you got used 
 to everything and by degrees came to do things 
 which at first you thought rotten! You did it 
 because you couldn't very well help it . . . and also 
 because your ideas about things, day by day, as you 
 did it, slumbered away into a feeling that you weren't 
 responsible, that it was no use resisting what had 
 got such a hold of you. . . . Nevertheless, when 
 he was with her, he always felt that resentment 
 keenly: it did not slumber away. ... At Pauline's, 
 he had a keen apprehension of being still more im- 
 posed upon, of seeing kindness and charming ten- 
 derness in that girl, whereas of course she was 
 nothing but a courtesan who meant to get money 
 out of him. And then, in her small, shabby room, 
 he would roar at her and ask: 
 
 " Look here, why can't you leave me alone? " 
 Her golden eyes gleamed; and he read a secret 
 mockery in them. No, mark you, he'd take jolly 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 207 
 
 good care that his sentimentality didn't make him 
 see her as a chocolate-box picture! You only had 
 to look at her eyes ! 
 
 44 But, Gerrit," she said, nestling at his feet, 
 "I never ran after you! I met you by accident, 
 really by accident, I assure you. Don't you 
 remember? Yes, once when I was driving: that 
 was the first time; then near the Alexander 
 Barracks ..." 
 
 II But what were you doing near the barracks, 
 damn it? " 
 
 She looked at him coaxingly, stroked him caress- 
 ingly : 
 
 44 Oh, well ... I thought . . . ! " 
 " There, you see! . . . You thought . . . ! " 
 44 Yes, you won't believe me. . . . Even towards 
 the end . . . in Paris, Gerrit ..." 
 "Well?" 
 
 II I used to think of you sometimes." 
 
 44 Oh, rot, you're lying! . . . Do you think I be- 
 lieve you? " 
 
 44 No, you don't believe me, but, Gerrit . . . 
 I assure you . . . men are beasts . . . and 
 you ..." 
 
 44 Oh, yes, you tell everybody that : do you im- 
 agine I don't see through it?" 
 
 Then she laughed merrily; and he laughed 
 too. 
 
 44 I'm laughing," she said, 44 because you're pre- 
 
208 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 tending to be so cynical. . . . Tell me, Gerrit, why 
 do you pretend to be so cynical? " 
 
 "I?" 
 
 " Yes, you: why do you do it? You're putting it 
 on, aren't you, on purpose ? " 
 
 "Purpose be blowed! ... If you think I'm 
 going to be taken in by all your pretty speeches! 
 ... If you come to me with pretty speeches, it's 
 because you want money and I've . . .. I've told 
 you, I haven't any. ..." 
 
 " But, Gerrit, I don't ask you for money . . . 
 and I'm not getting any from you either. ..." 
 
 He flushed, a deep glow overspreading his red, 
 sunburnt face and the white neck on which the tight 
 collar of his uniform had left a plainly-visible line. 
 What she said was quite true: she asked for no 
 money and he gave her no money. He had none 
 to give her. 
 
 " Now let me tell you," she said, nestling still 
 closer against his knees. " You see, in Paris, to- 
 wards the end, I got the blues badly. . . . You 
 understand, Gerrit, don't you, one has enough of 
 the life sometimes . . . and a fit like that isn't very 
 cheerful?" 
 
 "Oh, rot!" he said, gruffly. "And you, who 
 are always laughing! " 
 
 " I'm always laughing? " 
 
 " Yes, you, with those eyes of yours, those eyes 
 which are always laughing." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 209 
 
 "That's my eyes, Gerrit: I can't help it if they 
 laugh." 
 
 44 And you want to make me believe that you get 
 fits of the blues? " 
 
 " Well, why shouldn't I ? " 
 
 11 Very likely. But you're not the sort ..." 
 
 "To what?" 
 
 44 To sit moping for long." 
 
 " Well, I didn't. I came to Holland." 
 
 44 Weren't you doing well in Paris?" 
 
 44 Not quite so well, perhaps," she said, hesitating 
 between her vanity and certain strange feelings 
 which she did not clearly realize. 
 
 44 So that's why you came to Holland 1 " 
 
 44 I might have gone to London." 
 
 44 To London?" 
 
 44 And from there to Berlin." 
 
 "Berlin?" 
 
 44 And then to St. Petersburg." 
 
 44 Look here, what are you talking about? " 
 
 44 And next to Constantinople." 
 
 44 Oh, shut up!" 
 
 44 And do you know where we finish?" 
 
 44 What do you mean, finish? " 
 
 44 At Singapore. You know that's the regular 
 tour." 
 
 44 Oh, well . . . I've heard it; but that's non- 
 sense." 
 
 44 So many of us go on that tour. It's not a 
 
210 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 circular tour, Gerrit. It doesn't bring you back 
 ... to Paris." 
 
 " What a queer way you have of saying those 
 things ! " said Gerrit, laughing uncomfortably. 
 " You were always a strange girl. Tell me, your 
 father . . . was a waiter, wasn't he?" 
 
 " No, a gentleman. My mother was a laundress 
 ... in Brussels." 
 
 " And those twelve years of yours in Paris ..." 
 
 "Made me into a Parisian, you think? . . . 
 Gerrit, I longed for Holland! " 
 
 " I'll never believe that." 
 
 "Yes, Gerrit, I longed, for Holland." 
 
 " You're a great liar . . . with those eyes of 
 yours! I never believe a word you say." 
 
 " Gerrit . . . and for you ! " 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " I longed for you." 
 
 " Yes, of course. Tell that to the marines." 
 
 " I remembered the old days ..." 
 
 "Oh, drop it!" 
 
 " Don't you know, when ..." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know everything. Stow all that, 
 you and your recollections! You've taken me in 
 enough, as it is. Why don't you look out for a 
 young, rich chap? " 
 
 " You're not old, Gerrit." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not old!" 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 211 
 
 " No. I am. I've grown older, haven't I, 
 
 Gerrit?" 
 
 " Your eyes haven't." 
 
 11 But the rest of me?" 
 
 " Yes, of course. . . . You have grown older* 
 ii 
 
 44 Gerrit, I don't want to get old. ... I think 
 it terrible to get old. . . . Am I still pretty 
 and . . . ? " 
 
 44 Yes, yes, yes. ..." 
 
 44 But, very soon, I shall ..." 
 
 44 You'll what?" 
 
 " I shall be plain ... and old." 
 
 44 Oh, don't sit there bothering!" 
 
 44 I'm very fond of you, Gerrit. You're so . . ." 
 
 44 Yes, I know what you're going to say. I'm off 
 now. ..." 
 
 44 Must you go? . . .1 say, Gerrit, you have 
 children, haven't you? I expect they're charming 
 children." 
 
 He seemed to see mockery in the gleaming eyes. 
 
 4 You drop it about my children, will you ? " 
 
 44 Mayn't I ask after them?" 
 
 44 No." 
 
 44 I saw them out walking the other day." 
 
 44 Shut up!" 
 
 44 I thought them so charming." 
 
 He swore at her, roughly and hoarsely: 
 
212 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Shut up, blast it, can't you? " 
 
 " Very well. . . . Are you going? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He was outside the door. 
 
 " Are you cross with me ? " 
 
 " No, but this talkee-talkee bores me. That's not 
 what I come to you for. . . ." 
 
 " No, I know you don't. . . . But, still, you can't 
 mind my talking to you sometimes, Gerrit? ..." 
 
 " Very likely, but not such twaddle. And I won't 
 have you mention my children." 
 
 " I won't do it again. Good-bye, Gerrit." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 He looked round, in the passage, and nodded to 
 her. In the dim light of the room, he saw her 
 standing, framed in the half-open doorway; she 
 stood there, a handsome, slender, willowy figure, 
 in a shimmer of dull gold : the light, the yellow tea- 
 gown, the touches of gold lace round the very white 
 neck, the strange gold hair round the powdered 
 white face and, under the sharp line of the eye- 
 brows, the golden eyes, with a golden gleam. Her 
 voice, all the evening, had sounded very soft and 
 coaxing in his ears, as though crooning a plaintive 
 song, of youth, of memories, of the past, of longing 
 for her native country . . . and for him: all un- 
 natural and impossible things in her, things which 
 he only heard in her voice because of his confounded 
 sentimentality, a sentimentality which, however 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 213 
 
 deeply it might be hidden from everybody else, was 
 clearly perceptible to himself. . . . 
 
 And, outside, he thought: 
 
 u I must be careful with that girl. . . . She is 
 as dangerous as can be ... to me. . . ..;" 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 Well, if he treated it like that, he thought, he 
 could reduce the danger to a minimum. He had 
 allowed himself to be taken in; and the only 
 thing now was to disentangle himself, slowly, 
 gradually; and he would certainly succeed in 
 this, for none of them, not even Pauline, had 
 ever held him for long. Though she had got him 
 to come and see her, though he had gone back 
 once or twice, he had shown her that she 
 had no sort of power over him and that he 
 remained his own master. His voice roared hers 
 down, so that he did not even hear the coaxing, 
 brooding tones; his robust cynicism was more than a 
 match for his sentimental tendencies; and so her 
 only hold was on his recrudescent sensuality, glow- 
 ing with the memories that had been smouldering 
 in his blood. But that would run its course in time ; 
 and meanwhile, as he would never really recapture 
 those old sensations after twelve years, the charm, 
 the enchantment of it would wear off . . . and 
 pretty quickly too. . . . Yes, she had grown old. 
 She had not gone through her twelve years in Paris 
 with impunity. All that former freshness, as of a 
 fruit into which he used to bite, had vanished; he 
 
 214 % 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 215 
 
 could not endure the musty smell of the paint which 
 she smeared on her face: he once roughly rubbed 
 a towel over her cheeks till she had grown angry 
 and locked herself in; and he had to go away and 
 apologize next time. And he was struck above all 
 by her timidity in revealing her body, her artfulness 
 in retaining, even when in his arms, those laces 
 and fripperies which were supposed to create a filmy 
 haze all around her: a haze through which he was 
 well able to see that she was no longer the girl of 
 twelve years ago. . . . And, when he compared his 
 recollections of that time with what she gave him 
 now, he could not understand that he had allowed 
 himself to be caught like that by her eyes, which had 
 remained the same, though she now smeared black 
 stuff round them; he did not understand how he had 
 gone into the Woods with her; he did not under- 
 stand how he had yielded to her entreaties that he 
 should come to see her. . . . No, he would disen- 
 tangle himself from this woman, from this faded 
 courtesan, who was complicating his life, his life 
 as a respectable husband and father, especially 
 father. He would disentangle himself. It would 
 not be difficult, now that the present gave him back 
 so little of what had glowed in his memory. . . . 
 But, just because of that, because it would be so 
 easy, because the present was such dead ashes, a 
 heavy melancholy fell around him like a curtain of 
 twilight. . . . Great Lord, how rotten it was: that 
 
216 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 slow decay, that getting old, that dragging on of 
 the days and years! How rotten that you had to 
 pay for everything that life gave you, first with 
 your youth and then with your prime, as if your life 
 were a bank on which you drew bills of exchange, 
 as if your existence were a capital on which you lived, 
 without ever saving a farthing, so that, when you 
 died, you would have squandered every little bit of 
 it. Lord, how rotten! Not dying, which was no- 
 thing, after all; but just that slow decay, that con- 
 founded spending of your later years, for which 
 you got nothing in return; for you had had every- 
 thing already: your youth, your strength, your good 
 spirits; and, as the years dragged and dragged 
 along, you just jogged on towards the cheerless end; 
 and there was nothing to do but look on while every 
 day you spent one more day of your capital of later 
 days and got nothing in return, while nothing re- 
 mained but your memory of the youth which you 
 had also squandered. ... Lord, Lord, how dark 
 it all grew around you, when you thought of such 
 rotten things! . . . Oh, of course, there was one 
 streak of light: he knew it, he saw it, saw the 
 golden dawn, the dawn in his own house, the dawn 
 of his children: light still shone from them; their 
 circle was still moving within his circle, just for a 
 time, for so long as their shining sphere touched his 
 own sphere . . . until later it would circle away, 
 ever farther and farther, describing wider and wider 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 217 
 
 revolutions, even as every sphere rolls away, rolls 
 away from the centre ! . . . That was how it would 
 be . . . when he had grown old, very old. It was 
 not so yet: for the present, the bright-haired little 
 tribe was still in its golden dawn. . . . Yes, for 
 its sake too he would like to disentangle himself, to 
 disentangle himself. The thing that had never been 
 able to hold him, would it hold him in his old age? 
 . . . Well, there was no question of old age yet, 
 even though he was getting on for fifty. But still 
 it wasn't as it used to be : nothing was as it used to 
 be, no, not even Pauline . . . 
 
 No, not even Pauline. When he went to her now, 
 he took a malicious pleasure in telling her so, with 
 rough words, in making her feel it . . . both in 
 order to make himself appear rougher than he was 
 and because of the resentment which always kept 
 pricking him sharply. 
 
 u I say, you're not a bit like those old photo- 
 graphs of yours now ! " 
 
 It gave her a shock when he said this. Nothing 
 gave her such a blinding shock, as if the shock had 
 plunged her into darkness and made everything go 
 black and menacing as death. 
 
 She felt that it was cruel of him to throw it in 
 her face like this; and she couldn't understand it 
 in him. But, because her eyes were always laughing, 
 even now they laughed their golden laugh. . . . 
 
 44 Ah, you don't believe it ! . . . You just think 
 
2i 8 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 you're exactly as you were, the same young and 
 pretty girl. . . . Well, my beauty, you never made 
 a greater mistake in your life ! . . . But I see you 
 don't believe me, you grin when I tell you, you 
 think your charms are going to live for ever. 
 . . . Everything wears, child. . . . However, you 
 won't believe it: I can see your eyes mocking me 
 now. ..." 
 
 Indeed, her eyes were laughing and the smoulder- 
 ing spark of mockery seemed to leap into flame. 
 And, because he spoke like that, she laughed, a loud 
 laugh with a shrill note which annoyed him, in which 
 he heard mockery . . . because, after all, though 
 she no longer resembled her old photographs, she 
 had caught him badly. 
 
 " Just come here," he said, roughly. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Just come here." 
 
 She went up to him, trembling. 
 
 He took hold of her, a little more roughly than 
 he intended, took her between his knees, looked her 
 in the face: 
 
 " What do you make up for? " he asked. 
 
 11 1 don't make up." 
 
 " Oh, you don't, don't you? Do you think I can't 
 see it?" 
 
 " No, I don't make up." 
 
 "Then what's that?" 
 
 He pointed to her cheek. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 219 
 
 " That's only powder, which stays on because I 
 use a face-cream first." 
 
 44 Oh, really! And isn't that making up? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "And what's that?" 
 
 He pointed to her eyes. She shrugged her 
 shoulders : 
 
 II That's done with a pencil, just a touch. It's 
 nothing. That's not a make-up. Make-up ... is 
 something quite different." 
 
 " Oh, really! Well, I don't like all that messing. 
 What do you do it for?" 
 
 She looked at him in dismay; and again the 
 blinding shock bored an endless, dead-black per- 
 spective before her ... of death. But he saw 
 only the laugh of her golden eyes. 
 
 u What do you do it for? " he repeated. " You 
 usedn't to." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then why do it now?" 
 
 She made an effort, so as not to cry. She laughed, 
 shrilly; and it sounded like a jeer, as though she 
 were saying, jeeringly: 
 
 II I make up my face, but I've got you all the 
 same." 
 
 11 Give me a towel," he said, roughly. 
 M No," she said, struggling and releasing herself 
 from his grip. 
 
 M Give me a towel." 
 
220 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " No, Gerrit, I won't, do you hear? " 
 
 Her eyes just flashed an angry look of dark re- 
 proach. But they laughed and mocked immediately 
 afterwards. 
 
 He snatched a towel from the wash-hand-stand: 
 
 11 Come here," he said. 
 
 Her first impulse was a storm of seething rage, 
 a rage as on the last occasion, when she locked 
 herself in and he had to go away. . . . But there 
 was something so cruel and vindictive in his voice, 
 in his glance, in the abrupt movements of his great 
 body that she grew frightened and came: 
 
 " Gerrit," she implored, softly, timidly. 
 
 11 Come here. I don't like all that muck. ..." 
 
 He had wetted the towel. He now washed her 
 face; and he became a little gentler in his move- 
 ments, glance and voice . . . because she was 
 frightened and meek. He washed her face all over : 
 
 " There," he said. " Now at least you're na- 
 tural." 
 
 Something like hatred gripped at her heart, but 
 she could not yield to it: her nerves had become too 
 slack for hatred. Besides, she had always, always 
 been very fond of him, just because he was such 
 a strange mixture of roughness and gentleness. She 
 remained standing anxiously in front of him, with 
 her hands in his. 
 
 Like that, like that, at any rate, she no longer 
 looked like the picture on a chocolate-box. He was 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 221 
 
 safe now against his sentimentality. But, Lord, how 
 old she looked! Her skin was wrinkled, covered 
 with freckles and blotches. Was it possible that a 
 drop of wet stuff out of a bottle and a touch of 
 powder could cover all that? And the golden eyes 
 of mockery, how ghastly they looked, without the 
 shadows about the brows and lashes ! . . . And yet 
 she kept on mocking him. . . . But then, suddenly, 
 he felt pity, was sick at having been rough, at pre- 
 tending to be rougher than he was. He was always 
 like that, always made that pretence, putting on 
 a blustering voice, squaring his broad shoulders, 
 banging his fist on the table . . . for no reason, 
 save to be rough . . . and not sentimental. And, 
 seeking for something to say to her, he said, in a 
 voice which she at once recognized, a voice of pity, 
 the gentleness now tempering the roughness, that 
 mixture which she had always loved in him: 
 
 44 Really, Pauline, you look much prettier like 
 this. . i « 
 
 But she saw the dark vista opening out before her, 
 black as night. 
 
 44 You're much prettier now. You look a fresh 
 and pretty woman." 
 
 Her eyes were laughing. 
 
 44 You haven't the least need to smear all that 
 stuff on your face." 
 
 Her lips were laughing now. 
 
 44 Come and give me a kiss. . . . Come. . . ." 
 
222 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 He caught her in his arms. He felt her flesh, 
 soft and flabby, as though he were grasping wadding 
 or lace, not as though he were grasping the woman 
 whom he remembered in his glowing memories, a 
 woman of warm marble. 
 
 She roused herself, in her desire. She strained 
 her muscles, embraced him with force, with all the 
 science of passion which she had acquired during the 
 years. They embraced each other wholly; and their 
 embrace was full of despair for both of them, as 
 though they were both plunging with their intense 
 happiness into a black abyss, instead of soaring to 
 the stars. . . . 
 
 She now lay against him like a corpse. Never 
 had he felt so full of heavy melancholy in his heavy, 
 heavy soul. Never had his whole, whole life passed 
 before him like that, suddenly, in a flash: his boy- 
 hood, Buitenzorg, the river, Constance; his young 
 years as a subaltern, his reckless period, the period 
 of inexhaustible, gay, brutal, young life; and, after 
 that very youthful period, still many long years of 
 youth, with Pauline herself still young, warm 
 marble; and then the sobering down, his marriage 
 and oh, the golden dawn of his children ! ... He 
 was not old, he was not old, but everything had 
 arrived. . . . Nothing, nothing more would come 
 but the dragging past of the monotonous years; 
 and, with each year, the bright circles would shift 
 farther and farther apart and the gloom would 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 223 
 
 deepen around him. . . . Never had he felt so full 
 of heavy melancholy in his heavy, heavy soul. 
 
 She, against him, lay like a corpse. He felt her 
 like a bundle of down, of lace, soft and flabby as 
 a pillow, still in his arms. He would have liked to 
 fling her away from him, weary, sick of that tepid 
 flabbiness. But he kept her in his arms, made her 
 lie against him, suffered the tepid heap of lace and 
 down on his chest. Her eyelids hung closed, as 
 though she would never raise them again. Her 
 mouth hung down, as though she would never laugh 
 again. And yet he continued to hold her like that. 
 It was not because of his sentimentality, for she 
 was anything but a chocolate-box picture now, and 
 it was not out of a sudden recrudescence of rough 
 sensuality that he now held that flabby bundle in 
 his arms : no, it was from a real, genuine, but heavy 
 and melancholy feeling, a feeling of pity. He had 
 been able to wash the make-up from her face with 
 a towel, but he couldn't fling her from him now, 
 before she herself should raise herself from his 
 arms. And she remained lying, like a corpse. God, 
 what a time it lasted ! . . . Still, he couldn't do it : 
 he continued to suffer her there, on his heart. He 
 looked down at her askance, without moving; 
 and his eyes grew moist. . . . Those confounded 
 eyes of his, which grew moist! He couldn't help it: 
 they just grew moist. He screwed them up, wiped 
 them with his free hand, before Pauline could see 
 
224 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 them moist. And he remained like that, so long, so 
 long! ... At last he gave a deep sigh and she 
 drew breath; he could not go on: not because of her 
 weight, but because of her softness, that soft flabbi- 
 ness, that stuffiness, that crumpled lace against him. 
 His chest rose high; and she awoke from her 
 lethargy. She lifted her heavy eyelids, she pinched 
 her lips into a smile. It was a smile of utter de- 
 spair. . . . 
 
 She released herself from his arms, stood up; 
 and he made ready to go. 
 
 11 Gerrit," she said, faintly. 
 
 "What is it, child ?" 
 
 " Gerrit," she repeated, " you don't know how 
 glad I am that I . . . that I met you again . . . 
 here . . . that we have seen each other again. ... I 
 used to think of you so often ... in Paris . . . 
 because I was always ... a little fond of you 
 . . . because you are so gentle and rough in one. 
 . . . That's how you are . . . and that was why 
 I was fond of you. . . . Oh, it was so nice to see 
 you again . . . after so many, many years . . . 
 those dirty, dirty years! ... It has made me so 
 happy, so happy! . . . Thank you, Gerrit . . . 
 for everything. But I wanted to say . . ." 
 
 "What, child?" 
 
 11 You had better not come back again. . . . 
 You know, you had bettter not come back. . . . We 
 have seen each other again now: not often, perhaps 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 225 
 
 ten or twelve times, I can't remember. ... It was 
 such heavenly, such heavenly happiness . . . that I 
 forgot to count the number of times. . . . But you 
 had better not come back any more. . . ..." 
 
 44 And why not, child? Are you angry ... be- 
 cause I washed your face with that towel?" 
 
 41 No, Gerrit, it's not that, I'm not angry about 
 that. . . . I'm not angry at all. ..." 
 
 Indeed, her eyes were laughing. Then she re- 
 peated: 
 
 44 But still . . . you had better not come back." 
 
 44 I see. So you've had enough of me? " 
 
 She gave a shrill laugh: 
 
 44 Yes," she said. 
 
 11 Oh ! And have you found a young, rich chap, 
 as I advised you? " 
 
 Her laugh sounded still shriller and her golden 
 eyes were full of mockery. 
 
 44 Yes," she said. 
 
 Under his heavy melancholy, he was angry and 
 jealous: 
 
 44 So you don't want me any more? " 
 
 44 Want you? ... I shall certainly want you, 
 but . . . " 
 
 44 But what?" 
 
 44 It's better for every reason, better not. You 
 mustn't came back, Gerrit." 
 
 44 Very well." 
 
 44 And don't be angry, Gerrit." 
 
226 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " I'm not angry. So this evening was the last 
 time?" 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 They both looked at each other and both read 
 in each other's eyes the memory of their last em- 
 brace: the stimulus of despair. 
 
 " Very well," he repeated, more gently. 
 
 " Good-bye, Gerrit." 
 
 " Good-bye, child." 
 
 She kissed him and he her. He was ready to go. 
 Suddenly he remembered that he had never given 
 her anything except on that first evening in the 
 Woods, a ten-guilder piece and two rixdollars: 
 
 " Pauline," he said, " I should like to give you 
 something. I should like to send you something. 
 What may I give you?" 
 
 11 1 don't mind having something . . . but then 
 you mustn't refuse it me. ..." 
 
 " Unless it's impossible. ..." 
 
 " If it's not possible . . . then I won't have any- 
 thing." 
 
 "What is it you'd like?" 
 
 " You're sure to have a photograph ... a group 
 ... of your children. ..." 
 
 " Do you want that?" he asked, in surprise. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I don't know; I'd like it." 
 
 "A photograph of my children?" 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 227 
 
 " Yes. If you haven't one . . . or if you can't 
 give it me . . . then I don't want anything, Gerrit. 
 And thank you, Gerrit." 
 
 14 I'll see," he said, dully. 
 
 He kissed her once more: 
 
 44 So good-bye, Pauline." 
 
 44 Good-bye, Gerrit." 
 
 She kissed him hurriedly, almost drove him out 
 of the room. It was ten o'clock in the evening. 
 
 Gerrit, in the street outside, heaved a great sigh 
 of relief. Yes, this was all right: he was rid of 
 her now. It had not lasted very long; and the best 
 part of it was that none of his brother-officers, of 
 his friends or of his family had for a moment sus- 
 pected that connection, for a moment noticed that 
 the past, his memories, his youth had loomed up be- 
 fore him, haunting him and mocking him in Pauline, 
 in her body, in her golden eyes. It had remained a 
 secret; and what might have been a great annoyance 
 in his life as husband and father had been no more 
 than a momentary and unsuspected effort to force 
 back what was long over and done with. It was 
 now over and done with for ever. Oh, it was the 
 first time and the last: never again would he allow 
 himself to be entrapped by the haunting recollections 
 of former years! . . . But how sad it was to reflect 
 that all that past was really over and done with 
 . . . and that everything had been ! 
 
 During the days and weeks that followed, he went 
 
228 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 about with heavy, heavy melancholy in his heavy 
 soul. Nobody noticed anything in him: at the bar- 
 racks he blustered as usual; at home he romped 
 with the children; he went with Adeline to take tea 
 at Constance' and laughed at the tirades of Paul, 
 who was daily becoming more and more of an 
 elderly gentleman. Nobody noticed anything in 
 him; and he himself thought it very strange that 
 the eyes of the world never penetrated to the shud- 
 dering soul deep down within him, as though sicken- 
 ing in his great body, with its sham strength. Sick: 
 was his soul sick? No, perhaps not: it was only 
 shrinking into itself under the heavy, heavy melan- 
 choly. Sham strength: was his body weak? No, 
 not his muscles . . . but the worm was crawling 
 about in his spine, the centipede was eating up his 
 marrow. . . . And nobody in the wide world saw 
 anything — of the centipede, of the worm, of all the 
 horror of his life — even as nobody had seen any- 
 thing of what had come about during the last few 
 weeks between himself and his past: the last flare 
 up of youth, Pauline. . . . Nobody saw anything. 
 Life itself seemed blind. It jogged on in the old, 
 plodding way. There were the barracks, always 
 the same: the horses, the men, his brother-officers. 
 There were his mother, his brothers and sisters. 
 There were his wife and his children. ... He saw 
 himself reflected in the blind eyes of plodding life 
 as a rough, kindly fellow, a good officer, a big, 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 229 
 
 fair-haired man, just a little grey, a good sort to 
 his wife, a good father to his children. . . . Lord, 
 how good he was, reflected in the blind eyes of 
 plodding life! . . . But there was nothing good 
 about him and he was quite different from what he 
 seemed. He had always been different from what 
 he seemed. Oh, idiot people 1 Oh, blind, idiot life ! 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 It was a steadily grey and rainy winter. A winter 
 without frost, but with endless, endless rains, with 
 a firmament of everlasting clouds hanging over the 
 small, murky town, over the flooded streets, through 
 which the gloomy people hurried under the little 
 roofs of their umbrellas, clouds so preternaturally 
 big and heavy that everything seemed to cower 
 beneath their menace, as though the end of the 
 world were slowly approaching. Black-grey were 
 those everlasting clouds; and it seemed as if they 
 cast the shadow of their menace from the first hour 
 of the day; and so short were the days that it was 
 as though it were eternal night and as though the 
 sun had lost itself very far away, circled from the 
 small human world, circled very far behind the im- 
 measurable world of the clouds and the endless 
 firmaments. And, lashing, ever lashing, the whips 
 of the rain beat down, wielded by the angry winds. 
 Gloom and menace hung over the shuddering town 
 and over the shuddering souls of the people. There 
 were but few days of light around them. 
 
 The old grandmother sat gloomily at her window, 
 nodding her head understandingly but reproachfully, 
 because old age had not come in the nice and 
 
 230 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 231 
 
 peaceful way which she had always, peacefully, 
 hoped. The shadows of old age had gathered 
 around her like a dark, dreary twilight, were al- 
 ready gathering closer and closer because she saw 
 that, however hard she had tried, she had not been 
 able to keep around her all that she loved. Was 
 the supreme sorrow not coming nearer? . . . Just 
 as the shadows were gathering around her, so they 
 had already gathered around Bertha, over at Baarn, 
 far away, too far for her, an old woman, to reach 
 her; and, in a sudden flash of clairvoyance, she 
 saw — though no one had ever told her — Bertha 
 sitting at a window, listlessly, with her hands in 
 her lap, saw her sitting and staring, even as she 
 herself stared and sat. In a flash of clairvoyance 
 she saw Karel and Cateau and Adolphine's little 
 tribe far, far away from her, even though they lived 
 in the same town and came regularly on Sunday 
 evenings. Far away from her she saw Paul and 
 Dorine. Very far away from her she saw her poor 
 Ernst, whom she knew to be mad; and her old head 
 nodded in understanding but yet in protest against 
 the cruelty of life, which brought old age to her in 
 such a sad guise and made it gather so darkly and 
 menacingly around her loneliness. . . . Yes, there 
 was Constance, there was Gerrit: she felt these two 
 to be closest to her; but, though they were closer, 
 it grew black around her, black under the black 
 skies, with the glimpses of light, the flashes of 
 
232 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 clairvoyance, in the midst of them. . . . She saw — 
 though no one had told her — a pale, thin girl, Mari- 
 anne, pining away by Bertha's side. . . .. She saw — ' 
 though no one knew it — Emilie and Henri toiling 
 in Paris, struggling with life, which came towards 
 them hideous and horrible, bringing with it poverty, 
 which they had never known. She saw it so clearly 
 that she almost felt like speaking of it. . . . But, 
 because they would not have believed her, she re- 
 mained silent, enduring all that gloomy life even as 
 the town endured the black skies and the lashing of 
 the rain. . . . 
 
 And yonder, far away, too far for her, she saw 
 a woman, old like herself, dying. She saw her 
 dying and by her bedside she saw Constance and she 
 saw Addie. She saw it so clearly, between her eyes 
 and the rain-streaks, as though flung upon the screen 
 of the rain, that she felt like speaking of it, like 
 crying it out. . . . But, because they would not have 
 believed her, she remained silent, enduring all that 
 gloomy life even as the town endured the black 
 skies. 
 
 Then things grew dull around her and she saw 
 nothing more; and the nodding head fell asleep 
 upon her breast; and she sat sleeping, a black, silent 
 figure, while the rain tapped as though with fingers 
 — which would not tap her awake — at the panes 
 of the conservatory-window at which she used to 
 sit. . . .- 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 233 
 
 For hours she would sit thus alone in the shadow 
 of her day and the shadow of her soul; and, when 
 any of her children or friends called, they would 
 find her in low spirits. 
 
 44 Mamma, don't you feel lonely like this?" 
 Adolphine asked, one afternoon. " We should all 
 like to see you take a companion." 
 
 The old woman shook her head irritably: 
 
 "A companion? What for? Certainly not." 
 
 44 Or have Dorine to live with you." 
 
 44 Dorine? Living with me? No, no, I won't 
 have her in the house with me. Why should 
 I?" 
 
 44 You're so lonely; and, though you've had the 
 servants a long time, somebody ... to sit with 
 you, you know ..." 
 
 44 Somebody sitting with me all day long? No, 
 no. . . ." 
 
 44 We should like to see it, Mamma." 
 
 44 Well, you won't see it." 
 
 And the old woman remained obstinate. 
 
 Another afternoon, Adeline said: 
 
 44 Mamma dear, Constance asked me to tell you 
 that she won't be able to see you for a day or 
 two." 
 
 44 And why not? What's the matter with Con- 
 stance?" 
 
 44 Nothing, Mamma dear, but she's been sent for 
 to Driebergen. ..." 
 
234 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 "To Driebergen? ..." 
 
 " Yes, dear. Old Mrs. van der Welcke hasn't 
 been quite so well lately. . . ." 
 
 "Is she dead?" 
 
 " No, no, Mamma. . . . She's only a little un- 
 well. ..." 
 
 The old woman nodded her head comprehend- 
 ingly. She had already seen Constance standing 
 yonder by the dying woman's sickbed, but she did 
 not say so . . . because Adeline would have re- 
 fused to believe it. . . . 
 
 Another afternoon, Cateau said: 
 
 " Mam-ma . . . it's ve-ry sad, but old Mrs. Frie- 
 se-steijn. ..." 
 
 " Oh, I haven't seen her ... for ever so long; 
 and. ..." 
 
 " Yes. And it's ve-ry sad, Mam-ma, because she 
 was a friend of yours. And, Mam-ma, peo-ple are 
 saying that she's ill and that she won't last very 
 long." 
 
 The old woman nodded knowingly : 
 
 " Yes, I knew about it," she said. 
 
 "Oh?" said Cateau, round-eyed. "Has some- 
 body told you? ..." 
 
 "No, but ..." 
 
 The old lady had seen her, had seen her old 
 friend dying; and she nearly committed herself, 
 nearly betrayed herself to Cateau. 
 
 "What?" asked Cateau. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 235 
 
 " I suspected it," said the old lady. " When you 
 are old, old people die round you. . . . " 
 
 u Mam-ma, we should ve-ry much like . . ." 
 
 44 What?" 
 
 44 Adolph-ine would like it . . . and so would 
 Ka-rel." 
 
 44 What?" 
 
 "If you would take a compan-ion to live with 
 you." 
 
 44 No, no, I don't want a companion." 
 
 44 Or Do-rine. She's ve-ry nice too. ..." 
 
 44 No, no. Not Dorine either." 
 
 And the old woman remained obstinate. . . . 
 The old people were dying around her; she was 
 constantly hearing of contemporaries who had gone 
 before her. Her old family-doctor was dead, the 
 man who had brought all her children into the 
 world, in Java; now an old friend was gone; the 
 next to go would be Henri's old mother, who had 
 been unkind to Constance and none the less had 
 sent for Constance to come to her. . . . Who else 
 was gone? She couldn't remember them all: her 
 brain was sometimes very hazy; and then she forgot 
 names and people, just as the old sisters always 
 forgot and muddled things. She did not want to 
 muddle things; but she could not help forgetting. 
 
 44 So I sha'n't see Constance for quite a long 
 time?" she said to Cateau. 
 
 44 Con-stance?" 
 
236 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Yes, you said she was going to Driebergen." 
 " No, Mam-ma, I never men-tioned Con-stance." 
 The old woman nodded her understanding nod. 
 Nevertheless she no longer remembered who it was 
 that had told her about Constance; but she pre- 
 ferred not to ask. . . . 
 
 And she thought it over, for hours. . . «• 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 An icy shudder swept over Constance when she 
 arrived at Driebergen and saw the carriage waiting 
 outside the station, with the coachman and the 
 footman : 
 
 44 How is mevrouw?" she asked, as she stepped 
 in. 
 
 But she hardly heard the answer, although she 
 grasped it. She shuddered, icy cold. She shivered 
 in her fur cloak. It had rained steadily for days 
 upon the dreary, wintry trees, out of a sky that 
 hung low but tremendously wide and heavy, as op- 
 pressive as a pitiless darkness. Drearily the wintry 
 roads shot forward as the carriage rattled along 
 them. Drearily, in their bare gardens, the houses 
 rose, very sadly, because they were deserted summer 
 dwellings, in the ice-cold winter rain. 
 
 The day was almost black. It was three o'clock, 
 but it was night; and the rain, grey over the road 
 and grey over the houses and gardens, was black 
 over the misty landscapes which could be dimly 
 descried through the bare gardens. The dreary 
 trees looked dead and lived only in the despairing 
 gestures of their branches when a wind, howling up 
 
 237 
 
238 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 from the distance, blew through them and moved 
 them. 
 
 The carriage turned into the bare front-garden, 
 round the beds with the straw-shrouded rose-bushes. 
 Constance had driven in like this only a few times 
 before, with the careful coachman always describing 
 the same accurate curve round the flower-beds: the 
 first time, when she came back from Brussels, and 
 two or three times since, after the old woman had 
 been to the Hague, on one of Henri's birthdays. 
 And suddenly a strange presentiment flashed 
 through the black day right into her, a presentiment 
 that she was destined very often, so many times that 
 she could not count them, to drive with that curve 
 round those beds. . . . 
 
 She stepped out of the carriage; and the strange 
 presentiment flashed into her that she would often, 
 very often, stand like that, waiting for that solemn 
 front-door of the great gloomy, solemn villa to 
 open to her. . . . Then she walked in; and the 
 long oak entrance-hall stretched before her like a 
 strange indoor vista, with at the end a dark door 
 that led to . . . she did not quite know what. . . . 
 And she felt that she would often, very often, go 
 through that hall and stare at that dark door, 
 knowing full well what it led to. . . . And it was 
 very strange indeed now, but she imagined that she 
 had, unconsciously, had this presentiment before — 
 really unconsciously, so vaguely that she had not 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 239 
 
 felt it yet — from the first time that she had come 
 and waited in this hall, sitting on the oak settle, with 
 her hand on the shoulder of her boy, the grand- 
 child whom she had come to introduce to his grand- 
 parents. . . . Oh, what a gloomy house it was, 
 with that long hall and that dark door at the end 
 of it, with those portraits and those old engravings, 
 only brightened by the gleam of the Delft on the 
 old oak cabinet! Oh, what a gloomy house it was 
 and how strange was the presentiment that she 
 would so often be coming here now, that she would 
 have to mingle some part of herself with this 
 gloomy Dutch domestic atmosphere! . . . Shud- 
 dering, shivering, still in her fur cloak, she was 
 thrilled with a very swift and fleeting home-sickness 
 for her dear, cosy house in the Woods, at the 
 Hague, and she did not know when she would go 
 back to it now. . . . The old woman was ill; 
 Henri had gone first; Addie had followed him. 
 . . . Then she had asked for Constance; and 
 Constance had taken the first train. . . . 
 
 She had asked Piet in the hall how mevrouw was, 
 but she had not taken in his answer either. She 
 now went up the stairs, which wound in their ascent 
 and were quite dark; and, because the strange 
 presentiment also forced itself upon her on the 
 stairs, she resisted it, put it from her. How strange 
 everything seemed around her and within her! Was 
 that the approach of death, skulking along with the 
 
2 4 o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 wind, as it were tapping at the windows on the 
 staircase and knocking in the heavy oak presses in 
 the hall? Was that the approach of death, of the 
 death which she already felt around her? Or was 
 it only because the day was black and the house 
 gloomy? . . . 
 
 And now everything seemed to make her shudder. 
 A dark door had opened, slowly; and she started; 
 and yet it was simply her child, her boy, coming 
 out to meet her. 
 
 " How is Grandmamma? " 
 
 But again she did not take in the answer; and, 
 as though in a shuddering dream in which she 
 already felt the approach of death, she entered a 
 room. There sat the old man ; and Henri sat beside 
 him, like a child, with his hand in his father's large, 
 bony hand. She herself did not hear what she said 
 ... to the old man. She was only conscious that 
 her voice sounded soft and sweet, as with a new 
 music, in the gloomy house. She was only conscious 
 that she kissed the old man. But she felt herself 
 growing strange, frightened and shuddering, in the 
 dark room, in the gloomy house, with the vast, low, 
 heavy skies outside. The black rain rattled against 
 the panes. The old man had taken her hand, 
 awkwardly; he held only two of her fingers; and 
 they trembled, pinched in his bony grip. He led 
 her in this way to another room, dark with the 
 curtains of the window and the bed, lighted only 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 241 
 
 by the reflected gleam of an old-fashioned looking- 
 glass wardrobe. The black rain rattled against the 
 panes. Oh, how she felt the approach of dread 
 death, that great, black death before which small 
 people shudder, even though they do not value their 
 small lives! How she felt it rustling in the rain 
 against the window, how she felt the ghostly 
 flapping of its cloak in the shadows among the heavy 
 furniture, how she felt death reflected in the reflex 
 light of that looking-glass ! She shivered, in her fur 
 cloak. But in the shadow of the bed-curtains two 
 eyes smiled at her gently from out of the suffering 
 old face. . . . The old man had gone. 
 
 "Here I am, Mamma. .. . ." 
 
 u Is that you?" 
 
 44 Yes." 
 
 44 1 had to send for you. ..." 
 
 44 1 thought it would be too much for you. . . -. 
 That's why I let Henri and Addie come without 
 me. . . . 
 
 44 Are we alone?" 
 
 44 Yes, Mamma." 
 
 44 Tell me, you didn't stay away . . . because 
 you were angry . . . because you still bore a 
 grudge? ..." 
 
 44 Oh, no ! I was not angry. I thought it would 
 be too much for you." 
 
 44 Is that true?" 
 
 44 Quite true." 
 
242 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 "The simple truth ?" 
 
 " The simple truth." 
 
 " Yes, I can tell : you're not angry. But you 
 were angry. . . ." 
 
 " Hush, Mamma, hush! " 
 
 " No, no, let me speak. I sent for you to speak 
 to you. . . . There was a time when you were 
 angry. And we could not talk together. Let us talk 
 now, for the first and last time." 
 
 "Mamma ..." 
 
 " There were those long, long years, dear. The 
 years which are now all dead. . . . There was 
 your suffering . . . but there was also our suffer- 
 ing, Father's . . . and mine." 
 
 "Yes. ..." 
 
 " It was a day like to-day, gloomy and black; 
 and it was raining. I was restless, I had such a 
 strange presentiment: I had a presentiment . . . 
 that Henri was dead, my child, my boy, in Rome. 
 It was a gloomy day . . . seventeen or eighteen 
 years ago. And in the afternoon, about this time — 
 it was quite dark, the lights were not yet lit — a letter 
 came : a letter from Rome . . . from Henri. . . . 
 I trembled ... I could not find the matches, to 
 light the gas . . . and, when I looked for them, 
 the letter dropped from my hands. ... I thought, 
 * He's writing to me that he is very ill. I shall hear 
 presently that he's dead.' I lit the gas . . . and 
 read the letter. I read not that he was ill . . . 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 243 
 
 but that he had to resign his post. He wrote to 
 me about a woman whom I did not know, he wrote 
 to me about you, dear. I breathed again, I thought 
 to myself, * He is not dead, I have not lost my son.' 
 But Father thought differently: he said, 'Henri is 
 dead, we have lost our son.' Then I knew that my 
 presentiment was right, that he was dead. . . . He 
 was dead . . . and he stayed dead for years and 
 years. . . . Oh, how I longed for him to come to 
 life again! Oh, how I kept on thinking of my 
 child! . . . But year followed upon year; and he 
 remained dead. . . . Then by degrees I began to 
 feel that it would not always be like that, that 
 things would be a little brighter one day, that he 
 would come back out of that distant death. . . . 
 He came back; I had my boy back. ... I saw 
 you . . . for the first time. Long dead years lay 
 between us; and, when I wished to embrace you, I 
 felt that I could not, that I did not reach you. My 
 words did not reach you. They remained lying be- 
 tween us, they fell between us like hard, round 
 things. ... I knew then that you had suffered 
 much and also that for long, long years you had 
 been full of grief and resentment . . . grief and 
 resentment. . . . You brought us your child: you 
 brought him grudgingly. . . . Hush, don't cry, 
 don't cry: it couldn't be helped. There was bound 
 to be that feeling, that grudge, inside you . . . oh, 
 I knew how it rankled! People are always like 
 
244 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 that: they never understand each other as long as 
 there is no love; and, when there is no love and no 
 understanding, there is bitterness . . . oh, and 
 often hatred! . . . No, it was not hatred yet, it 
 was bitterness: I knew it. Don't cry: the bitterness 
 couldn't be helped. We did not reach each other 
 across that bitterness. . . . Also you were young 
 still, dear, and it was / who had to go to you on 
 Henri's birthday . . . and yet I do not believe 
 that there was any wrong on my side. Tell me, 
 was there any wrong on my side ? Was it not your 
 bitter, implacable youth that refused the reconcilia- 
 tion? . . . Hush, don't cry: reconciliation always 
 comes, sooner or later; sooner or later, all bitter- 
 ness melts away ... if not here . . . then there. 
 . . . But with you and me, dear, it is here. With 
 you and me it is here. I am certain that you gradu- 
 ally felt the bitter grudge melting away in you, 
 because you learnt to understand . . . learnt to 
 understand that old people have different ideas from 
 young people; you learnt to understand their ideas, 
 the ideas of the older people, folk before your time, 
 old-fashioned folk, my dear. You learnt to under- 
 stand them; and your soul became more gently dis- 
 posed towards them . . . and you said to yourself, 
 1 I understand them: they could not be any different.' 
 You can even understand, can't you, dear, that the 
 old man has not yet, has not even now forgiven and 
 forgotten as completely as I forgave and forgot, 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 245 
 
 long, long ago? I am right about that, am I not? 
 You must even learn to understand . . . that he 
 will never forgive and forget — hush, child, don't 
 cry! — you must learn to understand that; you do 
 understand it. . . . We must understand that to- 
 gether, however much we may regret it, but we will 
 not tell anybody and we will both of us forgive 
 him, dear, for now and for the time to come; for, 
 if he can't do otherwise, then he is not to blame. 
 . . . And, once we are there . . . when we meet 
 again ... oh, what will all the old bitterness and 
 all the old suffering amount to? Nothing! There, 
 all the old bitterness and the old suffering are lost 
 in love. Then Father too will no longer be bitter. 
 . . . That's why I sent for you, you see: to tell 
 you all this; because of the words which I could 
 not keep in, because I longed to say to you, ' My 
 dear child, you have suffered . . . but we have 
 suffered too! My dear child, I ... I want to 
 forgive you, now, with my last kiss. But let my 
 forgiveness count as two; and do you, my dear 
 child — it is my last request — forgive the old man 
 also . . . now and always . . . always. . . ." 
 The room was quite dark. The rain clattered in 
 the darkness against the window. Constance had 
 dropped to her knees beside the bed; she was 
 sobbing quietly, her tears falling upon the old 
 woman's hand. And there was a long silence, inter- 
 rupted by nothing but the clatter of the rain and the 
 
246 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 soft, heaving sobs. The dark room was full of 
 the past, full of all the things which the old woman's 
 words had brought to life out of the dead years. 
 But through that past the dying woman saw the 
 morrow breaking, as in a radiant dawn. She saw 
 it breaking in radiance and she said : 
 
 " Tell me that you forgive him . . . now . . . 
 and always . . . always." 
 
 " Yes, yes, Mamma . . . now . . . now and 
 always." 
 
 " For he will never forgive, he will never for- 
 give." 
 
 " No, no . . . but I forgive him, I forgive 
 him." 
 
 " Even if he never forgives? " 
 
 " Yes, yes . . . even if he never forgives ! " 
 
 " For he will never forgive, he will never for- 
 give." 
 
 "No . . . but I forgive him ..." 
 
 "And I, dear ..." 
 
 " You forgive me . . . you forgive me ! " 
 
 " Yes, I forgive you . . . everything. From 
 first to last. Your bitterness . . ." 
 
 "Oh, I have long ceased to be bitter!" 
 
 " Yes, I know that you had learnt to understand. 
 . . . We could have become very fond of each 
 other, if . . ." 
 
 "Yes, if . . ." 
 
 " But it was not to be. Let us become fond of 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 247 
 
 each other now. Love me, Constance, in your 
 memory . . ." 
 
 "Yes . . ." 
 
 "Just as I shall continue to love you. There 1 
 Just because we suffered through each other in this 
 life, we shall now love each other." 
 
 "Yes, oh, yes!" 
 
 " Kiss me, my dear. And . . . and forgive the 
 old man." 
 
 "Yes . . ." 
 
 "Even if he . , ." 
 
 "Yes, oh yes! . . ." 
 
 " Never forgives. For he will never, he will 
 never forgive ! " 
 
 "I forgive him, I forgive him!" 
 
 "Then all is well. Let him come in now: him 
 . . . and my child, my son, Henri . . . and him 
 ... the child . . . our child. ..." 
 
 Constance rose from her knees; she stumbled, 
 sobbing, across the dark room. She groped for the 
 door, opened it: the light of the lamps streamed in. 
 
 44 Mamma is asking for you," she stammered 
 through her tears. " For you . . . and Henri 
 . . . and Addie. ..." 
 
 Death entered the room with them. .. ,. . 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Constance and Henri returned to the Hague a 
 week after Mrs. van der Welcke's funeral. Con- 
 stance went straight to her mother. 
 
 " Oh, you mustn't leave me alone again so long! " 
 Mrs. van Lowe complained. " I can't do without 
 you for so long. It's so dark, so gloomy when 
 you're not here, my Connie ! . . . Yes, yes, they 
 all came to see me regularly. But they are not like 
 you, dear. It seems they no longer understand me. 
 And, when they're gone, I sit here feeling so lonely, 
 so lonely! . . . They're now all bothering me, 
 wanting me to take a companion, or to have Dorine 
 to live with me . . . but I worit have any one 
 here. It's such a trouble. An extra person in the 
 house means such a lot of trouble. I can't see to 
 everything as I used to. I just sit here at my 
 window. ... So the old lady, down there, is 
 dead? People are dying every day. I can't under- 
 stand why I need remain. I am no use to anybody 
 now. I just sit here, giving all of you trouble: 
 you all worry about me . . . you all have to come 
 regularly to see how I am. I can't understand why 
 I need go on living. It would be much better if I 
 
 248 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 249 
 
 just died. . . . There is nothing more to come for 
 me. I've no illusions left. Not one. Even your 
 boy, Connie: what an idea, to want to be a doctor! 
 How do we know if he's suited for it? . . . It's 
 a good thing that you're back. I couldn't do without 
 you. ... Is the old man over there going to re- 
 main all alone, in that big house . . . just as I 
 remained all alone here?" 
 
 44 No, Mamma, he won't be alone. There's a 
 cousin coming to live with him: you know, old 
 Freule ' van der Welcke. ..." 
 
 M No, I don't remember. I often muddle people 
 and names." 
 
 44 Cousin Betsy van der Welcke. ..." 
 
 44 No, I don't remember. ..." 
 
 11 She's coming to live with the old man. We 
 would have liked him to have had a companion to 
 keep house for him . . . because Cousin Betsy her- 
 self is so old." 
 
 44 A companion, a companion : you want every- 
 body to have a companion. So the old man will 
 be all alone. ..." 
 
 44 No, Mamma, the old cousin's coming." 
 
 44 Which old cousin?" 
 
 44 Cousin Betsy van der Welcke." 
 
 44 Who?" 
 
 44 Cousin Betsy, Mamma." 
 
 1 The title borne by the unmarried daughters of the Dutch 
 noblemen. 
 
250 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Oh, yes, Cousin Betsy . . . and a com- 
 panion? ..." 
 
 "No, not a companion. ..." 
 
 " Well, then he'll be well looked after . . . with 
 Cousin Betsy and a companion. Better than I. I'm 
 here all by myself." 
 
 " But that's not right. You must have some one 
 with you." 
 
 " No companions for me, thank you ! " 
 
 "Or Dorine ..." 
 
 " So you're beginning with Dorine too ! No, I 
 won't have Dorine. She's too fidgety and restless 
 for me." , 
 
 " But she's out so much." 
 
 " No, she's fidgety and restless. . . . It's not 
 nice of me to say so, dear, but really Dorine is too 
 fidgety and restless, child. . . . Oh, child, if you 
 yourself could come and live with me ! " 
 
 " But, Mamma, that would never do." 
 
 " Yes, with your husband . . . and your 
 boy. ..." 
 
 " No, Mamma, it really wouldn't do." 
 
 " Yes, it would, yes, it would . . . with your 
 husband and your boy. . . . Then I would put up 
 with the extra trouble." 
 
 11 No, Mamma, really, it wouldn't do. Whereas 
 Dorine ..." 
 
 " No, no, I don't want Dorine. I want you." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 251 
 
 11 1 want you. I want Addie. I want youth 
 around me. It's all so gloomy here. Dorine . . . 
 Dorine's gloomy too. ... So will you come?" 
 
 M Mamma . . . really ..." 
 
 44 You don't want to. I see you don't want to. 
 . . . You are all of you selfish. . . . Children 
 always are. . . . Oh, why need I go on living?" 
 
 44 Dear Mamma, do be reasonable. You say you 
 would find Dorine too much trouble . . . and, 
 after all, there are three of us. ..." 
 
 u Yes, three of you. Well?" 
 
 "And the rest of the family?" 
 
 "What about them?" 
 
 11 They wouldn't approve." 
 
 11 It's none of their business to approve or dis- 
 approve." 
 
 44 And my husband ..." 
 
 44 Well?" 
 
 44 My husband ... no, really, it wouldn't do." 
 
 44 Yes, I see you don't want to come. . . . 
 You're all selfish alike. ..." 
 
 No, it was not feasible. Constance foresaw all 
 the difficulties: the old woman still always moving 
 aimlessly about the house in the mornings . . . and 
 coming upon a cigarette of Van der Welcke's . . . 
 a book of Addie's lying about ... a hundred 
 trifles. . . . Adolphine, Cateau, Dorine disap- 
 proving, beyond a doubt, that Constance, of all 
 people, should come to live with her mother: Con- 
 
252 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 stance, of all people . . . with Van der Welcke. 
 . . . No, it was not feasible . . . because of all 
 those trifles . . . and also because of a strange 
 feeling of delicacy: she did not want to come and 
 live at Mamma's with her husband, with Van der 
 Welcke, long as it was since it had all hap- 
 pened. . . . 
 
 14 Very well, dear, don't," said the old woman, 
 bitterly; and she nodded her head repeatedly, in 
 sad comprehension of all the disappointments of 
 lonely, melancholy old age. " Yes, yes . . . that's 
 how it is . . . always. . . . And so the old man,' 
 down there, is left all alone? ..." 
 
 Constance's heart shrank within her. She saw 
 the old woman's dim eyes look vaguely into her 
 own eyes and she read in the vague glance the 
 uncertain memory of things that had just been said. 
 And, while the eyes gazed dimly, the plaintive voice 
 went on lamenting, with that inward sighing, a 
 broken sound of broken strings, and with a keener 
 note of bitterness through it, so that, with that 
 voice, with that glance, the old woman suddenly 
 aged into the semblance of her old sisters, Auntie 
 Tine, Auntie Rine. ... 
 
 Constance went home through a dismal, heavy 
 rain, hurrying along under the shelter of her um- 
 brella, from which the drops fell in a steady 
 cataract. She could not shake off the gloomy an- 
 xiety that haunted her in these days, through which 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 253 
 
 flashed strange premonitions and presentiments; 
 and, since she had been to Driebergen, in response 
 to the old woman's dying summons, she could no 
 longer free herself from this haunting dread, as 
 though it were all a magic web in which she was 
 caught. Oh, what could be threatening, now that 
 the old woman yonder was dead? What sort of 
 change would come looming up, day after day, 
 gloomy day after gloomy day, in her small life, in 
 the small lives around her? . . . For herself, in 
 the late aftermath of life, she had found a tiny 
 grain of true philosophy — small, oh, so small, but 
 very precious! — and she did not think of herself, 
 because she believed that what might still come, in 
 her own life, she would be able to bear philo- 
 sophically. Sometimes even, at such times, she 
 would think of the worst that could happen to her: 
 if Addie were suddenly to die. In that case, per- 
 haps, in that case alone, the grain would not be 
 sufficient to enable her to bear it with philosophy. 
 . . . But, for the rest . . . for the rest, she was 
 no longer afraid of life. And yet what were these 
 vague terrors which chilled her soul, which en- 
 veloped her nowadays in that magic web of anxious 
 speculation concerning the future? Would she be 
 involved or would others? Was it illness . . . 
 money trouble ... an accident ... a catastrophe 
 ... or was it death? . . . Was it to do with 
 Addie ... or was it to do with her mother? Oh, 
 
254 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 she wanted to be prepared for anything . . . but 
 what . . . what would it be ? And these haunting 
 terrors which gathered around her so menacingly, 
 like a gloomy twilight, with all those ghostly pre- 
 monitions and presentiments of what was coming, 
 was it because the days themselves were so gloomy, 
 because it was always raining out of fateful skies? 
 Why should there be deeper gloom around her 
 soul in these days than around others, perhaps 
 hundreds and thousands of people ? Was it not the 
 reflection of that gloomy winter in and around her 
 and was not that reflection casting its gloom around 
 all the people who were now, like herself, walking 
 under dripping umbrellas or else, like spectres, 
 looking with pallid faces out of their windows at 
 another dark and dreary day? . . . Oh, how vast, 
 how immense it all was and how small were they 
 all! To think that, if the sun happened to shine, 
 she would perhaps think and feel quite differently! 
 To think that possibly she was divining, with a 
 shudder, something of days and things to come 
 and went flying off to distant cloud-lands, to all 
 ,. ,. . and that possibly she was divining nothing! 
 ... How ready people were to play with their 
 emotions, their sensitiveness ! How ready they were 
 to delude themselves that they had seen invisible 
 things, that they had foretold the most profound 
 secrets! . . . No, she could foretell nothing, she 
 saw nothing invisible . . . but still, argue as sensi- 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 255 
 
 bly as she might, a haunting fear oppressed her, a 
 chill shudder ran through her, as though she had 
 brought something of death back with her from 
 Driebergen, as though its shadow continued to 
 follow her, indoors and out of doors. Was it only 
 because it was raining? . . . 
 
 Well, she was glad to be at home, to change 
 her wet things, to slip into a tea-gown and 
 warm herself by the fire. Hark to the wind 
 howling round the house and down the lane, 
 the wind that came tearing on from afar 
 that was far, wide and mysterious, wide and mys- 
 terious as the heavens, above houses small as boxes, 
 above people as insects small! . . . How mighty 
 was the wind! . . . How often had she not thus 
 listened to the wind, her mighty Dutch wind, as 
 though it would carry all sorts of things to her 
 ... or, not heeding her smallness, swoop right 
 down upon her! . . . What calamity was there 
 that could happen? Addie brought home unex- 
 pectedly: an accident on his bicycle; run over by a 
 motor-car; murdered? Henri telling her that they 
 were ruined; that he Would have to work for his 
 bread: he who had never been able to work after 
 his shattered career? The house on fire, at home 
 ... or at Mamma's? Mamma dying? . . . 
 Oh, what thoughts of shuddering horror they all 
 were and of sombre misfortune and of death, al- 
 ways death! . . . Something happening to one of 
 
256 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 the brothers or sisters or to their children. For, in 
 spite of everything, she was fond of all of them, 
 they were still her brothers and sisters. Despite 
 all the misunderstanding, the lack of harmony, the 
 ill-feeling, she was fond of all of them, felt herself 
 to be of one blood with them. . . . Oh, how lonely 
 she was! . . . And perhaps, very soon, she would 
 have to be all alone like that, all her life long: 
 without Mamma, dead; without Henri, dead; 
 without Addie, dead! . . . 
 
 She stared into the fire and shivered in its ruddy 
 glow, while the shuddering horror gripped her in 
 its sharp clutches. But a bell jangled loudly . . . 
 and she felt a shock of apprehension passing through 
 her; her breath was almost a scream: were they 
 bringing Addie home dead? . . . 
 
 Truitje opened the hall-door : thank goodness, she 
 heard his voice. She sank back in her chair ; the door 
 of the room opened; and he stood on the threshold, 
 laughing: 
 
 u I daren't come in, Mummy, I'm dripping wet. 
 I'll go and change first. Did you ever see such 
 weather?" 
 
 She smiled; he shut the door; and — she couldn't 
 help it — she began to sob. When he came down a 
 quarter of an hour later, healthy, vigorous, smiling, 
 he found her in tears : 
 
 "What is it, Mummy?" 
 
 " I don't know, dear. ... „ ." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 257 
 
 44 But why are you crying? Surely there must be 
 something! ..." 
 
 44 No, it's nothing. . . . It's nothing ... I 
 think. ..." 
 
 She leant against him. She told him how the 
 dread horror was clutching at her. She was very 
 much unstrung and she felt as if something was go- 
 ing to happen: a great sorrow, a disaster, an acci- 
 dent, she didn't know what. . . . She poured out 
 her anxious soul to him, nestling in his arms: 
 
 11 It's too silly, Addie. I must try to be calmer." 
 
 She became calmer under his steady gaze. Oh, 
 what delightful eyes he had! As she looked into 
 them, she became calmer: 
 
 44 Addie . . . your eyes ..." 
 
 44 What about them, Mummy? " 
 
 44 They are growing lighter in colour : they are seri- 
 ous, as always, but they're becoming lighter. . . ." 
 
 44 What's the matter with my eyes now? " 
 
 44 They've become grey." 
 
 44 Oh, nonsense ! " 
 
 44 Yes, they're turning grey, blue-grey. ..." 
 
 He laughed at her a little. She remained with her 
 head on his shoulder, looked into his eyes. She be- 
 came quite calm, now, gave a last, deep sigh : 
 
 44 Dear, listen . . . listen to it blowing. . . ." 
 
 44 Yes, Mamma." 
 
 44 I'm afraid of the wind sometimes ..." 
 
 44 And sometimes you love it." 
 
258 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 11 Yes." 
 
 " You're a very sensitive little Mummy." 
 
 " I wonder, Addie, if I'm so strange . . . because 
 of a presentiment. . . ." 
 
 " A presentiment? " 
 
 " Don't you believe in them? " 
 
 u I don't know ... I never have 'em . . ." 
 
 " Are you awfully matter-of-fact, Addie ? . . t . . 
 Or . . ." 
 
 " I don't know, Mamma. . . ." 
 
 " No, you're not matter-of-fact. . . . It's very 
 strange, but you have a magnetism about you which 
 matter-of-fact people never have. You calm one. 
 When I lean against you, I grow calmer. . . . Lis- 
 ten, listen to it blowing! " 
 
 " Yes, it's very stormy. Let's listen to it together, 
 Mamma. Perhaps we shall hear something ... in 
 the storm." 
 
 She looked into his eyes. His eyes were smiling. 
 She did not know if he was serious or joking. 
 
 " Yes," she said, nestling closer in his arms, feel- 
 ing that she still had him, that she had not yet lost 
 him. " Let us listen to the storm . . . and see if we 
 can hear anything ... in the wind. ..." 
 
 And they remained still, without speaking. The 
 lamps were not lit; only the fire in the open hearth 
 cast its dancing gleams and shadows on the walls. 
 The wind tore on from very far away, out of mys- 
 terious cloud-laden skies. It shrieked round the 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 259 
 
 house, rushed past the windows, howled in the chim- 
 ney, spread its wide wings and flapped on through 
 the clattering rain, leaving its howl like a trail in the 
 air. . . . 
 
 By the flickering firelight, playing upon their small 
 souls, they listened attentively. . . . He smiled. . . . 
 Her eyes were wide and staring. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 The next day, a Sunday, Constance felt a strange 
 longing for youth and laughter, for merry voices 
 and sunny faces. Addie and his father had gone out 
 early, trying the bicycles on the sodden roads; and 
 she was so lonely, still obsessed by that unaccount- 
 able sense of depression, that she felt that she must 
 have laughter around her, that she must watch the 
 romping of children, or she would be perpetually 
 bursting into tears. And she took advantage of a 
 lull in the rain to go to Adeline's in the Bankastraat. 
 As she entered the house, it seemed to her that the 
 sun was shining. Adeline was sitting downstairs in 
 the living-room, with the children round her. Marie, 
 the eldest girl, was just twelve. All the others fol- 
 lowed her at regular intervals of age, like the steps 
 of a .staircase. Marie was a sort of little mother to 
 the rest: she was a great help to Adeline with the 
 three youngest, those with the ugly names, Jan, Piet 
 and Klaasje. These were now six years, four 
 and two; and they formed a little group within 
 the big group, because Jan insisted on ruling 
 over Klaasje and Piet, looking upon them as 
 his vassals, imitating Papa's voice, playing at 
 horses with Piet and Klaasje, both very docile, while 
 
 260 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 261 
 
 Jan was the tyrant, trying to impart a roar 
 to his shrill little cock-crow of a voice . . . until 
 Marietje had to come in between as a supreme 
 referee, giving her decision in all sorts of difficult 
 questions that arose out of the merest trifle. . . . 
 Adeletje, ten and a half, was a delicate, ailing child, 
 mostly sitting very quietly close to Mamma, hiding 
 in her skirts: a puny little thing, a great anxiety to 
 her mother; and Adeline was uneasy too about 
 Klaasje, as the child remained very backward and 
 dull: the uncles and aunts called it an idiot. . . . 
 But a merry little couple were Gerdy and Constant, 
 nine and eight years old, always together, adoring 
 each other, good little flaxen-haired kiddies that they 
 were: very babyish for their age, blending their re- 
 semblance to Papa and Mamma into one soft mix- 
 ture of pink and white and gold, almost like a co- 
 loured picture, and seeming a couple of idyllic little 
 figures by the side of the rough, sturdy elder 
 brothers. For, while Jan already was turbulent and 
 tyrannical, Alex and Guy were regular " nuts/' had 
 become indifferent to Marietje's judicial decisions, no 
 longer even submitted to Adeline's restraint and had 
 lost all sense of awe except when the stairs creaked 
 under Gerrit's heavy footstep or when he bellowed 
 at them. Though even then they knew, secretly, 
 with a knowing glance of mutual understanding, that 
 Papa might raise his voice, but never raised his 
 hand; that, when Mamma decreed a punishment, he 
 
262 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 would say something to her in French, so that the 
 punishment became very slight. And this precocious 
 worldly wisdom had turned them, in their little nur- 
 sery world, into two intractable, cheeky, swanking 
 young reprobates, putting on big boys' airs, striking 
 terror into little Gerdy and Constant, who would run 
 away together and hide and play at mothers and 
 fathers behind the sofa standing aslant in the draw- 
 ing-room, chuckling quietly when Mamma or 
 Marietje looked for them and could not find them. 
 But, however intractable, Alex and Guy were two 
 handsome little fellows, with cheeky mouths, but 
 gentle eyes, dark eyes, the Van Lowe eyes : not their 
 hard, but their soft eyes; and, when they were impu- 
 dent and troublesome, with lips stuck out cheekily, 
 but with those eyes full of dark, soft gentleness, 
 then Constance felt in love with them, spoilt them 
 even more than Gerrit did, put up with everything 
 from the rascals, even allowing the two great boys 
 to hang all over her and ruffle her clothes and hair. 
 This time too, they rushed at her the moment she 
 came in; and Constance, glad to see them so radiant, 
 glad that everything became bright around her, as 
 though the sun were shining, flung open her arms; 
 but Adeline cried: 
 
 " Alex ! Guy ! Take care : Auntie's good cloak ! 
 . . . Boys, do take care: Auntie's beautiful hat! " 
 
 But neither Alex nor Guy had any regard for 
 Auntie's good cloak or Auntie's beautiful hat; and 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 263 
 
 Constance was so weak in their rather rough and 
 disrespectful embrace that she only laughed and 
 laughed and laughed. Oh, sunshine, sunshine at last! 
 Passionately fond as she was of her own big son, this 
 was what she needed in these days of rain and 
 gloomy skies and gloomy feelings: this almost over- 
 whelming sunshine, this almost pitiless blaze of ra- 
 diant youth; this rough gambolling around her of 
 what was young and healthy and bright, as if the 
 shock brought her out of her gloomy depression. . . . 
 
 When the boys, after behaving like young dogs 
 jumping up to kiss her face, were at last satisfied, 
 she and sober Marietje looked all through the house 
 for Gerdy and Constant, who had purposely hidden 
 themselves and who, she knew, had crept behind the 
 slanting sofa in the drawing-room. She would not 
 find them too quickly, wished to prolong their enjoy- 
 ment, called out in the drawing-room : 
 
 " But where can they be? Wherever can they be? 
 Constant! Gerdy! . . ." 
 
 Then at last the giggles of the little brother and 
 sister behind the sofa made her look over the back: 
 
 41 Here they are! Here they are! " 
 
 Oh, how young those children were! Excepting 
 wise and sedate Marietje — Mamma's help — and 
 perhaps quiet Adeletje, how young they were! 
 Those two rascals, what children they were for their 
 eleven and ten years ! That little father-and-mother 
 pair, Gerdy and Constant, what babies for their nine 
 
264 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 and eight ! And then the nursery proper, Jan tyran- 
 nizing over Piet and Klaasje ! . . . How pink and 
 young and fresh and sunny it all was! . . . Now 
 those were real children, even though Klaasje's 
 laugh was very dull and silly. She had never known 
 Addie like that. Addie had never had that sort of 
 youth. No, his childhood had been spent amid the 
 outbursts of temper of his father and mother, amid 
 their jealousies, amid scenes and tears, so that the 
 child had never been a child. And yet . . . and yet, 
 though he had grown up early, how well he had taken 
 care of himself and what kindly powers had watched 
 over him, making him into their one great joy and 
 happiness and consolation ! . . . 
 
 But, though this melancholy just passed through 
 her, still the morning, that Sunday morning, had 
 begun sunnily for her, with all that golden hair, all 
 those soft, pink cheeks, all that mad, radiant gaiety; 
 and Constance forgot her gloomy depression, caused 
 by she knew not what, in the glow of childish happi- 
 ness in that living-room. 
 
 The stairs now groaned under a heavy tread. 
 
 " There's Gerrit," said Adeline. 
 
 " How late he is ! " said Constance, laughing. 
 11 Gerrit, how late you are ! " she cried, even before 
 he opened the door. 
 
 And she was surprised that his step should sound 
 so sluggish and heavy, accustomed as she was to hear 
 him fill the whole house with the brisk noise of his 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 265 
 
 movements. Sluggishly and heavily his footsteps 
 came down the passage. Then he slowly opened the 
 door of the dining-room, which was also the living- 
 room. 
 
 He remained standing in the doorway: 
 
 11 Ah, Constance ! Good-morning." 
 
 u Good-morning, Gerrit. How late you are!" 
 she repeated, gaily. M You're in no hurry to get up 
 on a Sunday, I see ! " 
 
 But she was startled when she looked at him: 
 
 44 Gerrit, dear . . . what's the matter?" 
 
 44 I'm feeling rotten," he said, gloomily. 44 No, 
 children, don't worry Father." 
 
 And he pushed aside the playful-rough hands of 
 the two cheeky rascals, Alex and Guy. 
 
 44 Gerrit hasn't been at all well for a day or two," 
 said Adeline, anxiously. 
 
 44 What is it, Gerrit?" asked Constance, smiling 
 her smile of a moment ago, when the sunny warmth 
 of the children had made her smile through her own 
 gloomy depression. 
 
 44 1 feel beastly rotten," he repeated, gloomily. 
 14 No, thanks, I don't want any breakfast." 
 
 44 Haven't you been well for the last two days? " 
 asked Constance. 
 
 He looked at her with dull, glassy eyes. He 
 thought of telling her, with bitter irony, that all his 
 life he had not been well; but she would not have 
 understood, she would have believed that he was 
 
266 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 joking, that he was vexed about something; she 
 would not have known. And, besides, he did not 
 want to hurt her either: she was so nice, he always 
 looked upon her as the nicest of his sisters, though 
 they had gone years without seeing each other. 
 What a good thing it was that she had come back! 
 She had been back in Holland three years now, his 
 little sister; he was fond of her, his little sister; 
 he had an almost mystic feeling for her, the 
 sympathy which has its origin in kinship, that 
 sharing of the same blood, the same soul, appor- 
 tioned so mysteriously in the birth of brother and 
 sister out of one and the same mother by one and 
 the same father; and he felt so clearly that she was 
 his sister, that he loved her as something of himself, 
 a part of himself, something of his own flesh and 
 blood and soul, that he went up to her, laid his hand 
 on her head — she had taken off her hat; and her hair 
 was all ruffled with the boys' romping — and said to 
 her, in a voice which he could not possibly raise to 
 a roar and which broke faintly with emotion: 
 
 " It's good to see you, Sissy, with your dear, kind 
 face. ... I don't know about being unwell, child : 
 Fve had a couple of bad nights, that's all." 
 
 " But you sleep well as a rule." 
 
 " Yes, as a rule." 
 
 " And your appetite is good." 
 
 11 Yes, Connie, I have a good appetite as a rule. 
 But ... I don't feel like breakfast this morning." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 267 
 
 44 Your face is so drawn. ..." 
 
 u I shall be all right presently," he said, brighten- 
 ing up. And he struck his chest with his two hands. 
 44 My old carcase can stand some knocking about." 
 
 11 Gerrit came home dripping wet two days ago," 
 said Adeline. " He had been standing on the front 
 of the tram, in a pelting rain, and he was wet to the 
 skin." 
 
 14 But, Gerrit, why did you do it? " 
 
 " To get the wind in my face, Sissy ..." 
 
 11 And to catch cold." 
 
 He laughed: 
 
 44 There, don't worry about me. My old carcase," 
 striking his chest, 44 can stand some knocking about." 
 
 44 But you're looking ill." 
 
 44 Oh, rot!" 
 
 44 Yes, you're looking ill." 
 
 44 1 want some air. The weather's not so bad. 
 It's not raining, it's only blowing fit to blow your 
 head off. Are you afraid of the wind, or will you 
 come for a walk with your brother? " 
 
 44 Very well, Gerrit . . . but first eat a nice little 
 
 egg-" 
 
 He gave a roar of laughter which made the whole 
 room ring again. The children also laughed: they 
 always laughed when Papa laughed like that; and 
 the laughter gave courage to Gerdy, who had looked 
 frightened at first. She crept up on Gerrit's knees, 
 mad on being caressed, clung on to Gerrit, kissed him 
 
268 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 with tiny little kisses; and Alex and Guy hung, one 
 on his arm, the other on his leg, while his Homeric 
 laughter still rang long and loud. 
 
 And his laughter never ceased. He laughed till 
 the servant peeped round the door and disappeared 
 again, perplexed. He laughed till all the children, 
 the nine of them, were laughing, for his laughter had 
 tempted the three little ones — Jan, the tyrant, and 
 his two small vassals — from the stairs, where they 
 were playing. He laughed till Adeline, the dear 
 quiet little mother, also got a painful fit of giggling, 
 which made her choke silently in herself. And he 
 could not stop ; his laughter roared out and filled the 
 house: even a street-boy, out of doors, flattened his 
 nose against the window in an attempt to peer in and 
 discover who was laughing like that inside. 
 
 And at last Gerrit got up, released himself from 
 the three children, kissed Constance ; and, with a red 
 face, tears in his eyes and a mouth still distorted with 
 merriment, he caught her two shoulders in his great 
 hands and said, looking deep into her eyes : 
 
 " Don't be angry, Sissy, but I c-couldn't help it, I 
 c-couldn't help it! . . . You'll be the death of me 
 with laughing, if you go on like that ! . . . And when 
 you put on that kind little voice and or-order me . . . 
 to eat a n-nice little egg . . . before you consent to 
 go for a walk with me ...!.. . Oh, dear, oh, dear ! 
 I shall never get over it! . . . Very well ... all 
 right . . . just to please you . ..; . but then ... 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 269 
 
 but then you must . . . b-boil the n-nice little egg for 
 me . . . and put it before me . . . put my n-nice 
 little egg before me ! . . . " 
 
 Constance was laughing too; the children all kept 
 on laughing, like mad, not really knowing what they 
 were laughing at, now that they were all laughing 
 together; and Adeline, Adeline . . . 
 
 "L-look!" said Gerrit, pointing to his wife. 
 "Irlookl" 
 
 And, while Constance took the egg out of the 
 boiler, she looked round at Adeline. The little 
 mother was still overcome with her fit of silent 
 giggling; the tears rolled down her cheeks; the 
 children around her were screaming with the fun 
 of it. 
 
 11 I n-never in all my 1-life, Connie," said Gerrit, 
 " saw Line laugh ... as she's laughing at that n-nice 
 little egg of yours. ..." 
 
 And he started afresh. He roared. But she had 
 put his plate in front of him. He now played the 
 clown, took up his spoon, said in a pretty little voice 
 that sounded humorously in his great roaring 
 throat: 
 
 11 Thank you kindly, Constance . . . for your 
 n-nice little egg. . . . It's too sweet of you! . . ." 
 
 And he nipped at his nice little egg with small, 
 careful spoonfuls, pretending to be very weak and 
 very fragile; and the children, seeing their big, burly 
 father nipping at the nice little egg with dainty little 
 
2 7 o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 movements, were wild with delight, thought it great 
 fun of Papa. . . . 
 
 He had finished and was ready for his walk with 
 Constance. 
 
 " Papa, may we come too? Do let us come too, 
 Papa!" 
 
 "No," he said, bluntly. "No, don't be such 
 limpets. You're just like a pack of octopuses, wind- 
 ing one in their suckers. No, Father wants to go out 
 with his sister alone, for once. ..." 
 
 And he went out alone with Constance, after she 
 had managed to conceal the disorder of her hair un- 
 der her hat and veil. 
 
 Outside, she said to him : 
 
 " Gerrit, how bright it all is in your house, how 
 sunny, how happy ! " 
 
 " Yes," he said. 
 
 " You have every reason to be thankful, Gerrit." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do you feel better now, in the air? " 
 
 " Yes . . . especially after your nice little cgg. u 
 
 " No, don't be silly, Gerrit. You don't look half 
 as well as usual." 
 
 " And I feel simply rotten ... if you really want 
 to know.'" 
 
 " Still?" 
 
 " Yes . ,. . but it'll pass off. ... I ... I always 
 sleep very well; and just because of that a bad night 
 upsets me. ..." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 271 
 
 44 But that's an exception, isn't it?" 
 
 44 Yes, of course, it's an exception. Don't be 
 anxious about me, Sissy. I've a hide like a rhino- 
 ceros. I'm the pachyderm of the family. I haven't 
 got your dainty little constitution. ..." 
 
 11 1 am so glad when I come to you, Gerrit. I 
 always brighten up in your house." 
 
 44 You haven't been gloomy, surely?" 
 
 44 That's just what I have been, quite lately." 
 
 44 And why, Connie?" 
 
 44 1 don't know. Because of the weather . . ." 
 
 44 Are you afraid of it? It's beginning to rain 
 again." 
 
 44 As long as it doesn't pour, we can go on walk- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 44 It does me good, especially the wind blowing 
 about one. Do you like wind? " 
 
 44 Yes, I do ... but . . ." 
 
 44 But what?" 
 
 44 Sometimes I hear too much in it." 
 
 44 My little fanciful sister of old ! What do you 
 hear in it?" 
 
 44 Gloomy things, melancholy things . . . but al- 
 ways very big things . . . whereas we ourselves are 
 so small, so very small. . . ." 
 
 44 People never change. . . . You're just the little 
 sister that you used to be . . .in the river . . . with 
 your fairy-tales ..." 
 
 44 But what I hear in the wind is not a fairy-tale." 
 
272 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 "What do you hear?" 
 
 " Life : the whole of life itself. . . . Things of the 
 past; things of the future; and all big and tremen- 
 dous. . . . When I listen to the wind, the past be- 
 comes immense and the future tremendous. . . . and 
 I remain so small, so small. . * . V 
 
 " What you remain, child, is a dreamer. . . . " 
 
 " No, I haven't remained so. ... I may have 
 become one again. . . ." 
 
 11 Yes, you have become one again. ... I recog- 
 nize you like this absolutely, just as you were as a 
 slim, fair-haired little girl, the same little fairy-like 
 vision. . . . How long ago it all is, Connie ! . . . 
 How everything melts away in our lives ! . . . How 
 old we grow ! . . . " 
 
 44 But all your children : they keep you young. 
 They all . . . they all belong to the future. ..." 
 
 " Yes, if only I myself 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 11 What were you going to say? " 
 
 14 1 was going to own up to something. I was go- 
 ing to confess to you. But why should I ? It's bet- 
 ter not. It would be very weak of me. It's better 
 not. It's better that I shouldn't speak." 
 
 " Gerrit . . . Gerrit, dear . . . tell me . t . ; f .< is 
 there ... is there . . . ? " 
 
 "What? . . ." 
 
 " Is there anything? ^ . 2 L J' 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 273 
 
 "No." 
 
 11 Is there anything threatening you? " 
 
 "Why, no, child! " 
 
 44 Aren't you well? ... Do you feel ... un- 
 happy? . . . Have you some big trouble? . . . Tell 
 me, Gerrit, tell me ! . . . I'm your sister after all! " 
 
 44 Yes, you're my sister, the same flesh and blood, 
 soul of my soul. . . . No, there's nothing, Constance, 
 there's nothing threatening." 
 
 44 And there's no secret trouble ? " 
 
 44 No, no secret trouble." 
 
 44 Yes, I'm sure there is." 
 
 44 No, old girl. It's only that I've slept badly the 
 last night or two. And I feel rotten. That's all." 
 
 44 But your health is good, isn't it?" 
 
 44 Oh dear, yes!" 
 
 44 There's nothing serious the matter? You're not 
 seriously ill? " 
 
 44 No, no, certainly not." 
 
 44 Then what is it?" 
 
 44 Nothing." 
 
 44 No, no, I feel that you have a trouble of some 
 kind. Gerrit, aren't you happy? Is there some pri- 
 vate worry? Aren't you happy with Adeline? " 
 
 44 Why, of course I am, Connie ! She's awfully 
 sweet. I'm very happy with her." 
 
 44 Then what's wrong? " 
 
 44 Nothing." 
 
 44 Yes, Gerrit, there's something wrong. Oh, do 
 
274 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 tell me about it! Don't keep it to yourself. Sor- 
 row . . . chokes us . . . when we keep it in." 
 
 " No, it's not sorrow. . .. . It's . .... I don't 
 know what it is. ..." 
 
 " You don't know?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " But there's something, you see. What is it?" 
 
 " Constance, it's . . ,. it's ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 11 Constance, it's an overpowering melan- 
 choly." 
 
 " An overpowering melancholy? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 44 What about?" 
 
 " About . . . myself." 
 
 "Yourself?" 
 
 " Yes. . . . Because I'm rotten." 
 
 11 Because you haven't felt well the last few 
 days?" 
 
 " Because I'm never well." 
 
 She now thought that he was exaggerating, that he 
 was joking, that he was pessimistical, hypochon- 
 driacal; and she said: 
 
 "Why, Gerrit! ..." 
 
 He understood that she did not believe him, that 
 she never would believe him. He laughed : 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I've a gay old imagination, 
 haven't I?" 
 
 " Yes, I think you're imagining things a bit." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 275 
 
 " It's this confounded weather, you know." 
 
 " Yes, that makes people out of sorts. It doesn't 
 affect children, fortunately." 
 
 44 No, not children." 
 
 M When you see them presently, you'll . . . But 
 you mustn't let our walk make you gloomy. Gerrit, 
 will you try to keep your mind off things and not to 
 be melancholy? I had no idea that you were like 
 this!" 
 
 44 No, old girl, but what does any one of us know 
 about the other?" 
 
 44 Not much, I admit." 
 
 44 Each of us is a sealed book to the other. And 
 yet you're fond of me and I of you. And you know 
 nothing about me . . . nor I about you." 
 
 44 That's true." 
 
 44 You know nothing of my secret self. And I 
 know nothing of your secret self." 
 
 44 No," she confessed softly; and she blushed and 
 thought of the life that had blossomed late in her, 
 blossomed into spring and summer, the life of which 
 nobody knew. 
 
 44 It has to be so. It can't be otherwise. We per- 
 ceive so little of one another, in the words we ex- 
 change. I have often longed for a friend . . . with 
 whom I could feel his secret self and I mine. I never 
 had a friend like that." 
 
 44 Gerrit, I did not know . .. . that you were so 
 . . . sensitive." 
 
276 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " No. I am saying things to you which I never 
 talk about. And I say them feeling that it is no use 
 saying them. And yet you're my sister, you know." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I shall take you home now. I'm only dragging 
 you through the mud and rain. The roads are 
 soaked through. You'll be home in a minute or 
 two." 
 
 He brought her home. She rang the bell. Truitje 
 opened the door. 
 
 "Is Van der Welcke in, do you think?" Gerrit 
 asked Constance. 
 
 u Yes, ma'am," Truitje answered, " the master's 
 upstairs." 
 
 " I'll just go up and see him." 
 
 Gerrit ran up the stairs. 
 
 "I was forgetting, ma'am: there's- a telegram 
 come," said Truitje. 
 
 "A telegram? ..." 
 
 She did not know what came over her, but she 
 felt deadly afraid. The blood seemed to freeze 
 round her heart. She took the telegram from 
 Truitje, went into the drawing-room and closed the 
 door before breaking it open. . . . 
 
 Gerrit had only run up to say a word to Van 
 der Welcke : he had to go back home, for it was 
 twelve o'clock and getting on for lunch-time. Van 
 der Welcke saw him down the stairs. 
 
 " Well, good-bye, old chap," said Gerrit, genially, 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 277 
 
 shaking hands with Van der Welcke. " Con- 
 stance!" he cried. "Constance! . . ." 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 " Constance! M Gerrit called once more. 
 
 The kitchen-door was open. 
 
 44 The mistress is in the drawing-room, sir," said 
 the servant. 
 
 44 Constance ..." 
 
 He opened the door. But the door stuck, as 
 though pushing against a body. 
 
 44 What the devil! ..." Gerrit began, in con- 
 sternation. 
 
 They rushed in through the dining-room: Van 
 der Welcke, Gerrit, the maid. Constance was lying 
 against the door in a dead faint, with the telegram 
 crumpled in her clenched hand: 
 
 " Paris. . ,., ,., 
 44 Henri dead. Am in despair. 
 
 " Emilie." 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 It was a dismal evening at Mrs. van Lowe's that 
 Sunday. And yet Mamma knew nothing: together 
 with Dorine, she had seen that the maids set out the 
 card-tables, had seen, according to her custom, to 
 the sandwiches, the cakes and the wine which 
 were invariably put out in the boudoir, under 
 the portrait of her husband, the late governor- 
 general. But the old lady was different from 
 usual; and Dorine, looking very pale and appre- 
 hensive, gave a start of amazement when she 
 asked: 
 
 "Dorine, who's been moving Papa's portrait?" 
 
 The old woman asked the question testily and 
 peremptorily. 
 
 " But, Mamma, it's been here for years. After 
 Papa's death, you said you wouldn't have it always 
 before your eyes in the drawing-room ... and it 
 was moved in here ..." 
 
 "Who, do you say, moved it?" 
 
 " Why, you yourself, Mamma ! " 
 
 "I?" 
 
 "Yes, you. ..." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " said the old woman, remembering. 
 "Yes, yes, I remember; I only asked because it 
 
 a 7 8 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 279 
 
 looks so out of place here ... in the little room 
 . . . and it is such a fine portrait. . . ." 
 
 Dorine said nothing more. Her legs shook be- 
 neath her; but she went on spreading out the cards. 
 
 Karel and Cateau arrived: 
 
 M How aw-ful! " said Cateau, pale in the face. 
 11 We thought we had bet-ter come . . . for 
 Mamma's sake . . . didn't we, Ka-rel?" 
 
 11 Mamma knows nothing," said Dorine. " But 
 we can't possibly keep it from her. . . . Otto has 
 gone to Baarn to break the news to Bertha." 
 
 The Van Saetzemas arrived: 
 
 44 No details yet? " asked Adolphine. 
 
 44 No," Dorine whispered, nervously, seeing 
 Mamma approaching. 
 
 44 How late you all are ! " grumbled the old 
 woman. 44 Why aren't Uncle Herman and Auntie 
 Lot here? And why haven't Auntie Tine and 
 Auntie Rine come yet? " 
 
 There was a moment's painful pause. 
 
 44 But they haven't been coming for some time, 
 Mamma," said Adolphine, gently. 
 
 44 What do you say? Are they ill? " 
 
 44 The old aunts haven't been for ev-er so long 
 on Sunday even-ings," said Cateau, with a great deal 
 of pitying emphasis. 
 
 Suddenly Mrs. van Lowe seemed to remember. 
 Yes, it was true : the sisters had not come on Sunday 
 evenings for a long time. She nodded her head in 
 
280 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 assent, with an air of knowing all about the sad 
 things which happen in old age and which will 
 happen also in the future that is still hidden from 
 the children. But in her heart she thought : 
 
 " There's something." 
 
 And she seemed to be trying to gaze ahead. But 
 she did not see it before her, did not see it before 
 her vague eyes, as she had seen the death of Henri's 
 mother, yonder, in a dark room at Driebergen, in 
 a dark oak bedstead, behind dark green curtains. 
 She felt that there was something that they had 
 kept from her in order to spare her pain, but she 
 did not see it as she had but lately seen other 
 things which the children did not know. It was as 
 though her sight were growing dim and uncertain, 
 as though she only guessed, only suspected things. 
 And she would not ask what it was. If there was 
 something . . . well, then her Sunday family- 
 evening could not help being dreary and silent. 
 Adolphine's children no longer sat round the big 
 table in the conservatory : the old lady did not under- 
 stand why, did not see that they were growing up, 
 that the round games bored them. Only, as she 
 looked at her empty room, she asked just one more 
 question : 
 
 " Where's Bertha? And where's Constance?" 
 
 This time, Adolphine and Cateau did not even 
 trouble to remind Mamma that Bertha was living 
 at Baarn. As for Auntie Lot, how could they tell 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 281 
 
 her that the good soul had had a nervous break- 
 down after being told of Henri's sudden death, 
 about which no one knew any details? Toetie ar- 
 rived very late and said that Mamma had a little 
 headache. As for Constance, not one of the children 
 would have dared to say that she and Van der 
 Welcke had gone to Paris by the night-mail at six 
 o'clock, as soon as they could after Emilie's tele- 
 gram. Gerrit wanted to go with them, but he was 
 ill and had hardly said a word to Adeline about the 
 telegram when he returned home from the Kerk- 
 hoflaan. He had got into bed shivering, thinking 
 that he had a feverish attack, influenza or some- 
 thing. The daughters also thought it better not to 
 tell Mamma that Gerrit was ill; and Mamma did 
 not even ask after Gerrit, though she missed him 
 and Adeline and thought that her rooms looked very 
 empty. 
 
 Where could they be? the old woman wondered. 
 None of Bertha's little tribe; the old sisters not 
 there; Constance not there; Gerrit not there; Auntie 
 Lot not there: where were they all? the old woman 
 kept wondering. How big her rooms looked, what 
 a shivery feeling the card-tables gave her, with the 
 markers, with the cards spread out in an S! Well, 
 if there were no children left, it was not worth 
 while having the table put out for the round games 
 in the conservatory, at least not until Gerrit's 
 children were bigger, until a new warmth sur- 
 
282 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 rounded her, on her poor Sunday evenings! And 
 what was the use of ordering such a lot of cakes, 
 if there was nobody there to eat them? 
 
 And it was very strange, but this evening, now 
 that her rooms were so empty, she grew very weary 
 of those who were there — Adolphine, Cateau, 
 Floortje and Dijkerhof — very tired. She felt her 
 face becoming drawn and haggard, her drooping 
 eyelids twitching over her dim eyes and her heavily- 
 veined hands trembling in her lap with utter weari- 
 ness. She did not speak, only nodded : the wise nod 
 of old age, knowing that old age spells sadness. 
 She only nodded, longing for them to go. They 
 were uncomfortable: they whispered together, their 
 faces were pale; they sat there staring in such a 
 strange, spectral way . . . as if something dreadful 
 had happened or was going to happen. . . . Had 
 the servants made up the fires so badly? Was it so 
 bitterly cold, so creepily chilly in her rooms, that 
 she felt shivers all down her old, bent back? . . . 
 And, when the children at last, earlier than usual, 
 took leave of her — still with that same spectral 
 stare, as though they were looking at something 
 dreadful that had happened or was going to happen 
 — she felt inclined to say to them that she was 
 getting too old now to keep up her Sunday evenings ; 
 she had it on her lips to say as much to Floortje, 
 to Cateau, to Adolphine; but a pity for them all 
 and especially for herself restrained her and she 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 283 
 
 did not say it. On the contrary, she said, very 
 wearily: 
 
 " Well, I hope that you will all be more par- 
 ticular about coming next Sunday ... all of you, 
 all of you. ... I want you all here. ... I want 
 to have you all around me." 
 
 Then they left her alone, earlier than usual, and 
 the old woman did not ring at once for the servants 
 to put out the lights, to go to bed, but first wandered 
 for a little while longer through her large, empty, 
 still brightly-lit rooms. How much had changed in 
 the many, many years that very slowly accumulated 
 about her and seemed to bury her under their grey 
 mounds! Sometimes it seemed to her as if nothing 
 had changed, as if the Sunday evenings always 
 remained the same, even though this or that one 
 might be absent for one reason or another. But 
 sometimes, as to-day, it seemed to her as if 
 everything, everything had changed, with hardly 
 perceptible changes. Did she alone remain un- 
 changed? . . . 
 
 She had now reached the little boudoir: hardly 
 any of the cakes had been touched; above them hung 
 the fine portrait of her husband, in the gold-laced 
 uniform, with the orders. He was dead . . . and 
 with him all their grandeur, which she had learnt to 
 love because of him, through him. . . . She wan- 
 dered back to the other rooms: there were portraits 
 on the walls, photographs in frames on the tables 
 
284 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 and mantelpieces. Dead was the old family-doctor; 
 as good as dead her two old sisters; dead was Van 
 Naghel; as good as dead Bertha, now so far away. 
 Aunt Lot, she still remained, she still remained, 
 bearing up bravely, in spite of financial disaster. 
 . . . Then the children: they were all dying off, 
 for surely it was tantamount to that, when they 
 were becoming more and more remote from her: 
 Karel; Adolphine; Ernst; even Paul; and Dorine, 
 her youngest. There was only Constance . . . and 
 Gerrit, perhaps. . . . And the grandchildren: 
 Frans, in Java; Emilie and Henri, in Paris: O God, 
 what were they doing in Paris? O God, what was 
 it, what was the matter with them? For she sud- 
 denly saw the boy . . . white as a corpse . . . 
 with his clothes open . . . and a deep, gaping 
 wound above his heart, sending a stream of purple 
 blood from his lung . . . while he lay in the last 
 agonies of death. . . . Why did she see it, this 
 strange vision of a second or two? It couldn't be 
 true, yet it filled her with anxiety. . . . And in sad 
 understanding she nodded her old head, with the 
 dim eyes which were suddenly seeing visions more 
 clearly than reality . . . until the time when they 
 would see nothing, numbed by the years which were 
 slowly accumulating about her. . . . Why did she 
 see it? . . . And, amid the emptiness of her 
 brightly-lit drawing-room, a sort of roar came to her 
 from the distance, from the distance outside the 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 285 
 
 room, the distance outside the house, the distance 
 outside the night, the very distant distance of 
 eternity, the eternity whence all the things of the 
 future come: a roar so overwhelming that it seemed 
 to come from a supernatural sea in which the poor, 
 trembling old woman was drowned, drowned with 
 all her vanity and all her unimportant, insignificant 
 sorrow, a sea in which her very small, small soul 
 was drowned, swallowed up like the veriest atom 
 in the roaring, roaring waves; a roar whose voice 
 told her that it was coming, that it was coming, the 
 great sorrow, the thing before which she trembled 
 with fear because she had long foreseen it and 
 because it would be so heavy for her to bear . . . 
 now that she was too old and too weary to bear 
 any more sorrow! And, with an unconscious ges- 
 ture, she raised her trembling old hands and prayed, 
 mechanically: 
 
 " O God, no more, no more! . . ." 
 Why must fate be like that, so heavy, so ruthless 
 and crushing? Why had it not all come earlier, 
 including the thing which advanced with such a 
 threatening roar and under which she, too weary 
 now, too weak and too old, would succumb when 
 it passed over her, when it reached her at last out 
 of the roaring, threatening, distant, distant eternity, 
 wherein all the things of the future are born. . . . 
 But the roar of that doom and her knowledge 
 of it lasted no longer than a second. And, when 
 
286 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 that second was past, there was nothing around her 
 but the empty, brightly-lit rooms. It was eleven 
 o'clock, the children had all gone home and she 
 rang for the servants, to put out the lights, to go 
 to bed, duly observant of the small needs of her 
 very small life, in spite of all those supernatural 
 things which threatened from afar, out of 
 eternity. . . . 
 
 Leaving the maids occupied in the empty room, 
 where they turned off the gas in the chandelier, the 
 old woman slowly climbed the stairs, nodding her 
 old head in bitter comprehension, knowing too well, 
 alas, that the great sorrow would come . . . even 
 though, trembling with fear, she prayed: 
 
 " O God ... no more, no morel " 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 "Are you going out, Gerrit?" asked Adeline. 
 
 She was surprised to see him come down the 
 stairs, dressed, in uniform. He had spent the 
 morning in bed, but he felt better now; and a fever- 
 ish excitement acted like a spur. He said, in answer 
 to his wife's question, that he was better, played for 
 a moment with Gerdy, took his lunch standing and 
 then hurried out of the house and rushed through 
 a parade at barracks, where he was not expected. 
 The fever, which he still felt sending shivers through 
 his great body, drove him out of barracks again; 
 and he walked to the Kerkhoflaan and asked Truitje 
 if there was any news of her master or mistress, 
 if Master Addie had had a telegram from Paris; 
 but Truitje didn't know. Then he tore off like one 
 possessed, first to Otto and Frances' house, where 
 he found Frances and Louise, both sick with wait- 
 ing: Otto had gone to Baarn, to break the news to 
 Bertha. 
 
 He could not stay with the two women: Frances 
 wandering from room to room, crying helplessly; 
 Louise, calmer, looking after the children, the entire 
 care of whom she had taken on herself since she 
 had come to live with Otto and since Frances had 
 
 28 7 
 
288 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 become such an invalid. Gerrit could not possibly 
 stay: with long strides, he flew to the Alexander- 
 straat, to Mamma, who was glad to see him well 
 again after his two days' illness. He found Dorine 
 with her; Adolphine called, followed by Cateau, all 
 obeying an impulse not to leave the old woman 
 alone in these days, when at any moment Van 
 der Welcke, Constance and Emilie might arrive 
 from Paris, bringing home the body of Henri, of 
 whose death no one had telegraphed any details, 
 much to the indignation of Adolphine and Cateau. 
 
 But, when Auntie Lot came in, her small eyes 
 red and swollen with weeping, and cried, " Oh 
 dear! . . . Kassian!" — an exclamation at once 
 hushed by the children, an exclamation which 
 Mamma, staring dimly into space, failed to under- 
 stand — Gerrit could no longer endure it among all 
 those overwrought women; and, convinced that 
 Mamma did not even yet know that Constance and 
 Van der Welcke had gone to Paris, convinced that 
 the sisters had not even paved the way by telling 
 her that Henri was seriously ill, he cleared out sud- 
 denly, without saying good-bye, and rushed into the 
 open air, down the street, into the Woods, gasping 
 for breath. 
 
 What was it, what could it be, hanging in the 
 air? The clouds seemed to be bending over the 
 town in pity, an immense, yearning pity which 
 turned into a desperate melancholy while Gerrit 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 289 
 
 hurried along with his great strides; the wintry 
 trees lifted their crowns of branches in melan- 
 choly despair; the rooks cawed and circled in 
 swarms; the bells of the tram-cars tinkled as 
 though muffled in black crape; the few pedestrians 
 walked stiffly and unnaturally; he met ague-stricken, 
 black-clad figures with sinister, spectral faces: they 
 passed him like so many ghosts; and all around him, 
 in the vistas of the Woods, rose a clammy mist, 
 in which every outline of houses, trees and people 
 was blurred into a shadowy unreality. And it 
 seemed to Gerrit as if he alone were real and 
 possessed a body; and he ran and rushed through 
 the spectral landscape, through the hollow avenues 
 of death. 
 
 What was it in the air? Nothing, nothing extraor- 
 dinary: it was winter in Holland; and the people 
 ... the people had nothing extraordinary about 
 them: they walked in thick coats and cloaks, with 
 their hands in their pockets, because it was cold; 
 and, because the mist was cold and raw, their eyes 
 looked fixed, their lips and noses drawn and pinched 
 and they bore themselves rigidly and spectrally 
 when they came towards him out of the fog and 
 passed him with those shadowy and unreal figures. 
 And, with all sorts of fever-born images whirling 
 before his eyes, like shining will-o'-the-wisps in that 
 morning mist, his thoughts touched hastily on every 
 sort of subject: he saw the barracks before him; 
 
2 9 o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 Pauline; the Paris train and Constance and Van der 
 Welcke in a compartment with Henri's coffin be- 
 tween them; Auntie Lot and Mamma; Bertha at 
 Baarn. He saw his boyhood at Buitenzorg; the 
 foaming river; all his bright-haired children. He 
 saw a worm, big as a dragon, with bristles like 
 lances sticking straight out of its dragon's back. . . . 
 
 He was still feverish and had been unwise to 
 get up and go out. But he could not have stayed 
 in bed, he couldn't have done it: his feverish ex- 
 citement had driven him to the barracks, to his 
 mother and to . . . Where was he going? Was he 
 going to Scheveningen ? And why was he going 
 through the Woods like that? What was it that 
 constantly impelled him to keep to the right, to 
 turn up the paths on the right, as though he were 
 making for the Nieuwe Weg? What did he want 
 on the right? . . . 
 
 Suddenly, as a counteragent to his fever, he 
 turned to the left; but, on coming to a cross-road, 
 he wandered off to the right again, helplessly, as 
 if he had forgotten the way. . . . There was the 
 Ornamental Water, with the Nieuwe Weg behind 
 it. There lay the ponds, like two dull, weather- 
 worn mirrors, under the sullen pity of the skies; 
 and the rather tame landscape of the Woods, with 
 its wreath of dunes, became cruel, a tragic pool 
 surrounded by all that avenue of chill death, which 
 seemed to be creeping through the wintry air. . . £, 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 291 
 
 But what was it in the air? Why, there was 
 nothing, nothing but the Ornamental Water, in a 
 misty haze; the few villas around it looming vaguely 
 out of the fog; no pedestrians at all; nothing but 
 the familiar, everyday, usual things. . . . Then 
 what impelled him to wander so aimlessly past the 
 Ornamental Water to the Nieuwe Weg? Why 
 were those ponds like tragic pools? Was it not 
 as though pale faces stared out of them, out of 
 those tragic pools, pale, white faces of women, 
 multiplied a hundredfold by strange reflections, 
 eddies of white faces, with dank, plastered hair and 
 dying eyes, which gleamed? . . . 
 
 Yes, yes, he was in a fever. He had been unwise 
 to go out, in that chill morning mist. But it was 
 rotten to be ill . . . and he was never ill. He had 
 never said that he was ill. He was a fellow who 
 could stand some knocking about. But for all that 
 he was feverish. Otherwise he would not have 
 seen the Ornamental Water as a tragic pool . . . 
 with the white faces of mermaids . . . Lord, how 
 cold and shivery the mermaids must feel down there 
 in those chilly, silent pools . . . their dying eyes 
 just gleaming up with a single spark! Were they 
 dead or alive, the chilly mermaids? Were their 
 eyes dying or were they ogling? How strangely 
 they were all reflected, until they became as a 
 thousand mermaids, until their faces blossomed like 
 white flowers of death above the light film of ice 
 
292 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 coating the pool ! Whew ! How chill and cold they 
 were, the poor, dead, ogling mermaids ! . . . 
 
 Dead: were they dead? . . . Were they ogling 
 and laughing . . . with eyes of gold? . . . He 
 shivered as though ice-cold water were trickling 
 down his spine; and he wrapped himself closely in 
 his military great-coat. He felt something hard in 
 his breast-pocket, a square piece of cardboard. Yes, 
 he had been carrying that about for ever so long 
 . . . and yet . . . and yet he couldn't do it. It 
 was the photograph of his children, the latest group, 
 taken for Mamma's last birthday. For weeks he 
 had been carrying it about in his pocket, in an en- 
 velope with an address on it . . . and yet, yet he 
 couldn't send it or hand it in at her door. The 
 portrait of all his children: 
 
 "I expect they're charming kiddies, Gerrit?" 
 
 Gad, how could she have asked it, how could she 
 have asked it, as though to drive him mad? . . . 
 Whew, how cold it was! . . . He looked fear- 
 somely at the mermaids: no, no, there was nothing, 
 nothing but the chilly pool. He was in a high fever, 
 that's what he was . . . Gad, how could she ask 
 such a thing? 
 
 Still . . . still, it was over. She was no longer 
 the girl she was. She was finished with, done for; 
 she had lain in his arms like a corpse, tired of her 
 own kisses, broken by his embrace, white as a sheet, 
 done for. . . . Lord, how rotten, to be done for 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 293 
 
 and still so young, a young woman ! . . . Done for 
 . . . like a defective machine: Lord, how rotten! 
 . . . No, he couldn't give that photograph . . . 
 of all his children . . . to a light-o'-love. . . . He 
 couldn't do it . . .If she had only asked for a 
 necklace or some such gaud ... he would have 
 managed somehow, out of his poverty, to buy her 
 a nice keepsake. . . . Whew, how raw and cold it 
 was! . . . The will-o'-the-wisps of all sorts of 
 images shone in front of him; and, through them, 
 through the flames, the flying Paris express . . . 
 with the compartment, the coffin, Van der Welcke, 
 Constance, two motionless figures. And yet it was 
 bitterly, clammily cold; he was chilled to his mar- 
 row; and a great hairy dragon split its beastly 
 maw to lick that chilled marrow with a fiery tongue. 
 How big the filthy brute had grown! It was no 
 longer inside him, it was all around him now: it 
 filled the air with its wriggling body; it lifted its 
 tail among the wintry boughs; and its tongue of fire 
 licked at Gerrit's marrow; and under that marrow 
 — how strange ! — he was simply freezing. . . . 
 Brrr, brrr ! . . . Lord, how he was shivering, what 
 a fever he was in ! . . . Home . . . home . . . 
 to bed ! . . . Oh, how good to get into bed . . . 
 nice and warm, nice and warm! . . . Still better 
 to be nice and warm in women's arms ... no 
 kissing . . . just sleeping, nice and warm! . . . 
 Brrr, brrr! ... Lord, Lord, Lord, the water 
 
294 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 pouring down his back! Never in his life had he 
 shivered like that! . . . How hard that photo- 
 graph of his children was ! He felt it on his heart 
 like a plank. How long had he been carrying it 
 about with him? Brrr, brrr! He might just as 
 well have let her have it : it was the only thing that 
 she had asked him for. . . . Money he had never 
 given her: only fifteen guilders — brrr, brrr! — fif — 
 brrr 1 — teen — brrr ! — guilders. . . . Come, why not 
 do it now? . . . Just hand it in, at her door — 
 brrr! — and then — brrr! — and then — brrr! — home, 
 to bed . . . nice and warm in bed ! . . . 
 
 The thought suddenly took definite shape and it 
 drove him on along the Kanaal. Here also the 
 mist hung like a haze over the water and the 
 meadows on the other side ; and, shivering and shud- 
 dering under the fiery lick of the dragon's tongue, 
 Gerrit hurried to the Frederikstraat. That was 
 where she lived, that was where he had been so 
 often lately, until that last time when she had begged 
 him not to come back again and to give her, as a 
 keepsake, the portrait . . . the portrait of his 
 children. He would leave it now at the door. He 
 had taken it in his hand, because it lay like a plank 
 Dn his heart; and her name was on the envelope. 
 . . . Brrr! . . . Hand it in quickly and then — 
 brrr! — nice and warm in bed. 
 
 The landlady opened the door. 
 
 u Would you please give this to the young lady? " 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 295 
 
 He meant to shove the envelope into the woman's 
 hand and then — brrr, brrr! — home ... to bed 
 . . . warm . . . warm. . . . 
 
 " Don't you know, then, where the young lady 
 is, sir? " 
 
 14 Where she is?" 
 
 14 Where she's gone to? " 
 
 "Has she gone?" 
 
 44 She didn't come home yesterday afternoon. I 
 don't say I'm anxious; but still she always used to 
 come home of an evening. She owes me some 
 money, but she hasn't run away ... for every- 
 thing has been left as it was, upstairs: her clothes, 
 her bits of jewellery. ..." 
 
 44 Perhaps she's out of town. ..." 
 
 " Perhaps . . . only she's taken nothing with 
 her." 
 
 11 Perhaps, all the same ..." 
 
 44 Yes . . . it's possible. ... So I'm to give 
 her the envelope . . . when she comes?" 
 
 44 Yes. ... Or no, no, give it to me . . . I'll 
 see to it myself. ... Or no, you'd better give it 
 her when she comes back. . . . No, after all, I'll 
 see to it. ..." 
 
 He stuffed the envelope into his pocket, went off. 
 Brrr! It lay on his chest like a plank. . . . Where 
 could she be gone to? Where was Pauline gone to? 
 Had she gone out of town? . . . Why hadn't he 
 simply left the envelope? Well, you never knew: 
 
296 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 if she didn't come back, it would be there, with the 
 photograph of his children. . . . She'd probably 
 cleared out. . . . Yes, she had probably cleared 
 out . . . with her rich young fellow. . . . Well, 
 he, whoever he was, wouldn't remember her as he 
 remembered her in the old days. . . . Brrrrrr! 
 . . . Lord, Lord, how he was shivering! . . . 
 Oh, to be in bed ! . . . When could Constance and 
 Van der Welcke be back? . . . Oh, the express! 
 . . . Oh, the coffin! . . . Oh, the fiery lick of 
 the dragon, whose great, hairy body filled the whole 
 grey sky with its wriggling! . . . 
 
 He turned down the Javastraat: he wanted to 
 hurry home; his teeth were chattering; he felt as 
 if ice-cold water was dripping from him, while the 
 confounded brute sucked his marrow with long, 
 fiery licks of its tongue. Near the Schelpkade, he 
 met a little group of four or five policemen: rough 
 words sounded loud; their words sounded so loud 
 through the unreality of the mist that they woke 
 him out of a walking sleep, out of his dream of the 
 dragon-beast with the stiff bristles : 
 
 " She was quite blue," he heard one of them say. 
 
 They were striding along, talking loudly, as if 
 something startling had happened. Gerrit suddenly 
 stood rooted to the ground: 
 
 " Who was blue? " he asked, in a hoarse bellow. 
 
 The policeman saluted: 
 
 "Sir?" 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 297 
 
 "Who was blue?" bellowed Gerrit. 
 
 " A woman, sir. ... A woman who drowned 
 herself, last night, in the Kanaal. ..." 
 
 44 A woman? " 
 
 44 Yes, sir. My mate here was the first to see the 
 body, when it was floating with the face out of the 
 water. Then he came and told me; and we went 
 and fetched the drag. It was a young woman. ..." 
 
 44 And she was quite blue, you say? . . ." 
 
 44 Yes, sir, and all bloated: she'd swallowed a lot 
 of water. . . . We took the body to the cemetery 
 near the Woods and we're on our way to the com- 
 missary." 
 
 44 To the cemetery? ..." 
 
 44 Yes, sir. ..." 
 
 The men saluted: 
 
 44 Sir." 
 
 44 She was quite blue," Gerrit repeated to him- 
 self. 
 
 And he hurried on at a jog-trot. Brrr, brrr ! Oh, 
 to be in bed ... he wanted to get to bed! He 
 was as cold as that woman must have been last 
 night, floating in the water until her face blossomed 
 up like a phantom flower of death. . . . Brrr! Icy 
 cold water : wasn't he walking beside icy cold water 
 twenty minutes ago? Hadn't it seemed to him that 
 the whole tame landscape, in its wreath of dunes, 
 had melted away into a hazy unreality, with those 
 ghostly villas and trees . . . and the ponds like 
 
298 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 tragic pools, in which were mirrored the motionless, 
 low, grey skies, full of the wriggling of his giant 
 worm . . . until the faces of mermaids, with wet, 
 plastered hair and gold-gleaming eyes had risen up 
 like dead flowers, water-lilies of death, and ogled 
 him with the last quiver of their dying eyes? . . . 
 Oh, the Paris express! . . . Oh, what a fever he 
 was in! . . . He must go quick to bed now . . . 
 but, before he went, he would just call in at the 
 Kerkhoflaan and ask if there was no telegram 
 from Van der Welcke and Constance. . . . But 
 how cold he felt and how he was shivering: brrr, 
 brrr! . . . 
 
 It was as though his legs moved independently 
 of his will, propelled by alien instincts, by energies 
 outside himself; for his legs moved healthily, 
 sturdily and quickly, with the click-clack of his sword 
 knocking against his thigh, while, above those sturdy 
 legs, his body shivered in the clutch of the monster, 
 which licked and licked with fiery dabs of its tongue. 
 And, above his body, towered his head, colossally 
 large, with vertigos whirling like tangible circles 
 around the huge head in which he seemed to be 
 carrying a heavy lump of brains. From it there shot 
 forth the strangest dreams; and these dreams, to- 
 gether with the contortions of the monster, filled 
 the whole grey sky until everything became one 
 great dream: all that town of unknown streets; 
 houses; people who bowed and nodded to him; a 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 299 
 
 couple of hussars, who saluted; a couple of officers 
 whom he knew and to whom he waved: 
 
 " Bon jour! " 
 
 " Bon jour! " 
 
 And, in this singular dreaming and waking and 
 suffering and walking, he knew things which nobody 
 had told him, knew them for certain: knew that a 
 woman had drowned herself last night in Paris, in 
 the lake in the Bois; knew that Van der Welcke and 
 Constance had gone to fetch her body and were 
 now bringing it back to him in a rushing express- 
 train, but a train that came rushing through the 
 sky on whirling aerial rails, cutting through the con- 
 tortions of a huge snake-thing which wriggled round 
 the clouds and filled the whole sky. Oh, how full 
 the sky was! For round the snake wriggled like 
 cockscrews the whirling rails, all aslant and askew, 
 tangled into iron spirals; and the express, in which 
 Van der Welcke and Constance sat with a coffin 
 between them containing a woman's blue corpse, 
 had to follow all those turns and came rushing and 
 puffing along them, constantly curving round its own 
 track and covering them a thousand times, as though 
 that aerial express were climbing and descending 
 endless wriggling corkscrews. Then the rails and 
 the dragon-coils were all tangled together; and the 
 rails became dragon-coils; and the express flew and 
 flew along the twisting dragon-thing, flew along 
 every curve of its tail. The train became a toy- 
 
3 oo THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 train; the dragon was enormous and filled the 
 firmament; the town underneath was a toy-town; 
 and Gerrit walked and walked with hurrying legs; 
 and his head towered colossally large; and his 
 brains became like heavy clouds: he saw his lump 
 of brains massing in curling clouds outside him. 
 Nevertheless he was propelled by instincts and 
 energies of assured consciousness, for, when he 
 turned down the Kerkhoflaan and left the Kerkhof, 
 the cemetery, behind him, on one side, he knew 
 quite well that there lay in it a blue woman who 
 had been dragged out of the Kanaal by policemen; 
 but he also knew, with equal certainty, that, up in 
 the sky above, the express flew and flew over the 
 body of his dragon and along its every curve; and 
 he als i knew that he was now standing outside Van 
 der Welcke's villa: so small a house, such a toy- 
 house that Gerrit's head stuck out above the roof 
 of it and that his own voice sounded to him like 
 distant thunder as he asked the person who opened 
 the door: 
 
 "Telegram? From your master and mistress? 
 Telegram? " 
 
 He did not at once recognize who was at the door 
 nor at once understand the reply : 
 
 "Telegram? Telegram?" he repeated. 
 
 And the thunder of his voice sounded distant and 
 dull compared with the rattle of the express-train 
 right through the sky. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 301 
 
 u What do you say? " he now repeated. " What 
 do you say? " 
 
 14 Uncle, are you ill?" asked Addie. 
 
 44 111? 111? No, I'm not ill, my boy. But . . . 
 telegram ? Telegram ? " 
 
 44 Papa and Mamma will be back to-morrow morn- 
 ing; they're bringing Henri's body with them, Uncle; 
 and they're bringing Emilie; and I've been to the 
 undertaker's ... to arrange to have the body 
 fetched at the station at once. . . . I've seen to 
 everything. . . . And I must go to all the uncles 
 now: to Uncle Karel and Uncle Saetzema. . . . 
 I've telegraphed to Otto; I don't know if Aunt 
 Bertha will come or not. . . . It's very sad, Uncle, 
 and it'll be very sad for Grandmamma when she 
 knows everything: Henri . . . Henri was mur- 
 dered; he was drunk, it seems; and ..." 
 
 44 He drowned himself and he was quite blue? 
 n 
 
 44 No, Uncle, he was murdered: stabbed with a 
 dagger. . . . Mamma is bearing up, Papa writes, 
 but she is terribly overwrought ... on Emilie's 
 account also. Emilie is quite beside herself. Papa 
 fortunately is keeping calm: he is doing all that has 
 to be done; he has been to the legation. . . . But, 
 Uncle, you're not at all well; you're shivering; 
 you've caught a chill. Oughtn't you to go home 
 and get into bed? ..." 
 
 44 Yes, yes, I'm -going home." 
 
3 o2 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Then you'll be better in the morning. ..." 
 
 " Yes, of course, of course ... I shall be bet- 
 ter. 
 
 " Then will you come to the station too, early 
 to-morrow morning, and meet the train from 
 Paris?" 
 
 " To-morrow morning early . . . yes, certainly, 
 certainly. . . ." 
 
 " You oughtn't to have gone out." 
 
 " No, no . . . but I'm going home now . . . 
 going to bed. . . . Good-bye. To-morrow morning 
 early." 
 
 " Good-bye, Uncle." 
 
 Gerrit went away. 
 
 Above the Woods, on one side, the low sky sank 
 lower and lower, heavy with grey clouds, such heavy 
 grey clouds that they did not seem light enough to 
 continue hovering there, seemed bound to fall . . . 
 and to Gerrit they were, in the dim hues of his 
 fevered vision, like purple pieces falling from the 
 dragon's body, which was cut up by the express. 
 The whole sky was full of purple dragon's blood; 
 and it now streamed down like pouring rain. The 
 blood streamed in a violent downpour and appeared 
 intent upon drowning everything. . . . 
 
 Gerrit had now turned in the direction of the 
 cemetery; and, impelled by instincts and forces out- 
 side himself, he walked in and, vaguely, asked the 
 porter some question, he did not know what. The 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 303 
 
 man seemed to understand him, however, and led 
 the way: Gerrit followed . . . brrr, brrr! . . . 
 Nevertheless, it was as though his fever abated: 
 and, in that sudden cooling, he all at once felt and 
 knew the truth. It must be so: it was she. The 
 water, the policemen, she. Who else could it be? 
 . . . He walked on, following the porter. . . . 
 
 On either side, the silent graves, with their tomb- 
 stones, the lettering blurred and melancholy in the 
 rain. . . . Yonder, on the left, the family-grave. 
 Gerrit recognized it in the purple rain of dragon's 
 blood: a sombre mausoleum of brick, like a small 
 house; and it looked larger to him than the toy- 
 villa of just now. What a huge building it was, that 
 family-tomb of theirs! It was like a great palace: 
 it would be able to contain all their dead within 
 its walls. For the present, Papa was living alone 
 there, quietly; but he was waiting, waiting for all 
 of them, waiting for all of them . . . until the 
 shadows had deepened into thick darkness around 
 all of them and they came to him, in that huge 
 sepulchral palace. . . . Lord, Lord, how small he 
 was now : he was walking like a dwarf past the tomb, 
 which stuck its steeple into the clouds, high as a 
 cathedral. . . . 
 
 What was that strangeness in the air? . . ,. 
 How long had he been walking? . . . Was life no 
 longer ordinary? . . . Were there not, as usual, 
 houses, people, things: the barracks ... his child- 
 
3 o 4 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 ren . . . Adeline? . . . Who was that man who 
 went before and led the way? . . . Was it a real 
 man, that porter? ... Or was it a dead man, 
 walking? . . . Wasn't everything dead here? . . . 
 Was it morning or was it evening? . . . Was it 
 life or death? . . . Was he alive or was he dead? 
 . . . Brrr, how cold he felt again ! . . . Was that 
 the cold of death? . . . What was this building 
 which they now entered? . . . What a huge place! 
 . . . Was it a church or was it only a tomb ? . . . 
 Where was he and why was he alone, alone with 
 that dead man, that ghost showing him the way? 
 . . . Where on earth was Constance and where 
 was Van der Welcke? . . . Hadn't they brought 
 it back from Paris, Pauline's blue body? . . . Was 
 that Pauline? . . . 
 
 The coffin was open, covered only with a sheet; 
 he lifted it, the sheet. . . . Brrr, brrr, how cold 
 he was! . . . He remembered: Paris; yes, yes, he 
 remembered: Paris; poor fellow; poor Henri! . . . 
 But this, this wasn't Henri. . . . Who was it, who 
 could it be? . . . Wasn't it Henri the policemen 
 found? . . . What had become of those police- 
 men? . . . When was it he met some policemen? 
 ... It was years since he met those police- 
 men . . . and her body had turned quite blue. 
 . . . What was the matter now? . . . What 
 was that porter saying, hovering round him like a 
 ghost? . . ... 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 305 
 
 Yes, everything was dead, for the shivering cold 
 which he felt could only be the cold shiver of 
 death. . . . 
 
 Blue, was she blue? . . . The man lifted a corner 
 of the sheet: Gerrit saw a face, pale as that of a 
 mermaid whose features had blossomed up out of 
 the icy stillness of a tragic pool. . . . The eyes 
 were open. . . . What sad golden eyes those were! 
 . . . Had they not always laughed . . . with 
 golden gleams of mockery? . . . Then why did he 
 now for the first time see them weeping ... in 
 death ... see them mournfully staring ... in 
 death? . . . Had they never laughed? . . . Had 
 they always gazed mournfully . . . even though 
 they gleamed golden and mocked ... or seemed 
 to . . . seemed to? . . . Then what was real? . . . 
 Was everything . . . was everything dead then? 
 . . . Did he . . . dead . . . want to bring her 
 his gift . . . what she had asked for so strangely 
 . . . the portrait . . . the portrait of his chil- 
 dren? . . . He had it here: he felt it lying on his 
 chest . . . hard and heavy . . . like a plank, like 
 a plank ... He had it here. . . . 
 
 "Gerrit, dear, are you coming ?" 
 
 Who was calling him from so very far away? 
 . . . Wasn't it his sister? . . . His favourite 
 sister? . . . 
 
 " Come along, Gerrit I M 
 
 Who were those calling him away from that 
 
3 o6 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 woman? . . . What were those voices, which he 
 vaguely recognized? . . . Was it not the voice of 
 his favourite sister, was it not the voice of her hus- 
 band, of the two of them, who had brought Pauline's 
 body back from Paris? . . . Yes, he recognized 
 them, it was . . . 
 
 " Come on, Gerrit, old man, you're not well. 
 . . . What are you doing here, beside this woman, 
 beside this corpse? She's all blue, drowned in the 
 lake in the Bois de Boulogne. . . . Did you know 
 the woman? ... 
 
 r 
 
 Yes, yes, he had known the woman. . . ... 
 
 " Come along, old chap ! " 
 
 "Gerrit, dear, won't you come?" 
 
 " Constance," whispered Gerrit, " you brought 
 her from Paris ..." 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir?" asked the porter. 
 
 "Yes, there she lies, there she lies, dead. . . ." 
 
 " Gerrit, come away ! " cried the voices. 
 
 " Lay your flowers over her now ! . . . Con- 
 stance, lay your flowers over her. . . . She is lying 
 so cold and all alone . . . and it is all so big 
 here . . . big as a church . . . she is lying . . . 
 as if in a cold, damp church. . . . Lay flowers 
 beside her ..." 
 
 " What do you say, sir? " 
 
 " Yes . . . lay flowers beside her . . . lay 
 flowers beside her . . . Constance . . ..." 
 
 "Won't you come away now?" 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 307 
 
 4 * Yes, yes, I'm coming. . . ." 
 
 There, there she lay . . . covered all over, with 
 the sheet. She was nothing but a blue, motionless 
 woman's shape . . . under a sheet. Now . . . 
 flowers lay over the sheet: all the white flowers of 
 his imagination. Now his fingers tore into little 
 pieces the plank which he carried on his heart and 
 strewed them in between the flowers: into such little, 
 little pieces that they were as the petals of flowers 
 . . . and nothing more . . . over the woman. . . . 
 
 The voices called him. 
 
 41 Yes, yes, I'm coming . . . I'm coming . . ." 
 
 The voices lured him home, to bed; and he 
 jogged on through the streets raining with dragon's 
 blood. . . . 
 
 When he reached home, Adeline at once sent for 
 the doctor. ... It was typhoid fever. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Next morning, in a mist, a drizzly mist, the 
 relations met at the railway-station: Otto van 
 Naghel; Karel; Van Saetzema; Uncle Ruyvenaer, 
 just back from India; Paul; Addie. They moved 
 about, in the waiting-room, on the platform, with 
 gloomy faces and upturned coat-collars, waiting 
 for the train, which was late, which would not 
 arrive for another quarter of an hour or twenty 
 minutes. 
 
 " Does Grandmamma know about it yet? " Uncle 
 Ruyvenaer asked Addie. 
 
 " No, Uncle. No one liked to tell her. I believe 
 the uncles and aunts would really prefer to keep it 
 from her altogether." 
 
 " That's impossible." 
 
 " I think it would be very difficult, Uncle. Grand- 
 mamma might hear it from an outsider. . . . She 
 has friends who call to see her." 
 
 " Is Emilie coming? " 
 
 " Yes, Uncle. She'll stay with us." 
 
 "Is Uncle Gerrit very ill?" 
 
 " Yes, Uncle, very ill indeed." 
 
 "Does Grandmamma know he's ill?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 308 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 309 
 
 " The children are now all out of the house, aren't 
 they? We've got Alex and Guy with us." 
 
 11 And we have Adeletje, Gerdy and Constance. 
 The three little ones are at Otto's: Louise came 
 and fetched them. Marietje is with Aunt Adol- 
 phine." 
 
 11 Has Aunt Adeline any one to help her? " 
 
 " There are two male nurses, Uncle. Uncle 
 Gerrit is very violent in his delirium." 
 
 44 Oughtn't the train to be here soon? " 
 
 " It's overdue now." 
 
 44 It's a very sad affair. And how people will 
 talk ! Yes, how people will talk 1 Lord, Lord, how 
 they're going to talk ! " 
 
 44 Here comes the train, Uncle." 
 
 The train steamed slowly into the station, like a 
 grey ghost of a train through the ghostly, drizzling 
 mist; and the waiting relations saw Constance, Van 
 der Welcke and Emilie get out, Emilie leaning 
 heavily upon Constance. Then came the dreary, 
 dreary task of taking possession of the coffin. The 
 hearse was waiting outside. And it all went as in 
 a dream, in the ghostly, drizzling mist. . . . 
 
 44 How people will talk!" Uncle Ruyvenaer 
 whispered to Karel and Van Saetzema, with whom 
 he was sitting in the second coach. 
 
 44 Yes, it's a damned rotten business." 
 
 44 It's not over-respectable ..." 
 
 44 Having a nephew who becomes a clown . . ," 
 
310 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 44 And then, it seems, goes and gets murdered in 
 Paris . . ." 
 " For a girl?" 
 
 44 Yes . . . some obscure story about a girl . . . 
 in Paris." 
 
 " I thought he had committed suicide? " 
 44 We really don't know anything. Constance 
 wrote no particulars." 
 
 " In any case, it's not over-respectable." 
 14 1 call it a damned rotten business." 
 44 Constance has gone on ahead with Emilie." 
 " Yes. What a sight Emilie looked! " 
 44 Very odd, that sister and brother." 
 44 Yes, it was because of him that she left her 
 husband. And now — no doubt through his own im- 
 prudence — stabbed, I suppose . . . ? " 
 44 Unless he committed suicide." 
 " Van Raven, after all, was a decent fellow." 
 "Van Raven? I believe you! Van Raven was 
 a very decent fellow." 
 
 44 Those young Van Naghels never had a sensible 
 bringing-up. ..." 
 
 44 No, I bring my boys up very differently." 
 44 Ah, but then they're fine boys! " 
 " Is Van der Welcke in the first coach? " 
 14 Yes, with Otto, Paul and Addie." 
 14 Then why did they put us in the second 
 coach?" 
 
 44 Perhaps it was a mistake." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 311 
 
 " 1 daresay, but it's not the thing. Uncle ought 
 to be in the first coach. " 
 
 " Yes; and you too, Karel." 
 
 " Yes; and you too, Saetzema, of course." 
 
 11 Well ... I daresay it's a mistake. The thing 
 wasn't arranged. ..." 
 
 "No; but when Van der Welcke has to arrange 
 a thing . . . ! " 
 
 " It was that young bounder who arranged 
 things." 
 
 "Addie?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Oh, so that young bounder arranged things ! " 
 
 "Look here, what are we to say to Mamma?" 
 
 " Well, I don't intend to mention it. For that 
 matter, I know nothing." 
 
 " Nor I. The women had better do it." 
 
 " But they're too much upset." 
 
 11 The best thing will be not to say anything." 
 
 " Yes, it's best not to say anything to Mamma." 
 
 "Lord, what a day! . . . And to have to ride 
 for an hour in this weather at a foot's pace . . . 
 behind the body of an undergraduate who has been 
 sent down from Leiden and must needs run away 
 to Paris with his sister and become a circus- 
 clown ..." 
 
 " And go getting murdered into the bargain ! But 
 we mustn't tell anybody that. No, no, we won't 
 speak about it. We'll merely say that he was 
 
3 i2 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 taken ill. After all, it's a rotten incident . . .] 
 for us. 7 ' 
 
 " Yes, it's very rotten for us." 
 
 11 Lord, Lord, how people will jabber! " 
 
 44 Of course they will." 
 
 44 Of course they will." 
 
 " If things con-tin-ue like this . . . / shall leave 
 the Hague," said Karel. " Ca-teau said so too" 
 
 He copied his wife's voice : he always copied her 
 voice, unconsciously, when he talked about her. 
 
 " Are we nearly there? " 
 
 44 No such luck!" 
 
 "Lord, what a day! . . ." 
 
 " How people will talk! ..." 
 
 The carriage containing Constance had driven on 
 ahead of the procession. Emilie leant against her, 
 feebly and listlessly, without speaking or hearing. 
 When they approached the Kerkhoflaan, Emilie 
 said: 
 
 " Auntie . . . it's just stupid chance. ..." 
 
 44 What, dear?" 
 
 44 Is this life? My life has never been anything 
 but stupid chance ! The little pleasure I had ... 
 and the sorrow . . . was all stupid chance! I am 
 now so miserable; and it's all . . . all stupid 
 chance! . . . Oh, Auntie, I shall never be able to 
 live . . . not now, when Henri's death will always 
 . . . will always haunt me like an accusing ghost! 
 . . . Auntie ... do other people have so much 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 313 
 
 stupid chance in their lives? . . . If I hadn't gone 
 to Paris! ... If Henri had not ... oh, I can't 
 say it, I can't say it! Auntie, we shall never know! 
 It's too awful, what happened! I can never tell you 
 . . . what I think! " 
 
 " My darling, I suspect it! " 
 
 44 Oh, it's awful, awful ! Uncle suspects it too 
 ... so they do at the legation. . . . It's awful, 
 awful! . . . He's disappeared: Eduard, I mean. 
 ... It was a mere accident: we were walking to- 
 gether, Henri and I, when we . . . when we met 
 Eduard. . . . They looked at each other. . . . 
 They hated each other. . . . Then he walked on 
 . . . but we met him again later. . . . Then, in 
 the evening, when I came home . . . and found 
 Henri . . . lying in his blood . . . ! " 
 
 She flung herself back with a scream. 
 
 44 Auntie, Auntie, we know nothing! . . . But 
 the suspicion will always be with me! I shall al- 
 ways see it like that! Oh, Auntie, Auntie, help 
 me . . . and keep me with you always, al- 
 ways! ..." 
 
 She closed her eyes in Constance' arms, too weak 
 to face her life, which had changed from fantastic 
 humour into tragedy. . . . The carriage suddenly 
 stopped, in the Kerkhoflaan; Truitje opened the 
 door; Constance made a sign to her to ask no ques- 
 tions. She herself, on the other hand, asked: 
 
 44 How is Mr. Gerrit doing? M 
 
3 i4 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Not at all well, ma'am." 
 
 "Where are the children?" 
 
 "They're in the dining-room, ma'am, playing: 
 it's easier there for me to keep an eye on them." 
 
 Constance opened the door of the dining-room, 
 with her arm round Emilie. She saw Gerdy and 
 Constant; but, just as in the drawing-room at home, 
 they had hidden behind a sofa standing aslant, 
 where they were quietly playing at father and 
 mother, worshipping each other like a little husband 
 and wife, two small birds in a little nest. 
 
 " Peek-a-boo ! " said Constance, mechanically. 
 
 They were quiet at first and then burst into 
 chuckles, crept out, kissed Auntie and Emilie: 
 
 "Auntie," asked Gerdy, "is Papa ill?" 
 
 " Yes, darling." 
 
 " Will Papa get better very soon? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, dear!" 
 
 " Are we staying with you long? " 
 
 " No, not very long, darling." 
 
 And Constance did not know why, but she sud- 
 denly saw the children staying on; and this vision 
 was mingled with a vague impression of the gloomy 
 house at Driebergen. She thought that her brain 
 must be very tired in her head, that she was sleeping 
 while awake, dreaming as she moved about. Every- 
 thing before her was confused: that terrible day in 
 Paris; Henri's body; the mystery about the whole 
 affair, with the dark, half-uttered suspicions; the 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 315 
 
 formalities; the legation; the journey back: oh, she 
 was dead-tired, dead-tired! . . . Oh, that coffin, 
 that coffin ! . . . And in the middle of it all a letter 
 from Addie: Uncle Gerrit seriously ill; the children 
 ordered out of the house; he was taking Gerdy and 
 Constant and giving them his room: he was sure 
 Mamma would approve. . . . Oh, how dead-tired, 
 how dead-tired she was! . . . 
 
 11 Auntie/' said Constant, " Truitje has been so 
 kind: she made us a lovely rice-pudding. ..." 
 
 44 But we'd rather be at home ! " said Gerdy. 
 
 And the children suddenly began to cry. Con- 
 stance took them in her arms, pressed them to her: 
 
 44 You would be just a little in Mamma's way," 
 she said, with a dead voice. 44 Mamma must look 
 after Papa. ..." 
 
 And she dropped almost fainting into a chair. 
 
 44 Aunt Constance ! " Emilie sobbed. 44 Aunt 
 Constance, let me ... let me .. . stay with you ! 
 . . . Let me stay with you! . . . Where . . . 
 where could I go?" 
 
 She sobbed wildly, huddled on the floor against 
 Constance' knees. The children were also crying. 
 Constance had put one arm round Emilie and held 
 the children in the other. It was very gloomy out 
 of doors. Indoors, life's tragedy lay heavy upon 
 them. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 The gigantic beast wriggled through the sky, from 
 end to end of the vast sky. The beast wobbled the 
 point of its tail slowly up and down over the earth : 
 in the room, above the bed, which had become a 
 narrow coffin; and, commencing with that wobbling 
 tail, the beast's body wound up and up, filling the 
 room and the house with one mighty contortion of 
 monstrous dragon's scales and sweeping away with 
 its tangible reality all the dreamy unreality of the 
 room and the house, the ceilings and roofs. With 
 thousands of legs the beast humped its sinuous body 
 over the chimney-stacks and church-steeples, slung 
 itself wriggling round the church-steeples and 
 chimney-stacks like a festoon of scales, which then 
 turned into a long, dense chain of clouds, filling 
 the sky with great cloud-eddies, which whirled and 
 whirled over the town and through the sky, from 
 end to end of the vast sky. And the monstrous 
 beast now lifted its long crocodile's jaws out of its 
 own winding clouds; and its eyes belched forth fire 
 like volcanoes; and shafts of flame shot like 
 lightning-flashes from its darting tongue: shafts 
 darting to such a length from the very high expanse, 
 right up there, up there, from the sky above the 
 
 316 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 317 
 
 clouds, that they shot through the man in one second 
 and retreated and hid themselves again in the abyss 
 of the dragon's mouth, from such a height indeed 
 that they shot quicker than lightning right down to 
 his marrow, licking it until it dried up; and, after 
 each burning lick, after each dab of fire, the 
 lightning-quick, darting flame, the miles-long shaft 
 withdrew to its own source and birthplace in the 
 deep funnel of the fiery jaws. And the martyred 
 man shivered under the dabbing lick; and in his 
 shivering he raised himself high as though upon 
 waves of trembling, as though his fever were a 
 stormy sea that bore him away from his bed high 
 above the clouds, the clouds that were the windings 
 of the beast's body. . . . And, as he rose, as the 
 man rose, the beast set up all its stiff bristles, which 
 stuck out between its scales like trees, stuck them 
 up and drew them in again, until the whole sky, 
 the whole vast stretch of sky, was all the time 
 growing full of tree-trunks, straight forests of 
 dragon's bristles which swarmed and vanished, 
 swarmed and vanished as the beast put them out 
 or drew them in. . . . And the point of the beast's 
 bristly, scaly tail flicked with such oppressive weight 
 upon the chest of the man who lay in the bed which 
 was a coffin that the man moaned and groaned and 
 tried with both hands to lift that heavy, flicking tail 
 from his crushed heart. . . . But the beast grinned 
 with its cavernous jaws, shot fire from the volcanoes 
 
318 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 of its eyes, darted swiftly up and down the miles- 
 long fiery trail of its all-penetrating tongue, split into 
 myriad needles of fire, and with long voluptuous 
 licks sucked away the man's marrow, until the man, 
 all shivering and shaking, was scorched and roasted 
 and shrivelled within. . . . The beast left him no 
 blood, licked up his marrow and blood and poured 
 fire into him instead. When the beast smacked its 
 lips voluptuously, when it greedily swallowed the 
 blood and the marrow, when the man thought that 
 he was dying, then the beast pricked him with a 
 needle of its fiery tongue and goaded him to 
 shivering-point; and the man shivered and raised 
 himself high upon the waves with his shivering, as 
 though his fever were a stormy sea. . . . 
 
 Thus the man lay twisting and tossing, till he 
 put out his hands towards the demon and tried to 
 fight the beast with human hands. . . . And it 
 seemed to him as if he were flinging his hands, the 
 hands of a brave man and a martyr and a hero, 
 around the beast; and, while the stormy sea, the 
 sky, which was churned into billows by the contor- 
 tions of the beast, bore him up and up and up, he 
 fought and wrestled with the ever more violently 
 writhing and coiling beast; and the beast humped its 
 way through the sombre universe of clouds, shoot- 
 ing out its thousands of feet; its head was now 
 here, now there; its tail flicked now high, now low; 
 the beast lashed earth and sky; the beast became 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 319 
 
 one vast, dizzying whirl, with town, spires, roofs 
 and chimney-stacks all whirling in it; the bed which 
 was a coffin was now here, now there, now high, 
 now low; and he fought and wrestled and twisted 
 round the beast and the beast round him; and he 
 would not let himself be conquered by the beast. 
 Until the beast from out of the volcano of its eyes 
 and the abyss of its jaws belched so much fire that 
 the sky was a sea of blood-fire wherein a hell of 
 faces flamed — faces of women and children: naked 
 women with eyes of gold; bright children with 
 flaxen hair — like a sudden flowering of tortured af- 
 fections, of tortured passions, all blossoming up in 
 the blood-fire into faces of laughing and crying 
 children and ogling siren-mermaids; and through 
 it all and through them all the man writhed and 
 wrestled with the wrestling, writhing beast, which 
 could not free itself from him, even as he could not 
 free himself from the beast. . . . 
 
 44 Gerrit, dear Gerrit," voices sounded, soft- 
 murmuring, earthly voices, voices from far below, 
 11 Gerrit, dear, are you coming? " 
 
 And he answered: 
 
 "Yes . . . yes . . . I'm coming. ..." 
 
 And he, the man heaving up and down, down and 
 up, on the mighty swaying of the storm, down and 
 up, up and down, he, this heaving, wrestling man, 
 one with the beast and the beast one with him, saw 
 a woman, between the faces of children and women, 
 
3 2o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 saw two women, two women belonging to him: his 
 wife and his sister. But in between them crept a 
 third woman; and her eyes mocked like golden eyes 
 of mockery . . . until suddenly they ceased to mock 
 and died away in sadness, in unutterable sadness, 
 as though really they had always been sad and had 
 never mocked or laughed. 
 
 " Gerrit . . . dear Gerrit . . . are you com- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Yes . . . yes . . . I'm coming. ..." 
 " He's delirious," whispered Constance. 
 
 The room around the sick man had now become 
 as glass, but not transparent glass. For he no 
 longer, through the walls of the room, saw the 
 universe and the beast: he saw nothing now save 
 the room; but so brittle was that room, so brittle 
 all the things which it contained that it seemed to 
 be all of glass — the room, the bed and he — all 
 glass, all brittle glass, which a single incautious 
 movement might shiver into dust. Yes, now that 
 the beast had sucked up all his marrow with that 
 voluptuous licking, it had let him go, left him lying 
 exhausted on his bed; and he lay, his glass body lay 
 powerless to move ; and, now that, after a long time, 
 he had laboriously opened his eyes and saw his room 
 around him as glass and felt himself as glass, he 
 knew that the beast would no longer dart the fiery 
 shafts of his tongue, because it had eaten the whole 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 321 
 
 of him up. His body lay lifeless, like a glass husk; 
 and he asked himself if he wasn't dead. He did not 
 know for certain that he was alive. He saw that 
 the room was very quiet; beside him, in the glass 
 atmosphere of his room, sat a man, who also seemed 
 made of brittle glass; and the man sat motionless: 
 he seemed to be sitting with a book in his hand, 
 reading in the glassy twilight that filtered through 
 the close-drawn window-curtains. . . . 
 
 The sick man laboriously closed his eyes again; 
 and it seemed to him that he sank away very slowly, 
 into a great, downy abyss, lower and lower, a very 
 depth of down, into which he sank and went on 
 sinking, sank and went on sinking. . . . 
 
 11 There's less fever now," said the military 
 doctor. " He's asleep." 
 
 " Is he out of danger? " asked the pale little wife, 
 who sat with Constance' arms around her. 
 
 M Yes. . . . You would be wise to take a rest, 
 mevrouw." 
 
 "I can't ... I can't. ..." 
 
 11 Go and get some sleep, Adeline," said Con- 
 stance. " I'll stay in the room with Gerrit; and the 
 nurse will keep a good watch." 
 
 " He looked round for a moment very peacefully, 
 before he fell asleep," said the male nurse by 
 Gerrit's bedside. 
 
 "Go and get some sleep, Adeline. . . ." 
 
322 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 How long the sick man sank and sank and sank 
 in the downy abyss no one knew. ... At last he 
 opened his eyes again and looked into the room 
 and saw the quiet attendant sitting on a chair at 
 the foot of his bed, where he also saw a woman 
 standing: 
 
 " Constance," the sick man murmured. 
 
 He tried to smile because he knew her, but he 
 felt too weak to smile. 
 
 . Another woman appeared beside the first: he 
 knew her too, but it was as though she were 
 dead. . . . 
 
 " Line," murmured the sick man. 
 
 " He knows us," whispered Constance. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Gerrit made progress every day. He was now so 
 much better that he sat in a big chair, sat dozing 
 until he sank away in the downy abyss and fell 
 asleep in his chair. He was now so much better 
 that he was able to speak a few words to the two 
 women and the doctor and the nurse; and his first 
 question was: 
 
 M The children . . . ? " 
 
 He had understood that they were not there and 
 that he would not see them just yet. 
 
 He was now so much better that he remembered 
 his recent life and asked: 
 
 " Pauline . . . ? " 
 
 And he saw that they did not understand. Why 
 they did not understand he failed to see, for, when 
 he asked after the children or Mamma, they always 
 understood and answered kindly, telling him that 
 Mamma and the children were well. 
 
 Then he asked: 
 
 " Your husband, Constance . .. . ? Your boy 
 . ?" 
 
 And Constance answered that they were well. 
 
 Then he asked: 
 
 " Pauline . . . ? " 
 
 333 
 
324 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 And she gave a gentle, smiling nod. 
 
 Yes, of course, she understood now, told him that 
 Pauline was well. 
 
 Yes, yes, he remembered: Mamma, the children, 
 Pauline. . . . They were as ghosts in his empty 
 memory, looming up and making him ask questions 
 of the women around him. But, apart from that, 
 his memory was one vast emptiness, like an empty 
 universe, now that the beast had vanished into space 
 . . . into nothingness . . . into nothingness. . . . 
 
 He had no marrow left : the beast would not eat 
 him up any more. There was no centipede rooting 
 at his carcase now. Lord, Lord, how done he felt, 
 how utterly done for! . . . 
 
 He now recognized his doctor: 
 
 " Ah, is that you, Alsma ? " 
 
 " Well, Van Lowe, do you recognize me? " 
 
 "Yes, yes. . . . Didn't I recognize you be- 
 fore?" 
 
 " No . . . once or twice you didn't know who I 
 was. . . . Well, you'll soon be all right again now. 
 You're getting better every day. ..." 
 
 u Yes, yes . . . but . . ." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I feel very queer . . . damned queer. . . ." 
 
 "Yes, you're a bit weak still. ..." 
 
 "A bit weak? . . ." 
 
 He gave a grin. He felt his arm, thought it 
 odd that he couldn't find his biceps: 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 325 
 
 44 Where's the thing got to?" he asked. u Is it 
 gone? . . ." 
 
 44 No, you'll get your strength back all right. 
 ... It doesn't take long, once you're well again." 
 
 44 Oh, it doesn't take long?" 
 
 44 No, you'd be surprised. ..." 
 
 44 1 say, Alsma, can't I see my children . . . just 
 for once? ..." 
 
 44 No, it would tire you a bit. . . . Later on, 
 later on. ..." 
 
 4< I say, do you know what's so rotten? I don't 
 know ... all sorts of things . . . whether I've 
 been dreaming ... or not. ..." 
 
 44 Don't worry about it. That'll all come right 
 ... bit by bit, bit by bit. ..." 
 
 44 A lake full of white-faced mermaids: that's rot, 
 eh? . . .An express-train: was I away, shortly 
 before my illness? I wasn't, was I? . . . The 
 body ... of a girl: did I see that? ... A 
 snake-thing, a great wriggling snake-thing: yes, that 
 snake-thing was there all right; I fought the thing. 
 ... I believe it was all rot . . . except the great 
 snake-thing, which licked me up . . . with its 
 tongue. ..." 
 
 44 You mustn't talk so much." 
 
 44 . . . Because I always used to feel that snake- 
 thing inside me . . . always. ..." 
 
 44 Come, Van Lowe . . . keep very quiet now 
 .. . . and rest . . . rest. ..." 
 
326 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 The sick man sank away, sank away in the downy 
 abyss. ... 
 
 Gerrit made progress every day. He was now 
 so much better that he had walked across the room, 
 on Constance* arm, and just seen his two boys, only 
 for a moment, because he longed for them so: 
 
 " The others too," he said. 
 
 The next day they brought Marietje and Gerdy 
 and Constant to him; the day after that, the four 
 others. . . . He had how seen them all: 
 
 " But for such a short time ! " he said. 
 
 He recovered slowly. He had seen Van der 
 Welcke and Addie; and, one pale, wintry, sunny 
 day, he had been out for a little while, but the 
 outside world made him giddy. Still he couldn't 
 deny it: he was getting better. He saw his mother; 
 and, when she saw him, she forgot that he had 
 been ill: 
 
 "Where have you been, Gerrit? . r . ." 
 
 " Laid up, Mamma." 
 
 "Laid up? . . ." The old woman nodded 
 wisely. "You haven't been ill, have you?" 
 
 "Just a little, Mamma. It wasn't very bad. 
 
 And he got better, he made progress. He went 
 out walking, with his wife, with Constance, with 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 327 
 
 Van der Welcke. He went out with his nephew 
 Addie; the outside world no longer made him 
 giddy. On his walks, he recognized brother- 
 officers; one day, he met the hussars: 
 
 44 Oh, damn it all ! " he swore, without knowing 
 why. 
 
 It was as though he suddenly saw that he would 
 never again ride, straight-backed, clear-eyed, at the 
 head of his squadron. But it was all rot, seeing 
 that. . . . 
 
 Still he was unable to resume his service. He 
 lazed and loafed, as he said. In the evenings, al- 
 ways very early, he sank away into a downy abyss, 
 dropped asleep, heavily. . . . 
 
 And he no longer remembered things: 
 
 44 I say, Constance." 
 
 " What is it, Gerrit?" 
 
 " When I saw that girl ... in the ceme- 
 tery . . . were you there too and did you call 
 me? . . ." 
 
 " No, Gerrit. You've been dreaming." 
 
 "Oh, did I dream that?" 
 
 44 Yes." 
 
 44 No, no." 
 
 44 Yes, Gerrit, you dreamt it." 
 
 Another time, he said to Van der Welcke: 
 
 44 1 say, Van der Welcke." 
 
 44 What is it, Gerrit?" 
 
 44 You don't know . . . but I was carrying on 
 
328 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 with a girl . . . one I knew in the old days. . . . 
 Find out what's become of her, will you? " 
 
 " What's her name and where does she hang 
 out?" 
 
 He reflected: 
 
 11 Her name . . . her name's Pauline." 
 
 "And where does she live?" 
 
 " In . . .in the Frederikstraat." 
 
 Van der Welcke made enquiries, but said nothing, 
 next time he came. The sick man remembered, 
 however : ' 
 
 " I say, Van der Welcke." 
 
 "Yes, Gerrit?" 
 
 " Did you ask about that for me?" 
 
 "Yes," Van der Welcke answered, hesitatingly. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " The girl's dead, old chap." 
 
 "Did she drown herself?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "They took the body to the cemetery?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Oh, then I wasn't dreaming! You see for your- 
 self. . . . And your wife came and fetched me 
 there. ..." 
 
 " No, no." 
 
 " Yes, she did." 
 
 " No, no, old chap." 
 
 The sick man reflected : 
 
 " I no longer know," he said, " what I've lived 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 329 
 
 and what I've dreamed. The confounded snake- 
 thing: that . . . that was real. It had been eating 
 me up . . . eating me up since I was a boy. . . ." 
 He grew very gloomy and sat for hours and 
 hours, silently, in his chair . . . until he sank into 
 the downy abyss. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 It was time that he became the old Gerrit again, 
 bit by bit, you know, bit by bit. The weeks dragged 
 past and the weeks became months and it was time 
 that he became the old Gerrit again, bit by bit, you 
 know, bit by bit. His doctor wouldn't hear yet of 
 his resuming his service; but he saw his pals daily: 
 the officers looked him up, fetched him for a walk ; 
 and in their company he tried to go back to his 
 breezy, jovial tone, his rather broad jokes, all the 
 noisy geniality which had characterized the great, 
 yellow-haired giant that he had been. And it was 
 all no use. He had grown thin, his cheeks were 
 hollow, his flesh hung loosely on his bones and he 
 was soon tired and, above all, soon giddy. . . . 
 But the rottenest part of it was that he didn't re- 
 member things. No doubt he felt that, by degrees, 
 with the diet prescribed for him, which Adeline 
 observed so conscientiously, he would be able to 
 strengthen his carcase a bit; he even took up his 
 dumb-bells once, in his grief at the disappearance 
 of those grand muscles of his; but he very soon 
 put the heavy weights down again. Then he 
 smacked his emaciated thighs and, despite his inner 
 conviction, yielded to a feeling of optimism : 
 
 330 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 331 
 
 "Oh, well!" he thought. "That'll get right 
 again in time! " 
 
 But the rottenest part of it was that he no longer 
 remembered things — he was ashamed of that above 
 all, he did not want it noticed — and that everybody 
 noticed it. Then he would sit in a chair by the fire — 
 it was a raw, damp January, cold without frost — and 
 his thoughts stared out idly before him, with a 
 thousand roaming eyes, his idle thoughts. They 
 hung heavily in his brain, filling it, like clouds in a 
 
 sky He would sit like that for hours, with 
 
 a newspaper or an illustrated weekly: French comic 
 picture-papers, which Van der Welcke brought him 
 to amuse him. He hardly laughed at the jokes, only 
 half understood them, sat reading them stupidly. 
 And, in his turgid brain full of clouds, full of those 
 idle thoughts, an immense, world-wide melancholy 
 descended, a leaden twilight. The twilight de- 
 scended from the sky outside and it descended from 
 his own brain. . . . Then everything became chilly 
 around him and within him; and, above all, memory 
 was lost. Since the beast no longer held him in its 
 clutching dragon's claws, since the thousand-legged 
 crawling thing had devoured all his marrow with 
 voluptuous licks, since it had perhaps sucked up his 
 very blood : since then it had left him like an empty 
 house, with soft muscles and flabby flesh; and he 
 almost longed to have the beastly thing back, because 
 the beast had given him the energy to fight against 
 
332 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 the beast: for himself, in order to conquer; for 
 others, in order to hide himself. The beast had 
 conquered, the beast had eaten him up. It wanted 
 no more of him; the great dragon-worm had dis- 
 appeared. It no longer wound through the skies; 
 and nothing more hung in the skies but twilight- 
 distilling clouds. . . . Oh, the creepy, chilly twi- 
 light ! Oh, the all-pervading mist, dank and clammy 
 all round him! He shivered; and the fire no longer 
 warmed him. He crept up to it, he could have crept 
 into it; and the glowing, open fire no longer warmed 
 him. 
 
 " Line, ring for some wood: I want to see flames; 
 this coke's no use to me." 
 
 Then he heaped up the logs until Adeline feared 
 that he would set the chimney on fire. 
 
 Or else Constance would come to fetch him, 
 wanted him to go for a walk. 
 
 " No, dear, it's too chilly for me outside." 
 He remained sitting in what to the others was the 
 unendurable heat of the blazing fire. He shivered. 
 He shivered to such an extent that he asked : 
 " Line, send in the children." 
 " But, Gerrit, they'll only tire you." 
 11 No, no . . . I'm longing to see them." 
 They would come in; and, when the others came 
 home from school, he would gather them round him 
 and try to play with them, teasing and tickling them 
 now and again. It tired him, but they were some- 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 333 
 
 thing warm around him: more warmth radiated 
 from a single one of them than from his glowing 
 log-fire. 
 
 "How many have I?" he reflected, groping in 
 his memory, which fled in front of him with winged 
 irony. 
 
 And he counted on his fingers. He was not quite 
 certain. Until he saw them all gathered round him 
 and had counted them on his fingers, silently — 
 Marie, Adeletje, Alex, Guy — he did not always re- 
 member that he had nine. The children were very 
 sweet: Marie saw to his oatmeal, which he had to 
 take at five in the afternoon; the cheeky boys were 
 very attractive. But he suffered because little 
 Gerdy, the child with such a passion for caresses, 
 had become afraid of him. She shrank back timidly 
 from him, thinking him strange, that thin, emaciated 
 father whom she used to embrace in her little 
 childish arms as a strong father, a great, big father 
 who tossed her up in the air and caught her again 
 and romped with her and kissed her. She had 
 become frightened of his long, lean fingers and 
 looked in dismay at the hands that gripped her with 
 the fingers of a skeleton. He noticed it and no 
 longer asked her to come to his room, now that he 
 saw that she shuddered when she sat on his thin 
 legs and that she disliked the big fire, which made 
 her frown angrily and draw in her little lips. But 
 it hurt him, though he said nothing. 
 
334 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 But what hurt him most was . . . that he did 
 not remember things. It was as though daily the 
 twilight deepened around him, around his soul, 
 which shuddered in his chilly, shuddering body. 
 One day, Constance said: 
 
 "We have good news from Nunspeet. ..." 
 
 But Gerrit remembered nothing about Nunspeet; 
 still he did not wish to show it : 
 
 "Really?" he said. 
 
 Nevertheless she saw it in his blank look. 
 
 " Yes," she continued, " Ernst is a great deal 
 better. I shall go and see him again to-morrow." 
 
 He now remembered all about Ernst and Nuns- 
 peet, but yet he was ashamed of his recent lack of 
 memory and his hollow cheeks almost flushed. . . . 
 
 A week later, Ernst came to see him, with Con- 
 stance. He was so much improved that the doctor 
 himself had advised him to go to the Hague for 
 a few days; he was staying with the Van der 
 Welckes. His hallucinations had almost vanished; 
 and, when Gerrit saw him, it struck Gerrit that Ernst 
 was looking better, his complexion healthier, pro- 
 bably through the outdoor life, his hair and beard 
 trimmed; and his eyes were not so restless, while 
 he himself was neatly dressed, under his sister's 
 care. 
 
 " Well, old chap," said Gerrit, " so you've come 
 to look me up ? . . . That's nice of you. . . . I'm 
 a bit off colour. And you . . . ? " 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 335 
 
 " I'm much better, Gerrit." 
 
 11 I'm glad of that. And those queer notions of 
 yours: what about them? " 
 
 Ernst gave an embarrassed laugh : 
 
 " Yes," he confessed, shyly. " I did have queer 
 notions sometimes. I don't think I have any now. 
 But I am staying on at the doctor's. I've only come 
 up for a day or two. . . . I've seen my rooms 
 again." 
 
 "You have, have you? . . . And your vases?" 
 
 " Yes, my vases," said Ernst, greatly embar- 
 rassed. 
 
 11 And all the voices that you used to hear, Ernst 
 ... all the souls that used to throng round you, 
 old chap: you don't feel them thronging now, you 
 don't hear them any longer? " 
 
 Gerrit tried to put on his genial bellow and to 
 poke fun at Ernst about the vases and the souls, as 
 he used to ; but it was no good. He lay back in his 
 chair, by the big fire; and his idle thoughts stared 
 before him. 
 
 No," Ernst answered, quietly. " I only hear 
 the voices now and again; and I no longer 
 feel them thronging so much, Gerrit. . . . And 
 you've been very ill, haven't you?" he added, 
 quietly. 
 
 " Yes, old chap." 
 
 u You're getting better, eh?" 
 
 11 Yes, I'm getting better now. My carcase can 
 
336 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 stand some knocking about. I'm glad you're better 
 too. 
 
 Constance made a sign to Ernst : he got up, good 
 and obedient as a child. And they left Gerrit 
 alone. 
 
 Adeline was sitting in the other room, with both 
 doors open, because Gerrit's big fire was too much 
 for her and also because she didn't want the children 
 to be running in and worrying him. 
 
 " Ernst is looking well," she said, glancing up at 
 him. 
 
 Then her hands felt for Constance' hands and she 
 began to cry, sobbing very quietly lest Gerrit should 
 hear. 
 
 "Hush, Adeline, hush!" 
 
 " He won't get better ! " 
 
 " Yes, he will, he'll get quite well. Ernst is 
 better too." 
 
 " But he . . . he's lost all his strength . . . he's 
 so weak! ..." 
 
 " He'll get well and strong again. ..." 
 
 "What day of the week is it, Constance? ..." 
 
 M It's Sunday, Adeline. . . . I'm going with 
 Ernst to Mamma's for a minute or two. How glad 
 Mamma will be to see him! . . . Are you coming 
 to Mamma's this evening, Sissy?" 
 
 Adeline shook her head: 
 
 M No," she said, " I can't. I daren't leave Gerrit 
 alone yet. . ,. ." 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 Oh, how the twilight was gathering, oh, how it was 
 gathering around him! It was dark now, quite 
 dark; and the fire on the hearth was dying out in 
 the dark, shadowy room. But what was the use of 
 making it blaze up : did the room not always remain 
 shiveringly cold, however much the fire might glow? 
 What was the use of lighting lamps: was the twi- 
 light not deeper and gloomier day by day, whether 
 it were morning or evening? Did not the pale gold 
 of the dawn shimmer more and more vaguely 
 through the dense mist of twilight? ... A dull, 
 apathetic, feeble man. . . . Had he kept his secret 
 all his life, concealed the real condition of his body 
 and his soul, to become like that? And yet was he 
 not Ernst's brother? Had he not always been 
 Ernst's brother . . . though it had always seemed 
 otherwise? Were they not of the same blood and 
 had not they, the brothers, the same soul, the same 
 darkened soul? Was the darkness not gathering 
 around all of them now, the sombre twilight of 
 their small lives? . . . Would the darkness one 
 day close in upon his own pale-golden dawn: his 
 children, who also shared the same soul? ... It 
 might be the darkness of old age as it closed in 
 
 337 
 
338 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 upon Mamma — he could see her as she sat — or it 
 might be the darkness of sorrow and weariness and 
 loneliness, as yonder, round Bertha. Were the 
 shadows not deepening round Paul and Dorine, for 
 all their youth? . . . Had it not been as a night 
 round Ernst, even though he was now stepping out 
 of the dark . . . back into the twilight that sur- 
 rounded them all? . . . Was it their fault or the 
 fault of their life: the small life of small souls? 
 . . . Did the twilight come from their blood, which 
 grew poorer, or from their life, which grew smaller? 
 . . . Would they never behold through the twi- 
 light the vistas, far-reaching as the dawn, where 
 life, when all was said, must be spacious . . . and 
 would they never strive for that ? Would his child- 
 ren never strive for that? Would they never send 
 forth the rays of their golden sunlight towards the 
 greater life and would they not grow into great 
 souls? . . . Would the twilight, afterwards, deepen 
 . . . and deepen . . . and deepen . . . around 
 them too . . . until perhaps the very great things 
 of life came thundering and lightening unexpectedly 
 before them, crushing them and blinding them . . ,., 
 because they had not learnt to see the light? . . . 
 
 He tried to remember thoughts of former days 
 . . . but they shot ahead, like winged ironies. He 
 knew only that night was falling, one vast night 
 around all the family, under the grey skies of their 
 winter. He knew only that the light was growing 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 339 
 
 dimmer and dimmer around them, until it became 
 unillumined dusk: the dusk of age; the dusk of 
 sorrow; the dusk of cynical selfishness; the dusk of 
 life without living; all the heavy, sombre twilight 
 that gathered around small souls . . . until with 
 Ernst the dusk had grown into night and the dark 
 dream from which he was now emerging. . . . 
 They called that recovering. . . . They thought 
 that he would recover. . . . Oh, how dark and 
 gloomy were the shadows of the twilight and how 
 heavy was the fate that hung over their small souls, 
 hung over them like a leaden sky, an immensity of 
 leaden skies ! . . . 
 
 He, yes, he would get better. It might take 
 months yet; and then he would resume his service 
 as a dull, decrepit old man, diseased through and 
 through, from his childhood, under the semblance 
 of muscular strength, until one serious illness was 
 enough to break him and make him dull and old 
 for all the rest of his life. . . . Yes, he would 
 get better. But it would no longer be necessary to 
 raise his voice to a roar, to make his movements 
 rough and blunt, to make a show of strength and 
 force and roughness; for they would now all see 
 through the sad pretence. He would jog along 
 through his small, shadowed life, until the shadows 
 gathered around him ... as they were now 
 gathering around his mother; and . . ,. and . . ., 
 and his children would never again recognize in 
 
340 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 him their father of the old days, who used to romp 
 with them and fill the whole house with all the rush 
 of his healthy vitality. ... It was over, over for 
 the rest of his life. . . . 
 
 It was over. In the room which had grown chill 
 and dark, the black thought haunted him, that it 
 was over. It almost made him calm, to know that 
 it was over, that for his children, his nine — did he 
 not remember their golden number correctly? — he 
 could never be other than the shadow of their father 
 of the old days. . . . Oh, would he never again 
 be able to love them, to be a father to them? Could 
 he never do that again? Must he, when cured, 
 remain for all the rest of his life the man conquered 
 by the beast, the man eaten up by the beast, the 
 man broken in the contest with the dragon-beast? 
 Was it so? Was it so? . . . 
 
 Why did they leave him in the cold and the 
 dark? Shivers ran down his back — his marrowless 
 back, his bloodless body — like a stream of ice-cold 
 water? Why didn't they make up his fire and why 
 didn't they light his lamp? . . . Did they know 
 that nothing could give him warmth and light ? 
 
 " Adeline I " 
 
 His voice sounded faint and weak. In the next 
 room, which was now dark, nothing stirred. He 
 rose out of his deep chair with difficulty, like an 
 old man. He groped round for the door of the 
 other room. A feeble light still entered from out- 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 341 
 
 side. . . . There she sat, there she lay, his wife: 
 she had fallen asleep with weariness and anxiety 
 for him, her arms on the table, her face on her 
 arms. . . . Was it his imagination, or had she 
 really changed? He had not noticed her for weeks, 
 since his illness, had not looked at her, though she 
 had nursed him all the time. . . . Certainly he was 
 very fond of her; but she was doing her duty as his 
 wife. She had borne him his children and she was 
 nursing him now that he was ill. Had he been 
 wrong in thinking like that? Yes, perhaps it had 
 not been right of him. . . . Gad, how she had 
 changed! How different from the young, fresh 
 face that she used to have, the little mother-girl, 
 the little child-mother! Was it the ghostly effect of 
 the faint light or was it so? Was she so pale and 
 thin and tired . . . with anxiety about him, with 
 nursing and looking after him? . . . He felt his 
 heart swelling. He had never loved her as he did 
 now! He bent down and kissed her . . . with a 
 fonder kiss than he had ever given her. She just 
 quivered in her sleep: she was sound asleep. . . . 
 Lord, how tired she was! How pale she was, how 
 thin! She lay broken with worry and weariness, 
 her head in her arms. . . . 
 
 "Adeline. ..." 
 
 She did not answer, she slept. . . . He would 
 not wake her; he would ring for the fire and the 
 lamp himself. .., A ,.. But what was the good? 
 
342 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 Lamp and lire would make things no brighter 
 around him, now that the great twilight was de- 
 scending. . . . Oh, the great inexorable, pitiless 
 twilight ! Would it fall around him as it had fallen 
 around Ernst . ,. . around whom it was now slowly 
 clearing? Did the twilight clear again? Or 
 would the shadows around him gradually deepen 
 into darkness, the darkness that was now gathering 
 around his mother? Or would it just remain dim 
 around him, with the same wan light that glim- 
 mered around Paul and Dorine? What, what 
 would their twilight be? . . . 
 
 The house was very cold and he felt chilly. Was 
 there no fire anywhere? Where were the children? 
 Were Marietje and Adeletje and the two boys not 
 back from school yet? . . . He now heard Gerdy 
 and Constant playing in the room downstairs — the 
 nursery and dining-room — heard them talking to- 
 gether with their dear little voices. . . . Oh, his 
 two sunny-haired darlings! . . . But Gerdy was 
 afraid of him. . . . He was becoming afraid of 
 himself. . . . He was no longer the man he used 
 to be. . . . People now saw him as he was. . 
 He could no longer put on that air of brute strength. 
 . . . His voice had lost its blustering force. . . . 
 
 He did not know why, but he roamed through 
 the house. ... It struck him as lonely, dreary and 
 quiet, though the children were playing below. . . . 
 He stood on the stairs and listened. What was 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 343 
 
 that rushing noise in the distance? No, there was 
 no rushing . . . Yes, there was: something came 
 rushing, from outside, to where he stood; some- 
 thing came rushing: a melancholy wind, like a wind 
 out of eternity. ... An immense eternity; and 
 immense the wind that rushed out of it; and chilly 
 and small and dreary the house; everything so 
 small; he himself so small! . . . He did not know 
 what was coming over him, but he felt frightened 
 . . . frightened, as he had sometimes felt when a 
 child. . . . He was so afraid of that rushing sound 
 that he called out: 
 
 "Adeline! . . . Line! ..." 
 
 He waited for her to hear and answer. But she 
 did not hear, she slept. . . . Then he roamed on, 
 shuddering . . . upstairs ... to his own little 
 room. . . . And it was all so dreary and chill and 
 lonely and the sound of rushing from the immense 
 eternity outside the house was so melancholy that 
 he sank helplessly into a chair and began to sob. 
 . . . He was done for now. . . . He sobbed. . . . 
 His great, emaciated body jolted up and down with 
 his sobs; his lungs panted with his sobs; and, in his 
 great, lean hands, his head sobbed, in despair. . . . 
 
 He was done for now. . . . He knew now that 
 he would not get well. ... He knew now that he 
 ought really to have died . . . and that he had 
 gone on living only because his life had gone on 
 hanging to a thread that had not broken. Would 
 
344 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 that last thread soon break? Or would his darkened 
 life go on for a long time — he always ill — hanging 
 to that last thread? Would he yet be able to be a 
 father to his children ... or would he ... on 
 the contrary . . . become ... a burden to his 
 dear ones? Was it growing dark, was it growing 
 dark? Was not that eternity rushing along? . . . 
 
 He heaved a deep sigh, amid his sobs. His eyes 
 sought along the wall, where a rack of swords and 
 Malay krises hung between prints of race-horses 
 and pretty women. He had a whole collection of 
 those weapons. Some of them had belonged to his 
 father. At Papa's death they had been divided 
 between him and Ernst. . . . Among the krises 
 and swords were two revolvers. . . . 
 
 He stared past the swords and krises . . . and 
 his eyes fastened on the revolvers. ... In among 
 the swords and krises, in among the race-horses and 
 the pretty women whirled all the heads of his 
 children — he did not know if they were portraits 
 or spectres — as they had been, children's heads of 
 six months, one year old, two years old: growing 
 older and bigger, radiating more and more sun- 
 light, his golden dawn of nine bright-haired child- 
 ren? . . . Would he be able to be a father to 
 them, or would he on the contrary become a bur- 
 den? . . . 
 
 It was as if his imagination were digging in a 
 deep pit. In a deep pit his imagination, with hurry- 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 345 
 
 ing hands, dug up sand. What was it seeking, his 
 rooting imagination? What was it seeking in the 
 deep pit, why was it flinging the sand around him 
 . . . just as Addie once told him that Ernst had 
 dug and flung up sand ... in the dunes ... in 
 the dunes at Nunspeet? . . . What! . . . What! 
 . . . Was he going mad too ! . . . Was he going 
 mad . . . like Ernst? Was he going mad . . . 
 like Ernst? ... A cold sweat broke out over his 
 chilly, shivering body. Was he going mad? . . . 
 
 "Gerrit! . . . Gerrit!" 
 
 A voice sounded very far away through the house, 
 which had suddenly become very deep, very wide, 
 very big. 
 
 " Gerrit! . . . Gerrit!" 
 
 He could hear the hurrying footsteps on the 
 creaking stairs, but he was powerless to answer. 
 
 "Gerrit! . . . Gerrit! . . . Where are you?" 
 
 The door opened. It was Adeline, looking for 
 him ... in the dark: 
 
 " Gerrit! . . . Are you here? . . . 
 
 Even yet he did not answer. 
 
 44 Where are you, Gerrit? " 
 
 " Here." 
 
 44 Are you here?" 
 
 44 Yes." 
 
 14 Why are you sitting in the dark ... in the 
 cold? . . . What are you doing here, Gerrit? . . ." 
 
 " I . . .1 was looking for something." 
 
t* 11. 
 
 u 
 
 346 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " For what? . „.u» 
 I've forgotten. ,, 
 Why didn't you ask me ? " 
 
 She had lit the gas. 
 
 " You were asleep." 
 
 " Don't be angry, Gerrit. I was tired." 
 
 11 I'm not angry, dear. I didn't like to disturb 
 you." 
 
 u Why didn't you wake me? " 
 
 " You were asleep." 
 
 " You ought to have waked me." 
 
 He put out his arms to her : 
 
 " Come here, dear." 
 
 She came; he drew her to his knees. 
 
 "What is it, Gerrit?" 
 
 " Darling . . . Line ... I believe I'm very 
 . . . very ill." 
 
 " You've been ill, Gerrit. You're . . ,. you're 
 getting better now . 
 
 " Do you think so? . . 
 
 "Oh yes!" 
 
 " Line, I believe . . . I'm very . . . very . . ., 
 ill." 
 
 "Why, do you feel worse? . . . It's so cold 
 in here. Come downstairs. We'll make up the 
 fire." 
 
 " No, stay here. . . . Tell me, Line: if I died, 
 would you ..." 
 
 " No, no, Gerrit, I can't bear it! " 
 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 347 
 
 14 Hush, dear: if I died, would you believe . . . 
 after I am dead ..." 
 "Oh, Gerrit, Gerrit!" 
 11 That I have always been very fond of you 
 
 "Gerrit, don't! " 
 
 11 That I have always been kind to you . . . 
 that I have not neglected you? . . ." 
 
 11 Oh, you're not going to die, Gerrit ! . . . You 
 will get better . . . and you have always, always 
 been kind! . . . " 
 
 44 Line . . . and all our children . . . " 
 
 44 Don't, Gerrit!" 
 
 44 Won't they think ... if I die .. . that I 
 had no business to die . . . because I ought to 
 have lived and been a father to them? ..." 
 
 44 But, Gerrit, you're not going to die!" 
 
 44 1 should like to go on living, Line . . . for 
 you, dear, and for the children. But I fear I'm 
 very ill. ..." 
 
 k> Will you see the doctor, Gerrit? ..." 
 
 44 No, no. . . . Stay like this, quietly, for a 
 minute, on your husband's knees. . . . Line, Gerdy 
 has become frightened of me. Tell me, Line, 
 are you also frightened of your skeleton of a 
 husband?" 
 
 44 Gerrit, Gerrit, no ! Gerdy isn't frightened 
 . . . and I . . . I'm not frightened. ..." 
 
 44 Put your arms round me." 
 
348 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 She put her arms right round him. She hugged 
 him, warmed him against herself, while she sat upon 
 his knees : 
 
 u I'm not frightened, Gerrit. Why should I 
 be frightened of you? Because youVe been ill, 
 because you've grown thin? Aren't you still my 
 husband, whom I love, whom I have always loved? 
 Sha'n't I nurse you till you are yourself again, till 
 you're quite well . . . and strong? . . . Oh, 
 Gerrit, even if it should take weeks . . . months 
 ... a year! Gerrit, what is a year? In a year's 
 time, you will be yourself again and well . . . and 
 strong . . . and then we shall be happy once more 
 . . . and then our children will grow up. ..." 
 
 44 Yes, dear ... if only it doesn't get dark ..." 
 
 "Gerrit ..." 
 
 " If only it doesn't get so dark ! . . . Do you 
 know that it got very dark around Ernst? It's 
 getting lighter around him now . . . but there's 
 some twilight around him still . . . even now. . . . 
 Do you know that it is getting dark around Mamma 
 . . . and that it will get darker and darker? . . . 
 Do you know that the twilight is closing around 
 Bertha . . . and that there's twilight around the 
 others? . . . Line, darling, I'm frightened. I'm 
 frightened . . . when it gets dark. As a child, I 
 remember, I used to be frightened . . . when it 
 grew dark. . . . YouVe lit the gas now, you see, 
 Line. . . .Is there only one light burning? The 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 349 
 
 flame of a gas-jet . . . and yet . . . and yet it's 
 getting dark. ..." 
 
 44 Gerrit, my Gerrit, is the fever returning? 
 Would you like to go to bed?" 
 
 44 Yes, Line, I want to go to bed. . . . Put your 
 baby to bed, Line . . . it's tired, it's not well. 
 Put it to bed, Line, and tuck the nice, warm clothes 
 round its cold back . . . and promise to stay and 
 sit with it . . . till it's asleep . . . till it's asleep. 
 . . . Put it to bed, Line. . . . And, Line, if your 
 baby ... if your baby dies . . . if it dies . . . 
 will you promise never ... to think . . . that it 
 did not love you ... as much as it ought to? . . ." 
 
 She had gently forced him to rise from his chair 
 and she opened the partition-door. He stood in 
 the middle of the little room while she busied her- 
 self in the bedroom and lit the gas and then came 
 back for him and helped him undress. 
 
 44 It's getting dark . . . it's getting dark," he 
 muttered, shivering, while his teeth chattered with 
 the cold. 
 
 And he felt that it was not the cold of fever, 
 but a cold in his veins and his spine, because the 
 beast had sucked all his blood and marrow with its 
 voluptuous licks, had eaten him up from the days 
 of his childhood, had devoured him until now, in 
 the twilight, his soul shrank and withered in his 
 body, which had no more sap to feed it. . . . 
 
 44 It's getting dark," he muttered. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 It was snowing heavily. For days the great snow- 
 flakes had been falling over the small town out of 
 an infinite sky-land, out of infinite sky-plains of 
 infinite snow. And, after all the gloom of the dark 
 days that had been, the days under the grey skies 
 of storm and rain, it was now snowing whiter and 
 whiter out of a denser greyness of sky-plains and 
 sky-land, flakes falling upon flakes in a soft white 
 shroud of oblivion that enveloped houses and peo- 
 ple. And, in that ever-falling snow from the great, 
 grey infinity above the small town and the small 
 people, the town seemed still smaller, with the out- 
 line of its houses now scarcely defined against the 
 all-effacing oblivion, which fell and fell without 
 ceasing, and the people also seemed still smaller, 
 as they moved about the town or looked through 
 the windows of their small houses at the white 
 flakes descending from the grey infinity overhead. 
 
 For old Mrs. van Lowe the white days dragged 
 on monotonously from Sunday to Sunday: only the 
 Sunday gave her a glimpse of light; but the other 
 days had become so white and blank, so white and 
 blank in their twilight emptiness. Even though the 
 children called to see her regularly, she no longer 
 
 350 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 351 
 
 knew that they had been. It was only on Sundays 
 that she missed them: when she did not see all of 
 those whom she still carried in her mind gathered 
 in her large rooms, rooms which not the largest 
 fires now seemed able to warm, a mournful reproach 
 swelled up in her heart; and her head nodded in 
 sad understanding and protest against the sorrows 
 of old age. . . . 
 
 11 But here is Ernst, Mamma, coming again as 
 he used to," said Constance, leading Ernst by the 
 hand to her mother. 
 
 He now came up once a week from Nunspeet, for 
 the day, in order to reaccustom himself to all the 
 familiar things at the Hague, to the houses and 
 the people; and, though still a little shy, as usual, 
 he had lost all his nervous restlessness and become 
 quite calm. 
 
 " Ernst?" asked Mamma. 
 
 11 Yes, Mamma, he is coming again as he used 
 to." 
 
 11 Has he been long away? " 
 
 " Yes, Mamma." 
 
 Light seemed to break upon the old woman 
 and she smiled, becoming younger in her smile, 
 now that she remembered. She took her son's 
 hands and looked at Constance with unclouded 
 eyes: 
 
 "Is he better now?" 
 
 11 Yes, Mamma," said Constance. 
 
352 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 u Are you better now, Ernst? " 
 
 " Yes, Mamma, I am much better." 
 
 She looked very glad, as though a flood of light 
 were shining around her: 
 
 u Don't you hear . . . any of those . ,. .of 
 those strange things?" 
 
 " No, Mamma," he answered, smiling gently. 
 
 " And don't you see . . . don't you see any . . . 
 of those strange things?" 
 
 11 No, Mamma." 
 
 u That's good." 
 
 She said it with grateful, shining eyes, the flood 
 of light making everything very clear. 
 
 " I have been very strange, I believe," Ernst 
 admitted, softly and shyly. 
 
 "That's all cured now, Ernst," said Constance. 
 
 "But Aunt Lot?" asked Mamma. "What's 
 become of her . . . and the girls?" 
 
 " They've gone to Java, Mamma." 
 
 "To Java? . . ." 
 
 " Yes, don't you remember? They came and said 
 good-bye last week. They'll be back in twelve 
 months. . . . Don't you remember ? They thought 
 they could live more cheaply in India. ..." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I remember," said the old woman. 
 " India ... I wish I could go there myself. ..." 
 
 She felt as if she must go there to have warmth 
 in and around her. And yet . . . Ernst was back; 
 and at the card-tables were Karel and Cateau; 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 353 
 
 Adolphine and her little tribe; Otto and Frances 
 were there; Van der Welcke, Dorine and Paul, 
 Addie. ..." 
 
 44 There are a good many, after all," she said to 
 Constance. 44 There are a great many. . . . But I 
 miss ... I miss ..." 
 
 44 Whom, Mamma?" 
 
 44 1 miss my big lad ... I miss Gerrit. Where 
 is Gerrit?" 
 
 44 He hasn't been very well lately, Mamma. I 
 don't think he'll come." 
 
 44 He's ill again. ..." 
 
 44 Not ill, but ..." 
 
 44 Yes, he is, he's ill. . . . He's very seriously 
 ill. . . . Constance ..." 
 
 4 ' What is it, Mamma?" 
 
 44 You're the only one to whom I dare say it. . . . 
 Constance, Gerrit is very . . . very ill. . . . Hush 
 . . . he's . . . he's dead! . . ." 
 
 44 No, Mamma, he's not dead." 
 
 44 He is dead." 
 
 44 No, Mamma." 
 
 4 Yes, child. . . . Look, don't you see, in the 
 other room? ..." 
 
 44 What, Mamma?" 
 
 44 That he's dead." 
 
 44 No." 
 
 14 What do you see in the other room then?" 
 
 44 Nothing, Mamma. I see the two card-tables 
 
354 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 and Karel and Adolphine and Adolphine's two girls 
 playing cards." 
 
 " And that light ... ." 
 
 "What light?" 
 
 "All that light: don't you see it?" 
 
 " No, Mamma." 
 
 " He's lying there ... on the floor." 
 
 " No, no, Mamma." 
 
 " Be quiet, child ... I can see it plainly! . . ., 
 There, now it's gone! . . ." 
 
 " Mamma darling! " 
 
 " Constance ..." 
 
 "Yes, Mamma? ..." 
 
 "Go . . . go to Gerrit's house. ..." 
 
 11 Do you want me to go to him? " 
 
 " No, no, stay here. . . . Constance ..." 
 
 "Yes, Mamma? ..." 
 
 " Send your husband ... or your son." 
 
 " Are you feeling anxious? " 
 
 " Anxious ? . . . No. But send your husband. 
 ... or your son. . . . Send Addie. ... If you 
 send Addie . . . that'll be best." 
 
 " Would you like him just to go . . . and find 
 out for you how Gerrit is? " 
 
 " Yes, yes." 
 
 "What's the matter with Mamma?" asked Van 
 der Welcke. 
 
 "Isn't Mamma well?" asked Adolphine, at the 
 card-table. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 355 
 
 11 Mamma is very restless and excited," said Van 
 Saetzema. " Hadn't we better send for the doc- 
 tor? ..." 
 
 "The doctor?" they repeated, irresolutely. 
 
 " Addie," asked Dorine, " are you going to the 
 doctor's?" 
 
 " No, I'm going to Uncle Gerrit's. Granny is 
 uneasy. She wants to know how he is." 
 
 11 Constance," whispered the old woman, with 
 strangely luminous eyes, " it's better that you should 
 go too." 
 
 11 Addie's gone now, Mamma." 
 
 11 You go too . . . with your husband. You and 
 your husband go too. . . . Tell the others that I 
 am tired. Let them go away . . . now . . . soon. 
 Tell the others that I am tired, dear. And tell 
 them . . . tell them ..." 
 
 " Tell them what, Mamma? " 
 
 " That I am too tired to . . . " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "On Sundays ..." 
 
 "To have us here on Sundays, Mamma?" 
 
 " No, dear, no, don't say it. . . . Don't say 
 that! ... But tell them that this evening . . ." 
 
 " This evening? " 
 
 " Is the last time ..." 
 
 "The last evening?" 
 
 " No, dear, no, not the last. . . . Just tell them 
 to go away, dear . . . and you go with your hus- 
 
356 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 band. . . . Has Addie gone? But you go now 
 . . . you go also ... to Gen-it' s house. . . . And 
 then come back here again. ... I want to see you 
 ... all three of you . . . here again. . . . 
 Do you understand? . . . All three of you . . . 
 do you understand? " 
 
 44 Yes, Mamma." 
 
 44 Go now . . . go. ..." 
 
 They went; and the children took their leave. 
 
 Outside, it was snowing great flakes. The snow- 
 flakes had been falling all through the night over 
 the small town out of an infinite land of death, out 
 of infinite sky-plains of infinite death. And, after 
 all the gloom of the dark nights that had been, the 
 nights under the grey skies of storm and rain, it 
 had snowed whiter and whiter out of the dense 
 greyness of sky-plains and skyland, flakes falling 
 upon flakes in a soft white shroud of oblivion that 
 enveloped houses and people. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 Outside, the snow was falling in great flakes. The 
 parlour-maid had opened the door: 
 
 u But your cab isn't here yet, ma'am. . . ." 
 
 44 It doesn't matter. We'll walk." 
 
 44 I must say, it's a little absurd of Mamma," said 
 Van der Welcke, on the doorstep. 44 Must we go 
 to Gerrit's ... in this weather? And has Addie 
 gone too? . . . Was Mamma as anxious as all 
 that? . . . It's snowing hard, Constance: it's 
 enough to give one one's death, to go out in this 
 weather. ..." 
 
 44 Well, then you stay, Henri." 
 
 11 Do you mean to go in any case? " 
 
 44 Yes, Mamma wants me to." 
 
 44 But it's absurd!" 
 
 44 Perhaps so . . . but she would like it. . . . 
 And we mayn't be able to do things to please her 
 much longer ! " 
 
 4 Then send the cab on to the Bankastraat, when 
 it comes. ..." 
 
 44 Very well, sir." 
 
 They went. . . . 
 
 44 Didn't Addie go just now?" 
 
 44 Yes, a minute or two before we did." 
 
 357 
 
358 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " I don't see him." 
 u He walks very fast." 
 
 "Was Mamma so uneasy?" 
 " Yes. . . . She was very restless and anxious." 
 "Have the others gone away as well?" 
 11 Yes, Mamma was tired. . . . All the same, 
 she relies upon us ... to come back presently for 
 
 a moment." 
 
 " Mamma is becoming a little exacting. ..." 
 
 " She's growing so old. . . . We may as well 
 give her that pleasure ... of just going." 
 
 How much gentler her tone had become! . . . 
 Once, ah, once she would have flared out at him 
 violently for less than this little difference! . . . 
 Now, ah, now, how much gentler everything about 
 her had become! . . . 
 
 She stumbled through the snow. 
 
 " Take care, Constance. . . . The pavements are 
 slippery. . . . Take my arm." 
 
 " No, I can manage." 
 
 " Take my arm." 
 
 She took his arm. She slipped again; he held her 
 up. He felt that she was trembling. 
 
 "Are you cold?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " You've got a thick cloak on." 
 
 " I'm not cold." 
 
 " What are you so nervous about? " 
 
 "I don't know. ..." 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 359 
 
 " Your nerves liave been all wrong for some 
 time. . . . You often cry . . . about nothing." 
 
 " Yes. I don't know why. . . . It's nothing. 
 . . . It's the weather. ..." 
 
 " Yes . . . our Dutch climate. . . . Now at last 
 it's something like winter. It's freezing like any- 
 thing. The snow is crisp underfoot." 
 
 She slipped again. He held her up and they 
 walked close together, in the driving snow, which 
 blinded them. . . . 
 
 " I must say, it's absurd of Mamma ... to 
 send us out in this weather. ..." 
 
 She did not answer: she understood that he 
 thought it absurd. The cold took her breath away; 
 and it seemed to her, as she kept on slipping, 
 that they would never reach the Bankastraat. . . . 
 At last they turned the corner of the Nassauplein. 
 And she calculated: not quite ten minutes more; 
 then a moment with Gerrit and Adeline; the cab 
 would fetch them there; then back to Mamma's 
 with Addie ... to set Mamma's mind at ease. 
 And, as she reckoned it out, she grew calmer and 
 thought, with Henri, that it was certainly rather 
 absurd of Mamma. She planted her feet more 
 firmly; she was now walking more briskly, still hold- 
 ing her husband's arm. . . . Was it the cold or 
 what, that made her keep on trembling with an icy 
 shiver? . . . Now, at last, they were nearing the 
 Bankastraat and Gerrit's house; and it seemed to 
 
3 6o THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 her as if she had been walking the whole evening 
 through the thick, crisp snow. Suddenly, she 
 stopped : 
 
 44 Henri," she stammered. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I . . .;. I daren't . . ." 
 
 "What daren't you?" 
 
 " I daren't ring." 
 
 44 Why not?" 
 
 44 1 daren't go in." 
 
 44 But what's the matter with you?" 
 
 44 Nothing. ... I'm frightened. I daren't." 
 
 44 But, Constance . . ." 
 
 44 Henri, I'm trembling all over! ..." 
 
 44 Are you feeling ill?" 
 
 44 No . . . I'm frightened. ..." 
 
 44 Come, Constance, what are you frightened of? 
 Now that we're there, we may as well ring. What 
 else would you do ? . . . Here's the house." 
 
 He rang the bell. . . . They waited ; no one came 
 to the door; and the snow beat in their faces. * 
 
 44 But there's a light," he said. 44 They haven't 
 gone to bed." 
 
 "And Addie ..." 
 
 44 Yes, Addie must be there." 
 
 44 Ring again," she said. 
 
 He rang the bell. . . . They waited. . . . The 
 house remained silent in the driving snow ; but there 
 was a light in nearly every window. 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 361 
 
 "Oh! . . . Henri!" 
 
 He rang the bell. 
 
 u Oh! . . . Henri !" she began to sob. "I'm 
 frightened! I'm frightened! ..." 
 
 She felt as if she were sinking into the snow, into 
 a fleecy, bottomless abyss. Her knees knocked to- 
 gether and he saw that she was giving way. He 
 held her up and she fell against him almost swoon- 
 ing. . . . He rang the bell. . . . 
 
 The door was opened. It was Addie who opened 
 the door. They entered; Constance staggered as 
 she went. And, in her half-swooning giddiness, she 
 seemed to see the house full of whirling snow- 
 flakes, coming through the roof, filling the passage 
 and the rooms; and, amid this strange snow, her 
 son's face appeared to her as the face of a ghost, 
 very white, with the blue flame of his big eyes. . . . 
 
 At that moment there came from upstairs a 
 wailing cry, a long-drawn-out shriek, uttered in an 
 agony of despair; and that cry seemed to call to 
 Constance out of Adeline's body through all that 
 night of snow indoors and out. 
 
 u Mamma, Papa, hush! . . . Uncle Gerrit . . . 
 Uncle Gerrit is . . . dead. . . . Uncle Gerrit 
 has ..." 
 
 It was snowing, before Constance' giddy eyes, as 
 she went up the stairs, with her husband and her 
 son; it was snowing wildly, a whirl of all- 
 obliterating white; it was snowing all around her. 
 
362 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 And through it, for the second time, Adeline's long 
 wail of despair rang out loud and shrill. . . . 
 
 The rooms upstairs were open. . . . The maids 
 . . . and Marietje in her little nightgown . . r 
 were peeping round the doors, trembling. . . . 
 Gerrit's little room was open . . . and on the floor 
 lay the big body, looking bigger still, stretched out 
 like that . . . and, beside it, beside the big body, on 
 her knees, the wife . . . the small, fair-haired 
 wife. . . . And her wail of despair rang out for 
 the third time. 
 
 " Adeline !" 
 
 She now looked round, flung up her arms, felt her 
 sister's arms, Constance' arms, around her: 
 
 "He's dead! He's dead!" 
 
 " No, Adeline . . . perhaps he's fainted." 
 
 14 He's dead! He's dead! . . . He's cold . . . 
 wet . . . blood . . . feel! ..." 
 
 She uttered a scream of horror, the small, 
 fair-haired wife. And suddenly, drawing herself 
 up, she looked at the sword-rack. . . . Yes, the 
 missing revolver ... was clutched in his stiff 
 hand. 
 
 Van der Welcke and Addie closed the doors. 
 The maids were sobbing outside. But the sound 
 of little voices came; and small fists banged at the 
 closed door: 
 
 11 Mamma ! Mamma ! Mamma ! . . . Aunt 
 Constance ! " 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 363 
 
 Constance rose, giddy arid fainting, not knowing 
 whether to go or stay. . . . 
 
 44 Constance ! Constance ! " cried Adeline, call- 
 ing her back, holding her in her arms. 
 
 44 Mamma ! Mamma ! . . . Aunt Constance 1 
 Aunt Constance ! " 
 
 Constance rose to her feet, made a vast effort to 
 overcome that dizzy faintness . . . and, now that 
 the body of the small, fair-haired woman lay moan- 
 ing upon the body of the dead man, she opened the 
 door. . . . Was every light in the house full on? 
 Why were the maids sobbing like that? Was it 
 real then, was it real? . . . Was this Marietje, 
 clasping her so convulsively, trembling in her little 
 nightgown? . . . Were these Guy and Alex, sleepy 
 still their gentle eyes, cheeky their little mouths? 
 . . . Were these Gerdy— oh, so frightened! — and 
 little Constant? . . . 
 
 44 Aunt Constance, Aunt Constance ! M 
 
 She overcame her dizziness, she did not faint: 
 
 44 Darlings, my darlings, hush! . . . Hush! . . ." 
 
 And she led them back to their bedroom. . . . 
 What could she do but embrace them, but press them 
 to her? . . . 
 
 44 Darlings, my darlings ! . . . " 
 
 The wail of despair rang out once more. . . . 
 Oh, she must go back to that poor woman ! Oh, she 
 had not arms enough, not lives enough! . . . Oh, 
 she must multiply her life tenfold! . . ,. ; 
 
364 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " Mamma." It was Addie speaking. " The cab 
 is here. . . . I'm going for Dr. Alsma. One of 
 the maids has gone to another doctor, close by." 
 
 " Yes, dear; and then . . . and then go to . . . 
 oh, go to Grandmamma's! She's expecting us! I 
 know for certain that she's expecting us ! . . . Stay 
 in here, darlings, don't leave the room, promise 
 me! . . . And, Addie, don't tell her . . . don't 
 tell her anything yet . . . tell her . . . tell her 
 that ..." 
 
 The wail of despair rang out. And there were 
 only two of them, now that Addie was gone, there 
 were only two of them, helpless, she and Henri, 
 in that night of death and snow — as though death 
 were snowing outside, as though death were snowing 
 into the brightly-lit house, with its all-obliterating 
 whiteness, dazzlingly light, dazzlingly white — there 
 were only two of them. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 The twilight had passed away in the dazzling white 
 light. 
 
 But yonder, in the big, dark, chilly house, the 
 old woman sat waiting. She had sent the maids to 
 bed and told them to put out all the lights, but she 
 herself did not go to bed; she waited. She sat in 
 her big, dark room, with just a candle flickering on 
 the table beside her. 
 
 It seemed to her that she was waiting a long 
 time. She felt very cold, though she had put her 
 little black shawl round her shoulders. And she 
 peered into the frowning shadow, which quivered 
 with dancing black ghosts and with the flickering 
 of the candle. It was a dance of ghosts, hovering 
 silently round the room, and they seemed to have 
 come from the distant past to haunt her, to have 
 come out of the things of long ago, of very long 
 ago: far-off, forgotten years of childhood and girl- 
 hood; the young man whom she had married; their 
 long life together; their children, young around 
 them. . . . Then the rise of their greatness; the 
 rise of the white palaces in tropical climes; the 
 glitter around them and their children of all the 
 glittering vanity of the world. . . . Then the child- 
 ren growing up and moving farther and farther 
 
 365 
 
366 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 away from her. . . . And she saw it all looming 
 so darkly and so menacingly in the long, dark rooms, 
 while she sat waiting and watching by the flickering 
 flame of the candle. 
 
 Then her old head nodded very slowly up and 
 down, as if to say that she recognized all the things 
 of long ago which loomed so darkly and threaten- 
 ingly, that there was not a ghost which she did not 
 recognize, but that she did not understand why they 
 all thronged round her to-night, like a vision of 
 menace, a dance of death. . . . And, while she sat 
 and wondered, it was as if each dancing phantom 
 blacked out something of the room and the present 
 that she still saw faintly gleaming, blacked out one 
 outline after the other with dancing phantom after 
 dancing phantom, until at last all was black around 
 her . . . and not only the room and the present 
 had become black, but also the pale visions of the 
 past: the years of childhood and girlhood; the 
 young man whom she had married; and the children; 
 and all the life, yonder, in the white palaces amid 
 the tropical scenery : black, everything became black, 
 until everything was blotted out, until the dance of 
 all those phantoms was obliterated in shadow and 
 the old woman, nodding her head, still sat peering 
 into the dark, with the flickering candle beside her. 
 
 Thus she sat and waited; and, with the darkness 
 before her, it was as if she did not see the candle, 
 now that everything had become black. Thus she 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 367 
 
 sat and waited and wondered whether many and 
 many nights would still drag their blackness over 
 her: how many black hours, how many black nights 
 could the black future still drag along? . . . Until 
 at last she heard a bell, clanging like a shrill alarm 
 through the livid darkness. And mechanically — 
 because she was waiting — she rose painfully and 
 took her candle. Through the dark room and the 
 dim passage she went; and the faint light went with 
 her, so faint that she did not see it, that she just 
 groped her way painfully through the passage and 
 down the stairs, still holding high the candle. . . . 
 The stairs seemed steep to her and she went cau- 
 tiously, waiting on each step; at each step the faint 
 light of the candle descended with her; and behind 
 her the night accumulated with each step that she 
 left behind her. . . . She had now reached the foot 
 of the stairs; and, slowly and painfully, with the 
 dragging tread of age, she went through the hall 
 to the front door, whence the alarm had rung. 
 
 And her trembling hand opened the door. Addie 
 entered: 
 
 44 Granny, is that you yourself? ..." 
 
 44 Yes, child." 
 
 44 1 came, Granny dear, because Mamma said 
 that you expected us." 
 
 44 Yes." 
 
 44 Were you waiting up for us, Granny? " 
 
 44 Yes." 
 
368 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 He took the candle out of her hand: 
 
 " I have come to say, Granny . . . that there's 
 nothing wrong with Uncle Gerrit. ..." 
 
 She nodded her head wisely. 
 
 11 Now you won't wait any longer for Mamma, 
 Granny . . . and you'll go to bed, won't you? . . ... 
 Can I do anything more for you?" 
 
 She nodded her head: 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 "What, Granny dear? Shall I hold the candle 
 for you and will you go to bed then? " 
 
 "No, no. ..." 
 
 " What do you want to do then, Granny dear? " 
 
 "Wait. ..." 
 
 "Are you still waiting for Mamma?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But perhaps she won't come. ..." 
 
 She nodded her head again. 
 
 He gently led her away from where she stood 
 and up the stairs : 
 
 " So you are not going to bed yet? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Are you still expecting Mamma?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " Shall I light the gas, Grandmamma? " 
 
 She put her hand on his arm to prevent him: 
 
 " No, no," she said. " It's dark. There is no 
 light." 
 
 " But won't you have the gas lit, Grandmamma ? " 
 
THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 369 
 
 44 There is no light." 
 
 44 You would do better to go to bed." 
 
 44 Mamma's coming." 
 
 " She will hardly come now, Granny." 
 
 11 She's coming." 
 
 A bell rang; and Addie started. 
 
 44 She's coming," repeated the old woman. 
 
 Addie went downstairs and opened the door. It 
 was Constance, with a cab, in the driving snow. 
 
 44 Mamma! ..." 
 
 44 I've come. ... I left the doctor and Papa 
 . . . with Aunt Adeline. ..." 
 
 44 Grandmamma is expecting you ..." 
 
 They went in. And it semed to Constance as 
 though, after the whiteness outside and all the 
 despair yonder, she saw it snowing here, inside the 
 house, snowing black, with dark, black snow-flakes, 
 inside the hall, inside the rooms; and the face of 
 her mother, sitting beside the candle, stared at her, 
 like a ghost, with glassy eyes. . . . 
 
 44 Mamma! ..." 
 
 44 Constance, there's nothing wrong . . . with 
 Gerrit?" 
 
 44 No, oh no, Mamma ! " 
 
 44 I'm glad, I'm glad, dear. And there's nothing 
 wrong . . . with Ernst either?" 
 
 44 No, oh no, Mamma!" 
 
 44 So there's nothing wrong with any of them?" 
 
 44 No, they're all well, Mamma ! " 
 
370 THE TWILIGHT OF THE SOULS 
 
 " All well ... all well. I'm glad, dear . . . 
 especially as to-night ..." 
 
 "What, Mamma?" 
 
 11 Is the last time. The last Sunday. I am too 
 tired, dear . . . and they . . . they are all too 
 far. . . . And, if there's nothing wrong with any 
 of them ... if they're all well ..." 
 
 " Then . . . ? " 
 
 11 Then . . . then no more . . . Sundays. . . . 
 And this house ... is too big . . . and the house 
 is so cold, so cold. The house is so cold and so 
 big. . . . And the cold house is so dark. . . . And 
 Mamma wants ..." ' 
 
 " What do you want, Mamma? " 
 
 " To come to you, dear . . . now that you are 
 back . . . from Brussels. . . . To you, dear . . . 
 Mamma . . . Mamma wants to come ... to 
 you. ..." 
 
 11 Do you want to come to us, Mamma? " 
 
 " Yes, to you . . . dear. . . . To you, dear. . . . 
 So Gerrit ... is well? " 
 
 "Oh yes, Mamma . . . he's well. ..." 
 
 "Then . . . then all is well. ..." 
 
 Suddenly the candle flared up and went out. 
 
 Then they lit the gas and took the old woman up 
 to bed. She submitted like a child. For around 
 her, after her last glimmer of light, the twilight 
 had deepened into black night. 
 
 THE END 
 
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