THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Dr. Adriaan
 
 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.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS COUPERUS 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 1918
 
 By DODD. MEAD AND COMPANY. Inc.
 
 rr 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 
 
 Dr. Adriaan is the fourth and last of the volumes 
 forming The Books of the Small Souls. In it the 
 reader renews his acquaintance with all the char- 
 acters that survive from Small Souls, The Later 
 Life and The Twilight of the Souls. 
 
 ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS. 
 
 Chelsea, 30 March, 1918. 
 
 63305O
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE afternoon sky was full of thick, dark clouds, 
 drifting ponderously grey over almost black violet : 
 clouds so dark, heavy and thick that they seemed 
 to creep laboriously upon the east wind, for all that 
 it was blowing hard. In its breath the clouds now and 
 again changed their watery outline, before their time 
 came to pour down in heavy straight streaks of rain. 
 The stiff pine-woods quivered, erect and anxious, 
 along the road; and the tops of the trees lost 
 themselves in a silver-grey air hardly lighter 
 than the clouds and dissolving far and wide 
 under all that massive grey-violet and purple-black 
 which seemed so close and low. The road ran 
 near and went winding past, lonely, deserted 
 and sad. It was as though it came winding out 
 of low horizons and went on towards low 
 horizons, dipping humbly under very low skies, 
 and only the pine-trees still stood up, pointed, proud 
 and straight, when everything else was stooping. 
 The modest villa-residence, the smaller poor dwell- 
 ings here and there stooped under the heavy sky and 
 the gusty wind; the shrubs dipped along the road- 
 side; and the few people who went along an old 
 gentleman; a peasant-woman; two poor children 
 carrying a basket and followed by a melancholy, 
 big, rough-coated dog seemed to hang their heads 
 low under the solemn weight of the clouds and the 
 fierce mastery of the wind, which had months ago 
 blown the smile from the now humble, frowning, 
 pensive landscape. The soul of that landscape ap- 
 peared small and all forlorn in the watery mists of 
 the dreary winter.
 
 a DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 The wind came howling along, chill and cold, like 
 an angry spite that was all mouth and breath; and 
 Adeletje, hanging on her aunt's arm, huddled into 
 herself, for the wind blew chill in her sleeves and 
 on her back. 
 
 "Are you cold, dear?" 
 
 " No, Auntie," said Adeletje, softly, shivering. 
 
 Constance smiled and pressed Adeletje's arm close 
 to her: 
 
 " Let's walk a little faster, dear. It'll warm you; 
 and, besides, I'm afraid it's going to rain. It's quite 
 a long way to the old lady's and back again. . . . 
 I fear I've tired you." 
 
 " No, Auntie." 
 
 ' You see, I didn't want to take the carriage. 
 This way, we do the thing by ourselves; and other- 
 wise everybody would know of it at once. And you 
 must promise me not to talk about it." 
 
 " No, Auntie, I won't." 
 
 " Not to anybody. Otherwise there'll be all sorts 
 of remarks; and it's no concern of other people's 
 what we do." 
 
 ' The poor old thing was very happy, Auntie. 
 The beef-tea and the wine and chicken ..." 
 
 "Poor little old woman ..." 
 
 "And so well-mannered. And so discreet. . 
 Auntie, will Addie be back soon? " 
 
 " He's sure to telegraph." 
 
 " It's very nice of him to take such pains for 
 Alex. We all of us give Addie a lot of trouble. . . . 
 When do you think- he'll come back?" 
 
 "I don't know; to-morrow, or the next 
 day. . . ." 
 
 " Auntie, you've been very fidgety lately." 
 
 " My dear, I haven't." 
 
 1 Yes, you have. . . . Tell me, has anything 
 happened with Mathilde? Has there? "
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 3 
 
 " No, child. . . . But do keep your little 
 mouth shut now. I'm frightened, the wind's so- 
 cold." 
 
 They walked on in silence, Adeletje accommo^ 
 dating her step by Aunt Constance' regular pace. 
 Constance was a good walker; and Addie always 
 said that, leading the outdoor life she did, Mama 
 grew no older. They had now been living for ten 
 years at Driebergen, in the big, old, gloomy house, 
 which seemed to be lighted only by themselves, by 
 their affection for one another, but which Constance 
 had never brought herself to like, hard though she 
 tried. Ten years! How often, oh, how often she 
 saw them speed before her in retrospect! . . . Ten 
 years: was it really ten years? How quickly they 
 had passed! They had been full and busy years; 
 and Constance was satisfied with the years that had 
 fleeted by, only she was distressed that it all went 
 so fast and that she would be old before. . . . But 
 the wind was blowing too fiercely and Adeletje was 
 hanging heavily on her arm poor child, she was 
 shivering: how cold she must be! and Constance 
 could not follow her thoughts. . . . Before . . . 
 before . . . Well, if she died, there would be 
 Addie. . . . Only . . . No, she couldn't think 
 now; and besides they would be home presently. 
 . . . They would be home . . . Home! The 
 word seemed strange to her; and she did not think 
 that right. And yet, struggle against the singular 
 emotion as she would, she could not cure herself 
 of thinking that big house gloomy and regretting 
 the little villa in the Kerkhoflaan at the Hague, 
 even though she had never known any great domestic 
 happiness there. . . . Still . . . still, one loves the 
 thing that one has grown used to; and was it not 
 funny that she had grown so fond of that little 
 house, where she had lived four years, and been
 
 4 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 disconsolate when, after the old man's death, Van 
 der Welcke and Addie too had insisted on moving 
 to the big, sombre villa at Driebergen? . . . 
 Fortunately, it was at once lighted by all of them, 
 by their affection for one another; if she had not 
 had the consoling brightness of mutual love, oh, it 
 would have been impossible for her to go and live 
 in that dark, gloomy, cavernous villa-house, among 
 the eternally rustling trees, under the eternally 
 louring skies ! The house was dear to Van der 
 Welcke and Addie because of a strange sympathy, 
 a sense that their home was there and nowhere else. 
 The father was born in the house and had played 
 there as a child; and the son, strangely enough, 
 cherished the exact same feeling of attraction 
 towards it. Had they not almost forced her to 
 move into the house: Van der Welcke crying for it 
 like a child, first going there for a few days at a 
 time and living there with nobody but the decrepit 
 old charwoman who made his bed for him; then 
 Addie following his father's example, fitting up a 
 room for herself and making constant pretexts 
 that he must go and have a look among his papers, 
 that he must run down for a book seizing any 
 excuse that offered? . . . Then they left her alone, 
 in her house in the Kerkhoflaan. That had trees 
 round it too and skies overhead. But it was strange : 
 among those trees in the Hague Woods, under 
 those clouds which came drifting from Schoveningen, 
 she had felt at home, though their little villa was 
 only a house hired on a five years' lease, taken at 
 the time under Addie's deciding influence. He, 
 quite a small boy then, had gone and seen the fat 
 estate-agent. . . . Oh, how the years, how the 
 years hurried past! . . . To think that it was all 
 so long ago ! . . . Strange, in that leasehold house 
 she had felt at home, at the Hague, among her
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 5 
 
 relations, under familiar skies and among familiar 
 people and things, unyielding though both things 
 and people had often proved. Whereas here, in this 
 house, in this great cavernous, gloomy villa-residence 
 and she had lived in it since the old man's death 
 fully ten years ago she had always felt, though 
 the house belonged to them as their inheritance, as 
 their family-residence, a stranger, an intruder, one 
 who had come there by accident . . . along with 
 her husband and her son. She could never shake 
 off this feeling. It pursued her even to her own 
 sitting-room, which, with its bits of furniture from 
 the Kerkhoflaan, was almost exactly the same as 
 her little drawing-room at the Hague. . . . Oh, 
 how the wind blew and how Adeletje was shivering 
 against her: if only the poor child did not fall ill 
 from that long walk! . . . There came the first 
 drops of rain, thick and big, like tears of despair. 
 . . . She put up her umbrella and Adeletje pushed 
 still closer, walked right up against her, under the 
 same shelter, so as to feel safe and warm. . . . 
 The lane now ran straight into the high road; and 
 there, before you, lay the house. ... It stood in 
 its own big garden nearly a park, with a pool at 
 the back like a square, melancholy block, dreary 
 and massive; and she could not understand why 
 Van der Welcke and Addie clung to it so. Or rather 
 she did understand now; but she . . . no, she did 
 not care for the house. It never smiled to her, 
 always frowned, as it stood there broad and severe, 
 as though imperishable, behind the front-garden, 
 with the dwarf rose-bushes and standard roses 
 wound in straw, awaiting the spring days. ... It 
 looked down upon her with its front of six upper 
 windows as with stern eyes, which suffered but 
 never forgave her. ... It was like the old man 
 himself, who had died without forgiving. . . . Oh,
 
 6 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 she could never have lived there if she had not 
 always remembered the old woman's forgiveness, 
 that last hour of gentleness by her bedside, the 
 reconciliation, in complete understanding and know- 
 ledge almost articulate, offered at the moment of 
 departure for ever. . . . Then it seemed to her as 
 if she heard the old woman's breaking voice speak 
 softly to her and say : 
 
 " Forgive, even though he never forgives, for he 
 will never forgive. . . . " 
 
 And it seemed to her as if she heard that voice, 
 rustling with soft encouragement, in the wind, in 
 the trees, now that she was passing through the 
 garden, while the implacable house looked down 
 upon her with that everlasting cold frown. It was 
 a strange feeling which always sent a shudder 
 through her for just two or three seconds every time 
 that she went past the roses in their straw wrappings 
 to the great front door, the feeling which had sent 
 a shudder through her the very first time when she 
 alighted from their carriage . . . after being dis- 
 owned for years, as a disgrace, hidden away in a 
 corner. ... It was only for two or three seconds. 
 The rain was now splashing down. She closed her 
 umbrella as Truitje opened the door, with a glad 
 laugh, that mevruow had got home before it abso- 
 lutely poured; and now she was in the long hall. 
 . . . Oh, what a gloomy hall it was, with the oak 
 doors on either side, the Delft jugs on the antique 
 cabinet; the engravings and family-portraits; and 
 then, at the far end, the one door gloomier than 
 the others, that door which led ... simply to a 
 small, inner staircase, for the servants, so that they 
 should not constantly be using the main staircase. 
 . . . But she had not known this until she moved 
 in and, yielding to an impulse, ran to the sombre 
 door which had always stared at her, from the far
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 7 
 
 end of that typical Dutch interior, as an eternally- 
 sealed mystery. . . . Pluckily, playing the mistress 
 of the house who was looking into things, while 
 her heart beat with terror, she had opened the door 
 and seen the staircase, the little staircase winding up 
 in the dark to the bedroom floor; and the old char- 
 woman had told her that it was very handy for 
 carrying up water, because there was no water laid 
 on upstairs: a decided fault in the house. . . . 
 Then she had shut the door again and known all 
 about it: a little back-stair, for the maids, and 
 nothing more. . . . But why had she never opened 
 the door since, never touched the handle ? No doubt 
 because there was no need to, because she felt sure 
 that the maids would scrub the small staircase as 
 well as the big one on the days set aside for cleaning 
 stairs and passages. Why should she have opened 
 the gloomy door? . . . And she had never opened 
 it since. Once and once only she had seen it open; 
 old Mie had forgotten to shut it; and she had 
 grumbled, had told Truitje that it looked slovenly 
 to leave the door open like that. . . . She had 
 then seen the little staircase winding up in the dark, 
 its steps just marked with brown stripes against the 
 black of the shadow. . . . But the door, when 
 closed, stared at her. She had never told anyone; 
 but the door stared at her . . . like the front of 
 the house. Yes, in the garden behind, the back- 
 windows also stared at her as with eyes, but more 
 gently, sadly and almost laughingly, with an en- 
 couraging and more winsome look amid the livelier 
 green of the lime-trees which, in summer, sur- 
 rounded her with their heavy fragrance. . . . 
 Summer! ... It was November now, with its 
 incessant wind and rain, raging all around and 
 against the house and rattling on the window-panes 
 until they shivered. ... It was a strange feeling
 
 8 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 ever and always, though it did last for only two or 
 three seconds, but she could not feel at home there. 
 . . . And yet during those ten years her life had 
 sped and sped and sped. ... It sped on without 
 resting. . . . She was always busy. . . . 
 
 She had sent Adeletje upstairs, to change her 
 things at once, and opened the door of the drawing- 
 room. ... It felt a little chilly, she thought; and, 
 while she saw her mother sitting quietly in the con- 
 servatory, peering out of doors from her usual seat, 
 she went to the stove, moved the cinder-drawer to 
 and fro to send the ashes to the bottom and make 
 the fire glow up behind the mica doors. . . . 
 
 "Aren't you cold out there, Mummie?" 
 
 The old woman looked round at the sound of 
 her voice. Constance went into the conservatory 
 and again asked : 
 
 " Aren't you cold, Mummie? " 
 
 The old woman heard her this time; and Con- 
 stance stooped over her and kissed the waxen 
 forehead. 
 
 " It's blowing," said the old woman. 
 'Yes, it's blowing like anything!" said Con- 
 stance. " You don't feel cold? " 
 
 The old woman smiled, with her eyes in her 
 daughter's. 
 
 " Won't you rather come and sit inside, 
 Mamma? " 
 
 But the old woman only smiled and said : 
 
 "The trees are waving from side to side; and 
 just now a branch fell . .- . right in front of the 
 window." 
 
 " Yes. Harm'll have plenty of work to-morrow. 
 There are branches lying all over the place." 
 
 " It's blowing," said the old woman. 
 
 Constance went in, took a shawl and put it over 
 her mother's shoulders :
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 9 
 
 " You'll come in, won't you, Mamma, if you feel 
 cold?" 
 
 And she went back to the drawing-room, intending 
 to go upstairs. 
 
 But voices sounded from the hall and the door 
 was opened. It was Gerdy and Guy: 
 
 " Are you in, Auntie? " 
 
 " Are you back at last? " 
 
 "Where have you been all the afternoon?" 
 
 "Have you been walking with Adele?" 
 
 " Come, Auntie," said Guy, " give an account of 
 yourself! " 
 
 He was a well-set-up, fair-haired boy of nineteen, 
 tall and broad, with a fair moustache ; and she spoilt 
 him because he was like his father. Really she 
 spoilt them all, each for a different reason, but Guy 
 could do anything that he pleased with her. He 
 now caught her in his arms and asked once more : 
 
 kk Now, Auntie, where have you been? " 
 
 And she blushed like a child. She did not mean 
 to say where she had been, but she had not reckoned 
 on his attacking her like this : 
 
 " Why, nowhere ! " she said, defending herself. 
 " I've been walking with Adele. ..." 
 
 " No ! " said Guy, firmly. " You've been to the 
 little old lady's." 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 "Oh, yes!" 
 
 " Come, boy, let me be. I want to go up and 
 change. . . . Where's Mamma?" 
 
 " Mamma's upstairs," said Gerdy. " Are you 
 coming down soon again, Auntie? Shall I get tea 
 ready? Shall I light the lamp? It's jolly, having 
 tea in a storm like this." 
 
 4 All right, dear, do." 
 
 ' Will you come down soon? " 
 
 "Yes, yes, at once. . . ."
 
 io DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 She went upstairs, up the wide, winding oak stair- 
 case. . . . Why did she think, each time the wind 
 blew, of that evening when she had gone up like 
 that, across the passage, through the rooms, to the 
 great, dark bedstead, in which the wan face of the 
 dying woman showed palely on the pillow? . . . 
 Then as now the heavy rain rattled against the 
 windows and the tall cabinets in the dark passage 
 creaked with those sudden sounds which old wood 
 makes and which sometimes moaned and rever- 
 berated through the house. But one scarcely heard 
 them now, because the house was no longer silent, 
 because now there were always voices buzzing and 
 young feet hurrying in the rooms and along the 
 passages, thanks to all the new life that had entered 
 the house. . . . Ten years, thought Constance, 
 while she put on the light in her room, before 
 dressing: was it really ten years? . . . Immedi- 
 ately after the death of her poor brother Gerrit 
 poor Adeline and the children had moved from their 
 house to a cheap pension came the death of old 
 Mr. Van der Welcke, just as she, Van der Welcke 
 and Addie, going through Gerrit's papers, had come 
 upon this letter : 
 
 " Addie, I recommend my children to your care ; 
 my wife I recommend to yours, Constance." 
 
 It was the letter of a sick man, mentally and 
 physically sick, who already saw death's wings beat- 
 ing before his eyes. And even in that shabby 
 pension Addie had taken charge of the children, as 
 though he were their own young father; but, when 
 the old gentleman died and both Van der Welcke 
 and Addie insisted on moving to Driebergen, then 
 the boy had stepped forward boldly as the protector 
 of those nine children, as the protector of that poor 
 woman distraught and utterly crushed by the blow. 
 . . . Even now, while hurriedly changing her
 
 DR. ADRIAAN n 
 
 dress, so as not to keep them waiting too long down- 
 stairs, Constance still heard her boy say, in his calm, 
 confident voice : 
 
 " Papa . . . Mamma ... we have a big 
 house now, a very big house. . . . We are rich 
 now . . . and Aunt Adeline has nothing . . . 
 the children have only a couple of thousand guilders 
 apiece. . . . They must all come to us now, 
 mustn't they, all come and live with us at Drie- 
 bergen, mustn't they, Papa . . . and Mamma ? " 
 
 He said nothing beyond those few simple words; 
 and his confident voice was as quiet as though his 
 proposal spoke for itself, as though it were quite 
 commonplace. . . . 
 
 "What is there to make a fuss about?" he had 
 asked, with wide-open eyes, when she fell upon his 
 neck with tears of emotion and kissed him, her heart 
 swelling with happiness in her child. . . . 
 
 She had just looked round anxiously at her hus- 
 band, anxious what he would wish, what he would 
 say to his son's words. . . . There were fewer 
 scenes between them, it was true, much fewer; but 
 still she had thought to herself, what would he say 
 to this? . . . But he had only laughed, burst out 
 laughing, with his young laugh like a great boy's 
 . . . laughed at all his son's great family: a wife 
 and nine children whom Addie at sixteen was quietly 
 taking unto himself, because his people had money 
 now and a big house. . . . Since that time Van 
 der Welcke had always chaffed the boy about his 
 nine children. And Addie answered his father's 
 chaff with that placid smile in his eyes and on his 
 lips, as though he were thinking: 
 
 " Have your joke, Daddy. You're a good chap 
 after all ! . . . " 
 
 And Addie had interested himself in his nine 
 children as calmly as if they were not the least
 
 12 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 trouble. . . . Then came the move to Driebergen, 
 but Addie remained at the Hague, staying with Aunt 
 Lot, for the two years that he still went to school. 
 He came down each week-end, however: by the 
 husband's train. Van der Welcke said, chaftingly, 
 to join his wife and children; and he took a hand 
 in everything: in the profitable investment and 
 saving of their two thousand guilders apiece; in 
 their schooling; in the choice of a governess for the 
 girls: he saved Aunt Adeline all responsibility; his 
 Saturday afternoons and Sundays were filled with all 
 sorts of cares; he considered and discussed and de- 
 cided. . . . Moreover, Granny, who was now 
 lonely and fallen into her dotage, could no longer be 
 left to live in her big house, with no one to look 
 after her; and Constance had easily managed for 
 old Mamma to accompany them to Driebergen. But 
 the old woman had hardly noticed the change: she 
 thought that she was still living in the Alexander- 
 straat sometimes, in the summer, she would be 
 living at Buitenzorg, in the viceregal palace, and 
 the children round her went about and talked 
 vivaciously ... as she had always known them to 
 do. . . . Emilie had refused to leave Constance; 
 and, though she sometimes went to stay at Baern, 
 she really lived with them: Emilie, so grievously 
 shattered in her young life, so unable to forget 
 Henri's death that she was as a shadow of her 
 former self, pale and silent, mostly pining in her 
 room . . . until from sheer loneliness she went 
 to join the family-circle downstairs. . . . 
 
 Ten years . . . ten years had sped like this, 
 sped like fleeting shadows of time; and yet how 
 much had happened! The children growing up, 
 blossoming into young girls and sturdy lads; Addie 
 studying medicine at Amsterdam, walking the hos- 
 pitals, until, after passing his examination, the
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 13 
 
 young foster-father at last settled down among them 
 all as a doctor, in the great house at Driebergen; 
 and then that immense change in their lives : his 
 marriage, his dreadfully premature marriage. . . . 
 Oh, that marriage of her son's! . . . She had had 
 to summon all her deeper wisdom and to clutch it 
 with convulsive hands ... in order to approve 
 . . . to approve . . . and not for a single mo- 
 ment to let herself be dragged along by all the 
 prejudices of the old days, the prejudices of the 
 narrow little circle which she had learnt to scorn in 
 her later life, the life which had become permanent! 
 . . . Now he was really a husband, now he was 
 really a father. 
 
 " Aunt Constance ... do come ! " 
 
 It was Gerdy's voice; and it fidgeted her. They 
 were all very nice, certainly, but also they were all 
 very restless; and she was really a woman for 
 loneliness and dreams had become so and some- 
 times felt a need to be quite alone . . . quite alone 
 ... in her room; to lie on her sofa and think 
 . . . above all things, to think herself back into 
 the years which had sped and sped and sped as 
 fleeting shadows of time. . . . 
 
 A tripping step came hastening up the stairs, fol- 
 lowed by a tapping at the door : 
 
 "Auntie! Aunt Constance. . . . I've made tea; 
 and, if you don't come, it'll be too strong. ..." 
 
 She would have liked to tell Gerdy that she did 
 not care for that calling out all over the house and 
 through the passages: it always jarred upon her, 
 as though the clear, girlish voice profaned that 
 brown indoor atmosphere of the sombre old house 
 which was so full of the past ... as though the 
 old people were still living there and might be 
 shocked by all that youthful carelessness and pre- 
 sumption. But she never did tell her.
 
 i 4 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " Yes, darling, I'm coming." 
 
 She was ready now and turned out the gas. 
 Gerdy ran downstairs again; and Constance found 
 the lamps lit in the drawing-room and Gerdy very 
 busy with the tea-pot and tea-cups. And Constance 
 smiled, for there was a sort of homely peace, in this 
 room, a peace almost of happiness, the lesser happi- 
 ness which people sometimes find, for a brief 
 moment. Marietje, the eldest of the girls, a 
 motherly little soul from childhood, had coaxed 
 Grandmamma into leaving the conservatory, which 
 was really too cold, had installed her in the back 
 drawing-room, where the old woman now sat, with 
 her shawl round her, her toes on the foot-warmer, 
 her hands trembling in her lap and her head 
 nodding, as though she knew all sorts of things for 
 certain. . . . Always she sat like that and scarcely 
 spoke, only a few words, quietly living away the 
 last few years of her life and already looking at 
 the rest in panorama . . . but quite unconscious of 
 her surroundings. ... In front of the fire, close 
 together, sat Adeline and Emilie, both silent, but 
 filled with the strange peace that reigned in both 
 of them, because things around them were so youth- 
 ful and so bright. For at this hour all the young 
 people were gathered in the drawing-room, all 
 Gerrit's children, except Constant, who was seven- 
 teen and at a boarding-school near Arnhem, to 
 Gerdy's great regret, for she and he had always 
 been together, two good little, fair-haired children. 
 Marietje was twenty-two now, had not grown up 
 pretty, was tall and lank, fair-haired, really an 
 unattractive girl, though she had a certain lovable- 
 ness from always caring for others, especially for 
 Grandmamma : she had acquired this very early, as 
 the eldest sister, because her mother had at once 
 and as a matter of course entrusted her with the
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 15 
 
 care of her little brothers and sisters. Adeletje too 
 was plain and in addition ailing and anything but 
 strong, with her narrow, shrunk chest; and Con- 
 stance often wondered that the two elders had be- 
 come like that, because she remembered them as the 
 two pretty little fair-haired children that they used 
 to be, frail, it is true, but rosy-cheeked, sweet little 
 children. Alex also was there; and he too often 
 surprised Constance, when she remembered the 
 naughty rascal that he was, now a boy of twenty, 
 pale and sallow, with frightened blue eyes, shy, 
 reserved, with a trick of giving a sudden glance of 
 terror which made her anxious, she did not know 
 why. She recognized her brother Gerrit most in 
 Guy, who was tall, fair and broad, as Gerrit had 
 been, but who had always been unmanageable, with 
 not one serious thought in his head ; he was nineteen 
 years old now and as undecided about his future as 
 Alex himself. . . . That was Constance' great 
 care and not only hers but Addie's as well; and 
 Van der Welcke often chaffed his son, that it was 
 not an unmixed joy to be the father of nine children. 
 If Alex was gloomy now, with that strange look, 
 sometimes of sudden fright, in his eyes, Guy was 
 undoubtedly attractive, was genial, pleasant, cheer- 
 ful, foolish, a great baby and the favourite nephew 
 of Van der Welcke, with whom he went cycling, as 
 Addie never had time now: Addie the serious man, 
 the young doctor with an increasing practice. Guy 
 called Van der Welcke Papa; they got on so well, 
 almost too well together: Van der Welcke, who 
 had remained a child for all his fifty-one years 
 delighted in that tall, fair-haired adopted son of 
 Addie's; and, jealous as he was of all the earnest- 
 ness, the labour and care displayed by Addie, who 
 had hardly a moment nowadays to give his father,
 
 1 6 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 he was glad to have found Guy, as though to show 
 Addie : 
 
 " I've got another friend, you know, and I can 
 do without you sometimes ! " 
 
 After Guy came Gerdy, the beauty of the family, 
 an exquisitely pretty girl of eighteen, who with Guy 
 was the light and laughter of the house; next, Con- 
 stant, away at boarding-school. The two younger 
 boys, Jan and Piet, were fortunately doing well at 
 their lessons, whereas little Klaasje, twelve years 
 old, had remained very backward and might have 
 been a child of eight, at one time dull and silent, 
 at another wantonly gay, but so silly that she was 
 not yet able to read. . . . Yes, she had all of 
 them there, all Gerrit's children; she and Addie 
 looked after them; and poor Adeline had come to 
 take it as a matter of course and never decided 
 anything for herself and consulted Constance and 
 Addie about everything. . . . 
 
 The wind outside roared and a violent rain beat 
 down upon the windows, as though tapping at them 
 with furious angry fingers. The drawn blinds, the 
 closed curtains, the lighted lamps, Gerdy pouring 
 out the tea with her pretty little ways: it all gave 
 Constance, though she felt tired and would gladly 
 have been alone for once, a caress of soft, homely 
 satisfaction, a velvety sense of being in utter 
 harmony with all around her, even though there was 
 so much trouble, not only with the children, but also 
 sometimes no little difficulty and misunderstanding 
 with Mathilde, Addie's wife. Where was Mathilde 
 now? Where were the two children? Gerdy, fussy 
 and fidgety, pretending to be very busy, with a light 
 clatter of her tea-things, had pushed an easy-chair 
 nearer to the fireplace, where tongues of flames were 
 darting. She now gave Constance her cup of tea, 
 handed a plate of cakes; and Constance asked:
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 17 
 
 " Where's Mathilde?" 
 
 "Mathilda? ... I don't know, but ... 
 shall I go and look for her? " 
 
 "No, never mind. Where are the children?" 
 " In the nursery, I expect. Shall I send for them 
 to come down ? " 
 
 " No, dear, it doesn't matter. ..." 
 And Gerdy did not insist. With the wind and rain 
 raging out of doors, it was still and peaceful inside; 
 and, fidgety though Gerdy was, she felt that peaceful 
 stillness and valued it, valued it as they all did. In 
 her heart she hoped that Mathilde would not come 
 down before dinner, because, whenever Mathilde 
 did come down at tea-time, something happened, as 
 though an imp were creeping in between Gerdy's 
 nervous little fingers : she would break a cup or upset 
 things; once indeed she had nearly set the house 
 on fire, because she had tried to blow out the 
 methylated spirit with a furious blast from her 
 excitable little pouting lips. ... It was very 'cosy 
 now: if only Mathilde would remain upstairs a little 
 longer. . . . And, while the wind and the rain 
 raged outside, indoors there was but the sound of 
 a few gentle phrases, uttered in the yellow circles of 
 the lamps, which Gerdy had placed so that they 
 shone with an intimate and pleasant cosiness. . . . 
 Old Granny, over in her corner, sat quietly in her 
 great arm-chair, which was like a throne; she did 
 not move, did not speak, but was nevertheless in the 
 picture, thought Gerdy: that waxen face of a very 
 old lady, framed in the white hair; the woollen shawl 
 over the shoulders; the motionless dark lines of the 
 gown; and, in the lap, the fine detail of the fingers, 
 quivering fingers, but for which she would have 
 seemed devoid of all motion. . . . Near the fire, 
 Constance was talking with Mamma and Emilie; 
 and Gerdy did not know why, but something about
 
 1 8 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 those three, as they sat talking together, made her 
 feel as if she could suddenly have cried for no 
 reason, because of a touch of melancholy that just 
 grazed against her, like a trouble dating back to 
 former years and things that were long past. . . . 
 Then Gerdy made an unnecessary clatter with her 
 tea-cups and spoons and could not understand why 
 she was so sensitive. Marie was doing some needle- 
 work and Alex was gloomily reading a book; but 
 Guy was playing backgammon with Adeletje, making 
 constant jokes in between: the dice were rattled in 
 the boxes and dumped into the board; the men 
 moved with a hard, wooden sound over the black 
 and white points; the dice were rattled again and 
 dumped down again. 
 
 " Five-three. ..." 
 
 " Double-six. . . . Double-four. . . . One 
 more : two-three. ..." 
 
 And Klaasje had come and sat by Aunt Constance, 
 almost creeping into her dress, with a very babyish 
 picture-book in her hand. She pressed her fair- 
 haired little head comfortably in Auntie's skirts, 
 against Auntie's lap and had silently taken Auntie's 
 arm and laid it round her neck. Herself unobserved, 
 she noticed every single thing that happened: Guy 
 and Adele's backgammon, Gerdy's fussing with the 
 tea-things; and she listened to Auntie, Mamma and 
 Emilie; but all the time it was as though she were 
 outside that circle of homeliness, as though she were 
 far away from it, as though she were hearing and 
 seeing through a haze, unconsciously, in her slowly 
 awakening little brains, the brains of a backward 
 child. And, so as not to be too far away, she took 
 Aunt Constance' hand, opened the palm with her 
 fingers and pushed her little head under it: that 
 made it seem as if she were much nearer. . . . 
 
 Suddenly, the door opened; and everybody gave
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 19 
 
 a little start, soon recovering, however: Mathilde 
 had entered and only Grandmamma, yonder, more 
 in the background in her dark corner, had remained 
 motionless, with quivering fingers in her lap, white 
 and waxen, trembling in the dark shadow of her 
 dress. . . . But, near the fire, Constance, Adeline 
 and Emilie were silent and remained sitting, stiffly, 
 Adeline and Emilie without moving. Constance 
 alone forced herself to look round at Mathilde; 
 Alex read on, nervously hunching his shoulders; but 
 Guy rattled his dice and Adeletje had a sudden flush 
 on her cheek and turned pale. . . . And Gerdy 
 was the most nervous of all: she suddenly ducked 
 down in front of the fire and began poking it 
 desperately. 
 
 11 Do be careful, Gerdy ! " said Adeline. " You'll 
 set us on fire, the sparks are flying all over the 
 place ! " 
 
 Mathilde had sat down in the arm-chair next to 
 Constance, which made little Klaasje feel a bit 
 squeezed, in between Auntie and Mathilde, and 
 Mathilde's shadow fell across the child's book and 
 prevented her from seeing the pictures, causing such 
 a suddeft outburst of temper that, before anyone 
 could stop her, she put out both arms convulsively, 
 pushed with her hands against Mathilde's chair and 
 cried : 
 
 "Go away!" 
 
 So much enmity was apparent in the child's voice 
 that they all started again: only Grandmamma, in 
 her corner, noticed nothing. But Constance reco- 
 vered herself at once : 
 
 " For shame, Klaasje ! " she said, in a chiding 
 tone. ' You mustn't do that, you know ! What 
 makes you so naughty? " 
 
 But the child pushed against the chair with such 
 force that she pushed it aside, with Mathilde in it:
 
 ao DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " Go away ! " she repeated, pale in the face, with 
 wide eyes starting from her head in hatred. 
 
 "Klaasje!" cried Constance. "Stop that at 
 once ! " 
 
 Her voice rang harsh and loud through the room. 
 The child looked at her in alarm, understood merely 
 that Auntie was angry and burst into loud sobs. 
 
 " Oh, very well, I'll go and sit somewhere else 1 " 
 said Mathilde, pretending indifference. 
 
 She got up and sat beside Emilie. 
 
 "Haven't you been out?" asked Emilie, gently, 
 for the sake of saying something. 
 
 "Out? In this horrible weather? Where would 
 you have me go?" asked Mathilde, coldly. "No, 
 I've had two hours' sleep. Gerdy, have you any 
 tea left for me? " 
 
 " Yes, certainly," said Gerdy, in a forced voice. 
 
 She poked the fire once more, fiercely. 
 
 " But, Gerdy, mind what you're doing! " cried 
 Adeline, terrified, for the sparks were flying out of 
 the hearth. 
 
 Gerdy bobbed up from among her skirts and 
 began clattering with her tea-tray. Klaasje had 
 ceased crying, had stopped the moment that 
 Mathilde had moved and was now looking up at 
 Aunt Constance and trying to take her hand again. 
 
 * No," said Constance, " you're naughty." 
 
 " No-o ! " whined the little girl, like a very small 
 child. " I'm not naughty ! " 
 
 " Yes, you are. It's not at all nice of you to 
 push Mathilde away. -You must never do that 
 again, do you hear?" 
 
 " Oh, let the child be, Mamma ! " said Mathilde, 
 wearily. 
 
 The child looked up at Constance with such an 
 unhappy expression in her face that Constance put 
 her hand on her head again; and, at once forgetting
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 21 
 
 everything, Klaasje now looked at her book and 
 even hummed softly as she showed herself the 
 pictures. 
 
 Gerdy was pouring out Mathilde's tea. There 
 it was again: she had spilt the milk; the tea-tray 
 was one white puddle ! However, she mopped it 
 up with a tea-cloth and now handed the cup to 
 Mathilde. 
 
 Mathilde tasted it: 
 
 " Did you put any sugar in? " 
 
 " Yes, one lump." 
 
 " I never take sugar." 
 
 " Oh ! . . . Shall I give you another cup ? " 
 
 " No, thanks. . . . Your tea is weak." 
 
 Gerdy's tea was her pride, always: 
 
 " Tea gets bitter after standing three quarters 
 of an hour," she said, aggressively, " or, if you 
 pour water on it, it gets weak." 
 
 " Then I must always come three quarters of an 
 hour late, for your tea is always either bitter or 
 weak." 
 
 " Then make your own tea. ..." 
 
 But Gerdy saw Aunt Constance looking at her 
 and said nothing more. 
 
 " Mamma," asked Mathilde, " do you know when 
 Addie is coming back?" 
 
 "No, dear; to-morrow, I expect, or the next 
 day." 
 
 " Haven't you had a card from him?" 
 
 11 No, dear." 
 
 "Oh, I thought he would have written to you! 
 ... I might really have gone with him to 
 Amsterdam." 
 
 " He had business to attend to. ..." 
 
 " Well, I shouldn't have hindered him in his 
 business. ..." 
 
 She sat silent now and indifferent and looked at
 
 22 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 her watch, regretting that she had come down too 
 early. She thought that it was six and that they 
 would be having dinner at once. And it was not 
 even half-past five yet. . . . Should she go up- 
 stairs again for a bit? . . . No, she was there 
 now and she would stay. . . . She had slept too 
 long that afternoon. . . . She felt heavy and 
 angry. . . . What a place, what a place, Drie- 
 bergen in November ! Not a soul to talk to, except 
 three or four antediluvian families. . . . When 
 was she likely to see the Hague again? The children 
 would be looked after all right: there were busy- 
 bodies enough in the house for that! . . . And 
 she remained sitting beside Emilie, without moving 
 or speaking, weary, indifferent and heavy after her 
 long sleep. . . . She knew it: as usual, her en- 
 trance had caused friction. That odious idiot child, 
 pushing her chair away, with its " Go away! " She 
 could have boxed its ears. . . . But she had con- 
 trolled herself. Didn't she always control herself? 
 Wasn't she always being insulted by her husband's 
 relatives? . . . Why on earth had she married 
 him? Couldn't she have married anybody, at the 
 Hague? ... In her weary, heavy indifference, 
 mingled with spiteful rancour, she felt herself a 
 martyr. . . . Wasn't she a very handsome woman? 
 Couldn't she have married anybody, though her 
 father was a penniless naval officer, though there 
 was no money on her mother's side either? . . . 
 She was a handsome girl; and, from the time when 
 she was quite young, her -one thought had been to 
 make a good match, first and foremost a good 
 match, and to get away from the poverty and the 
 vulgar crew that gathered in Papa and Mamma's 
 house. . . . Oh, yes, she was very fond of her 
 husband; but now it was all his fault: he ... he 
 was neglecting her! . . . Wasn't she a martyr?
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 23 
 
 Deep down within herself, no doubt, she knew that 
 she had not married him for himself alone, that 
 she had certainly thought it heavenly, she, a Smeet, 
 plain Mathilde Smeet, to marry Baron van der 
 Welcke . . . plenty of money ... a smart 
 match . . . even though the family no longer lived 
 in the Hague. . . . 
 
 Baroness van der Welcke. . . . On her cards: 
 Baroness van der Welcke. ... A coronet on her 
 handkerchiefs, a coat-of-arms on her note-paper: 
 oh, how delicious, how delicious! . . . What a 
 joy at last to order the gowns in Brussels, to get out 
 of the poverty of her parents' home, which reeked 
 of rancid butter and spilt paraffin, to shake it from 
 her, to plunge and drown it in the past, that poverty, 
 as you drown a mangy dog in a pond. . . . 
 
 Driebergen . . . well, yes. But it wouldn't 
 always be Driebergen. She would back herself to 
 coax her husband out of that patriarchy, to coax 
 him to the Hague, where he would be the young, 
 fashionable doctor: a fine house, smart acquaint- 
 ances, a box at the Opera, presentation at court, 
 Baroness . . . Baronne van der Welcke. . . . 
 
 She had two children now, a boy and a girl. It 
 was irresistible ; and yet she knew that she must take 
 care and not let the nurse have too much of it: 
 
 " Geertje, have you washed the jonker's hands? 
 . . . Geertje, I want the freule to wear her white 
 frock to-day?" 1 
 
 For she had noticed that the others never used 
 the words in speaking to Geertje or to the maids, 
 never said jonker or freule, always just simply Con- 
 stant and Henriette, or even Stan and Jet; and so, 
 when the others were there, she copied them and 
 
 1 Jonker is the title borne by the sons of Dutch noblemen until 
 they come of age, when, as a rule, they bear the same title as 
 their father; freule is the title of all the unmarried daughters.
 
 24 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 said, "Stan" and "Jet"; but oh, the joy, as soon 
 as they were gone, of once more blurting out the 
 titles to Geertje, the warm rapture of feeling that 
 she was not only a baroness but the mother of a 
 freule and a jonker: 
 
 "Geertje, has Freule Henriette had her milk? 
 . . . Geertje, let the jonker wear his new shoes 
 to-day!" . . . 
 
 No, she simply could not keep from it; and yet 
 she had sense enough to know and perception enough 
 to feel that the others thought it a mark of bad 
 breeding in her, to refer to her babies of one year 
 old and two as freule and jonker. . . . That was 
 the worst of it, that she had married not only her 
 husband but his whole family into the bargain: his 
 grandmamma, his parents and- Aunt Adeline with 
 her troops of children whom Addie so silly of.him, 
 because he was so young regarded as his own, 
 for whom it was his duty to care. . . . That was 
 the worst of it; and oh, if she had known every- 
 thing, known what a martyr she would be in this 
 house, where she never felt herself the mistress 
 a victim to the idiot child's rude ways, a victim to 
 Gerdy, who gave her sugar in her tea if she had 
 known everything, she might have thought twice 
 before marrying him at all ! . . . 
 
 And yet she was wonderfully fond of Addie, 
 might still be very happy with him, if he would only 
 come back to her . . . and not neglect her, over 
 and over again, for all that crew of so-called adopted 
 children with which he had. burdened himself. . . . 
 Oh, to get him out of it, out of that suffocating 
 family-circle . . . and then to the Hague : her hus- 
 band a young, smart doctor, she at court; and then 
 see all the old friends again . . . and Papa and 
 Mamma's relations . . . and perhaps leave cards 
 on them sweetly: Baronne van der Welcke! . . .
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 25 
 
 She was not all vanity : she had plenty of common 
 sense besides and no small portion of clear and 
 penetrating insight. She saw her own vanity, indeed, 
 but preferred not to see it. She would rather look 
 upon herself as a martyr than as vain and therefore 
 saw herself in that light, deliberately thrusting aside 
 her common sense; and then, sometimes, in an un- 
 happy mood, she would weep over her own mis- 
 fortunes. Her only consolation at such times was 
 that she was handsome, a young, handsome woman, 
 and healthy and the mother of two pretty little 
 children: a jonker and a freule. 
 
 She now sat wearily, with very few words passing 
 among them all; the dice in Adele and Guy's boxes 
 rattled loudly and worked on Mathilde's nerves. 
 
 Gerdy could stand it no longer : she had run out 
 into the hall and almost bumped against Van der 
 Welcke, who was just going to the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 " Hullo, kiddie ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon, Uncle ! " 
 
 " Where are you rushing off to? " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Nowhere, Uncle. I don't know. I'm going to 
 wash my hands. I upset the milk. . . . There's 
 no tea left, Uncle." 
 
 " That's all right, kiddie, I don't want any tea. 
 . . . Shall we be having dinner soon? " 
 
 " It's not six yet." 
 
 "Anything from Addie?" 
 ' No, Uncle." 
 
 "Has . . . has Mathilde come down? " 
 
 11 Yes, Uncle." 
 
 " I see. Well, I think I'll go upstairs again for 
 a bit." 
 
 "Oh, don't, Uncle!" 
 
 " I may as well."
 
 26 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " No, don't. Why should you ? You're always 
 putting her on us and clearing out yourself! " 
 
 " I ? But I have nothing to do with her I " 
 
 " She's your daughter-in-law." 
 
 11 1 dare say, but I can't help that." 
 
 * Yes, you can." 
 
 " How do you mean? How can I help it? " 
 
 "Why, if you had stopped Addie at the time 
 . . . had forbidden it ... as his father." 
 
 " You young baggage ! Do you imagine that I 
 can forbid Addie anything? I've never been able 
 to prevent his doing a thing. He's always done 
 what he wanted to, from the time when he was a 
 child." 
 
 ' You can help it." 
 
 " Can I ? Well, whether I can help it or not 
 i. . . I'm going upstairs." 
 
 " No, Uncle, you're not to. You must come in. 
 Do be nice. Come along for our sake. You're 
 fond of us, aren't you? You love all Addie's 
 adopted children, Uncle, don't you ? " 
 
 11 Yes, kiddie, I'm fond of you all, though I've 
 lost Addie altogether through you." 
 
 " No, Uncle, not altogether." 
 
 " Well, what's the use of sharing him with the 
 pack of you ? " 
 
 " But you can afford to share him a little bit. 
 Tell me : you are fond of us? " 
 
 " Of course I am, you're a dear, jolly lot. But 
 Mathilde ..." 
 
 " What about Mathilde, Uncle? " 
 
 He bent over her and bit each word separately 
 into her ear: 
 
 " I can't stand her. ... I hate her as I 
 have never hated anybody." 
 
 " But, Uncle, that's overdoing it," said Gerdy, 
 lapsing into reasonableness.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 27 
 
 Overdoing it?" 
 
 Yes, she's not so bad as all that. She can be 
 
 very nice." 
 
 You think her nice, do you? Well, she's like 
 a spectre to me." 
 
 " No, no, you mustn't say that. And she's Addie's 
 wife and the mother of his children." 
 
 " Look here, kiddie, don't be putting on such wise 
 airs. They don't suit you." 
 
 u But she is the mother of his children and you're 
 not to be so jealous." 
 
 "Ami jealous?" 
 
 " Yes, you're jealous ... of Mathilde and of 
 us." 
 
 " Very likely. I never see Addie. If I hadn't 
 got Guy ..." 
 
 " Well, you've got Guy. And you've got Addie 
 as well." 
 
 " No, I haven't. . . . Do you know when he's 
 coming back? " 
 
 " No, I don't, Uncle. And now come along in." 
 
 She drew Van der Welcke into the room with 
 her; and, as usual, he went up to the old woman 
 seated silently in her corner, rubbing his hands, 
 trying to speak a few words to her. She recognized 
 him and smiled. . . . The wind outside raged with 
 a deeper note. . . . The branches of the trees 
 swished along the windows, the twigs tapped at 
 them as with fingertips. . . . And amid the eeri- 
 ness of it all Constance suddenly felt it very strange 
 that they were all of them there, all strangers in 
 the old, gloomy house, which had once belonged to 
 Henri's stern parents. The old woman had for- 
 given her, but the old man had never forgiven. He 
 had died, his heart filled with rancour. And now 
 they were all there, all strangers, except the son, 
 except the grandson; and he was not there at the
 
 28 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 moment. . . . They were all strangers: her 
 mother, in her second childhood, imagining herself at 
 the Hague and very often at Buitenzorg; * she her- 
 self and Gerrit's widow and their children; Emilie : 
 all, all strangers, all with their manifold life and 
 ceaseless bustle filling the once silent and serious 
 house. . . . And Mathilde, a stranger. . . . 
 And, so strange, even Mathilde and Addie's child- 
 ren, little Constant and Jetje, were two little 
 strangers, though they bore the family name. . . . 
 Why did she feel this? Perhaps because she still 
 considered that the great gloomy house belonged 
 to the old man. It was as though he lived there 
 still, as though he still walked outside, in the garden. 
 It was as though the great, gloomy house was still 
 filled with his rancour towards her and hers. . . . 
 Yes, she had been living here for ten years, but the 
 old man still bore rancour because she was there 
 and because so many of hers had come with her 
 to the house in which they had no business, in which 
 she herself was an intruder as were all who had 
 intruded themselves along with her. ... It was 
 a feeling which had so often oppressed her, during 
 those ten years, and which would always oppress 
 her. . . . And she would not utter it to anybody, 
 for Van der Welcke had given Addie free leave 
 to bring the troop with him; and he himself loved 
 the troop. . . . 
 
 Oh, how the angles between her and her husband 
 had been rubbed smooth with the years, whether 
 they passed slow or fast! . . . How they had 
 learnt to put up with each other ! . . . They were 
 growing old: she fifty-six, he a little younger; it 
 was true, no affection had come between them, but 
 so much softening of all that had once been sharp 
 and unkind between them, so that they had been 
 
 1 The governor-general's house near Batavia.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 29 
 
 able to go on living, in this house, and together 
 with their child performing the task that seemed to 
 be laid upon them: looking after Gerrit's child- 
 ren! . . . 
 
 And Adeline took it as quite natural; but yet 
 . . . how grateful she was to them! How often 
 she told them that she could never have brought up 
 the children alone, that she would have had neither 
 the strength for it nor the money! . . . Gerrit's 
 death had broken her. She had always quietly done 
 her little duties as a wife and mother, but Gerrit's 
 death had broken her. She had remained among 
 all her children as one who no longer knows. It 
 was as if the simplicity of her life had become 
 shrouded in a darkness wherein she wandered and 
 sought, groping with outstretched hands. Ah, if 
 Constance and Addie had not led her ! . . . 
 
 And Constance in her turn was grateful to Van 
 der Welcke, for was it not his house in which she 
 lived with her nephews and nieces, was it not with 
 his money, for a great part, that she brought up 
 those children? . . . Oh, if the old man would 
 only cease spreading that rancour around them, 
 filling the whole great sombre house with it because 
 they had intruded, because they were living there 
 on his money, though that money now belonged to 
 his heir! At every guilder that Constance spent on 
 her swollen household, she felt the old man's ran- 
 cour. And it made her thriftier than she had ever 
 been at the time when she and Henri, though their 
 needs were far from small, had had to live on a 
 few thousand guilders a year. Though she now 
 lived in this big house, though twelve and often 
 fifteen of them sat down to table, she was com- 
 paratively thriftier in her whole mode of life than 
 she had ever been in her little house with her hus- 
 band and child. ... It was the old man's money,
 
 30 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 a large fortune, and it was Henri's money now, of 
 course, but it was first and foremost the old man's 
 money! . . . The curtains in the drawing-room 
 were sadly faded, but she would not buy new, though 
 Van der Welcke himself had begged her at least to 
 buy some for the front room. Her everyday table 
 was very simple, simpler than she had ever been 
 accustomed to. And this gave her the remorse that 
 she was feeding Henri, now that he was growing 
 older, more simply than she had in his younger 
 days. And she urged him daily to buy a motor- 
 car. . . . 
 
 He was sensible, refused to do anything of the 
 kind. Buying the " sewing-machine," well, yes, that 
 was one big initial outlay . . . but the most ex- 
 pensive part of it was the upkeep of it, the chauffeur, 
 the excursions. He feared that, once he possessed 
 the " machine," it would become a very costly joke. 
 . . . And all those ten years, though he had often 
 thought of a car, he had never bought the old 
 sewing-machine. Then Constance felt so violently 
 self-reproachful, at using Henri's money for her 
 brother's children, that she discussed it with Addie. 
 Those discussions about the motor had recurred 
 regularly every year. Addie thought that Papa was 
 right, that it was not the initial outlay that was so 
 burdensome, but all the further expenses. Then 
 again motor-cars were being so much improved 
 yearly that, when once Papa had caught the fever, 
 he would get rid of his sewing-machine yearly to 
 buy a new and more modern one. No, it would be 
 a very expensive story. . . . And Van der Welcke 
 had never bought his sewing-machine, had barely, 
 once in a way, hired one. . . . Constance felt a 
 lasting self-reproach because of it. ... 
 
 They were rich now; and yet . . . what was 
 their fortune, with so many burdens! Burdens,
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 31 
 
 moreover, which were not even the natural burdens 
 of one's own children growing up ! Burdens of 
 Gerrit's children! . . . And so she economized 
 more and more, wearing her gowns till they became 
 shiny, till Addie said that Mamma was losing all 
 her daintiness in her old age. He had always known 
 his mother as a well-dressed woman and now she 
 went about in blouses that shone like looking-glasses. 
 He used to tease her; there was one which he always 
 called the looking-glass blouse. Constance laughed 
 gaily, said she no longer cared so much about 
 clothes. Well off though she now was, she spent 
 upon her dress not half of what she used to in the 
 old days. . . . And Mathilde, who sprang from 
 a poverty reeking of paraffin and rancid butter, 
 Mathilde, who would have liked to be surrounded 
 with luxury at every moment, Mathilde thought her 
 mother-in-law above all things stingy, decided that 
 stinginess was the outstanding feature of her char- 
 acter.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IT was six o'clock. Constance and Marietje had 
 taken Grandmamma upstairs, for she no longer had 
 her meals with the rest, but went to bed very early 
 in the evening. And they were now in the dining- 
 room, sitting at the great dinner-table : a table, 
 Constance considered, of strangers her brother's 
 children gathered round her husband, who alone 
 had any right to live there, in the old man's house, 
 and to sit at his table. . . . And yet it seemed 
 iquite natural that Emilie should be sitting there, 
 that Adeline should be sitting there with her four 
 girls, Marietje, Adele, Gerdy and Klaasje, and her 
 two big boys, Alex and Guy; it seemed quite natural 
 that, after the soup, the parlour-maid should set the 
 great piece of beef in front of Guy for Guy to carve : 
 one of the few things that he did well, as Van der 
 Welcke told him, without thinking, for there was 
 some truth in the jibe. It was the same simple fare 
 daily: soup, a joint, green potatoes, vegetables and 
 a sweet, so that Van der Welcke sometimes said : 
 
 " But, Constance, how Dutch you have grown in 
 your taste ! " 
 
 14 Well, if there's anything you fancy, you have 
 only to say so ! " she would answer, gently. 
 
 And yet she was afraid that he would name some- 
 thing, some game or poultry, that would be much 
 too expensive for so large a table and such appetites 
 as the children's: wasn't she spending more than 
 enough as it was, with that good, simple homeliness 
 and wasn't the butcher's bill absurdly high, month 
 after month? 
 
 32
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 33 
 
 And Guy carved the beef in fine, heavy slices, 
 falling neatly and smoothly one on top of the other, 
 with a dexterity which he remembered learning when 
 quite a small boy from his father, when he recol- 
 lected very well indeed carving the meat in the 
 little dining-room in the Bankastraat. . . . That 
 was Guy's duty, to carve the meat neatly; and 
 he would have gone on carving till it all lay in 
 neat slices on the dish, if Constance had not warned 
 him: 
 
 ' That ought to do, Guy." 
 
 The boy was just handing the dish to the maid, 
 for her to take round, when a carriage drove into 
 the front garden. 
 
 " Listen I " said Constance. 
 
 " That must be Addie ! " exclaimed Gerdy, joy- 
 ously. 
 
 " It's Addie, it's Addie ! " cried Klaasje. 
 
 ' Yes, it must be Addie," said Van der Welcke. 
 
 There was a loud ring at the bell; and at the 
 same time a key grated in the latch. 
 
 " It's Addie ! " they now all cried, with cheerful, 
 expectant faces, rejoicing that he was back. 
 
 And Gerdy, in her restless way, got up. Mathilde 
 would have got up too, but, finding Gerdy before 
 her, she remained sitting. Gerdy's clear voice rang 
 in the hall: 
 
 " Addie, you're back, you're back! Oh, but how 
 cold and windy it is ! " 
 
 The maids, likewise glad, fussed about, three of 
 them to one handbag. Gerdy had left the door 
 open and the draught penetrated to the dinner-table. 
 But Addie was now in the room; and all their 
 radiant faces were raised to his. They had done 
 without him for five days. They had missed him 
 for five days. 
 
 " Good-evening, everybody! "
 
 34 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 He flung off his wet great-coat : Truitje * caught 
 it and took it out of the room. He gave a nod 
 here and there, but kissed nobody and shook hands 
 with nobody. He looked tired; and his collar was 
 limp with the rain. 
 
 "Won't you go and change first, Addie?" asked 
 Constance, smiling with content, because he was 
 there. 
 
 " No, Mamma, I'd rather not. I'm hungry. 
 Give me a glass of wine." 
 
 They saw at once what was the matter. He was 
 out of humour. All their radiant faces fell immedi- 
 ately; and they were silent. Guy, who was nearest 
 to him, poured him out a glass of wine, without a 
 word. Addie drank down the wine. His eyes 
 glanced up wearily from under their lashes; his 
 gestures were nervous and jerky. When Addie was 
 out of humour, they were silent, subduing the sound 
 of their voices and the light in their eyes. Nobody 
 knew what to say. And it cost Constance an effort 
 to ask: 
 
 " How were things in Amsterdam? " 
 
 " All right." 
 
 He answered coldly, as though begging her to 
 ask no more questions about Amsterdam. Nobody 
 else asked anything: he would be sure to tell what 
 there was to tell later. They began to talk among 
 one another in constrained tones. They were sorry 
 that Addie was out of humour, but they did not 
 take it amiss in him. He must be tired; he had had 
 a busy time. Yes, he must be tired. It was not 
 only his collar : his coat' also hung limp from his 
 shoulders; his grey-blue eyes were dull. Oh, how 
 serious his eyes had become, now that he was a 
 man of twenty-six ! How serious his forehead was, 
 with those two wrinkles, above the nose, which 
 
 1 Gertrude, Gertie.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 35 
 
 seemed to unite with the tawny eyebrows! In face 
 and figure alike he was older than his years, almost 
 too old, as though bowed down with premature 
 cares. He stooped over his plate; and they were 
 all struck by his air of weary exhaustion. What was 
 it that had overstrained him so? He did not speak, 
 but ate on in silence and drank rather more wine 
 than was his wont. Alex looked at him for a long 
 time, with a touch of anxious surprise. And at last, 
 glancing, almost in alarm, at their faces, he sud- 
 denly perceived how forced and confused they all 
 were in their attitudes, sitting and staring in front 
 of them or into their plates even his father, even 
 his mother and he understood that they sat and 
 stared like that because he had not returned in a 
 cheerful mood, after his five days' absence. He 
 had a feeling of remorse, did violence to his fatigue 
 and his ill-humour, steadied his nerves. He smiled 
 a tired smile at his mother; asked his wife: 
 
 " How are the children, Mathilde? " 
 
 It was at once evident to them all, from his tone 
 of addressing Mathilde, that he was making an 
 effort and no longer wished to be out of humour 
 and tired. They were thankful that he was making 
 this obvious effort, because, with Addie gloomy, a 
 gloom fell over all. Even Alex seemed to breathe 
 again. And they could none of them bear it when 
 Mathilde just answered, coolly: 
 
 " All right." 
 
 Nevertheless his endeavour succeeded. He now 
 spoke to his father; and Van der Welcke answered 
 with a jest. There was a laugh at last; Gerdy led 
 the outburst, about nothing; the voices broke into 
 a hum. . . . 
 
 After dinner, Addie went upstairs; and, when he 
 had changed his things, he found Mathilde in her 
 own sitting-room. Constant and Jetje had gone to
 
 36 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 bed. Out of doors, the night seemed to be wilder 
 and stormier than ever; and the house creaked, the 
 windows rattled. Mathilde sat staring before her, 
 her ears filled with the sounds of the night. Never- 
 theless she heard her husband come in; but she did 
 not move. 
 
 "Tilly ..." 
 
 There was now an undoubted tenderness in his 
 voice, in his deep, earnest voice. She was certainly 
 very fond of him, she thought, if only he did not 
 neglect her. She just raised her head towards him, 
 sideways. She was a handsome woman; and her 
 young, healthy blood seemed to give her a com- 
 plexion of milk and roses. Her features were not 
 delicate, but they were pure; her eyes were gold- 
 grey and large, clear and bright; her hair had a 
 natural wave in it and was almost too heavily coiled. 
 Beneath her black silk blouse her bust was heavy, 
 with a low breast and a naturally wide waist too 
 tightly laced. She had the full, spacious form of 
 a young and healthy woman and lacked all the 
 morbid distinction of finer breeding. Her eyes 
 seemed to stare at a vision of physical delight; her 
 lips seemed ready to salute that delight; the grip 
 of her large hands was greedy and decisive. Her 
 foot, in its substantial shoe, was large, too large for 
 a woman of fashion. Nor was she that: she was 
 rather a woman of health. She had no delicacy 
 of wit: she had rather common sense; and the only 
 morbid part of her intelligence was an irrepressible 
 vanity. She had no delicate taste : she wore a simple 
 black blouse and a black s'kirt, both from Brussels; 
 and yet there was a coarse line and a heavy fold in 
 both. The brilliant on her finger gleamed inso- 
 lently, white and hard. It was very strange, but 
 she saw this herself. Her mamma-in-law had given 
 her that brilliant during her engagement, out of her
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 37 
 
 own jewels, because she had once admired the ring 
 on Constance's finger, where the stone seemed to 
 throw out sparks of fire. . . . 
 
 "Tilly ..." 
 
 She smiled at him now, made him come and sit 
 beside her. Twenty-six years of age, a young hus- 
 band and father, he looked quite ten years older, 
 had aged more particularly, she thought, during the 
 three years of his marriage. Now, however, that 
 he had washed and changed, now that he no longer 
 looked tired and wet, now that he was laughing 
 under his fair moustache, now that his grey-blue 
 eyes were filled with laughing kindness, now his 
 aging no longer struck her so much; and she knew 
 him again and he was hers again, in this one moment 
 when her husband and she were alone. . . . 
 
 " Tell me," he said. " How have you been 
 getting on . . . these five days? " 
 
 She felt a kindly affection for him; and she loved 
 this in him. She let her hand remain in his two 
 hands; she allowed him to kiss her and returned 
 his kiss. And she answered lazily, with a move- 
 ment of her shoulders : 
 
 "How have I been getting on? Oh, as 
 usual! ..." 
 
 'You mean, all right?" 
 
 " Yes, quite all right." 
 
 " I believe, Tilly ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " That you're telling a fib. Your voice is very 
 abrupt." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and gave her little 
 laugh, which meant that she couldn't help it. 
 
 " You ought to talk candidly to me for once," he 
 said. 
 
 "Yes," she answered; and her tone was more 
 intimate. " We don't do that too often."
 
 38 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " I'm very busy sometimes." 
 
 " You're always busy. Why did you have to go 
 to Amsterdam suddenly? I hardly know the 
 reason." 
 
 " It was for Alex." 
 
 " And did you succeed? " 
 
 " Possibly." 
 
 " Oh, I'm not asking to knowl " she said, at once, 
 in a tone of piqued indifference which he appeared 
 not to notice. 
 
 " I have been thinking things over, Tilly. ..." 
 
 "Thinking things over? When?" 
 
 " At Amsterdam." 
 
 " I thought you were so busy! " 
 
 " I used to think in my room, in the evenings. 
 About you." 
 
 "About me?" 
 
 ' Yes. Tell me, wouldn't you rather have your 
 own house? You might feel happier if you had a 
 home of your own." 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 " Well, what do you say?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " Of course I would rather have a home of my 
 own. I told you so at once . . . when we mar- 
 ried." 
 
 "Yes, but at that time ..." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I didn't see it so clearly . . . that you would 
 not be happy in this house." 
 
 "Oh . . . happy? I don't know." 
 
 ' You're not happy here. 1 ' 
 
 " I would certainly rather have my own house 
 ... at the Hague." 
 
 " At the Hague. Very well. But, if we move 
 to the Hague, Tilly, we shall have to be very 
 economical."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 39 
 
 ' Very economical? " 
 
 " Well, of course ! I'm not making much yet." 
 
 " And you're always busy ! " 
 
 "Yes . . ." 
 
 " You have patients here, at Driebergen, and all 
 around." 
 
 "Yes," he said, with a laugh, "but they don't 
 pay me." 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders : 
 
 " Because they can't." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders also: 
 
 " It's very noble of you, Addie. . . . But we 
 have to live too." 
 
 'Yes. But don't we live?" 
 
 " If we moved to the Hague, though . . . ?" 
 
 " We should have to be very economical." 
 
 " You're well off." 
 
 " I'm not well off. . . . Tilly, you know I'm 
 not. Papa has a pretty considerable fortune. But 
 he has a good many calls. ..." 
 
 " Calls ! . . . why, you're his only son ! " 
 
 " He might give us an allowance . . . until I 
 was making more money. . . . But even then we 
 should have to be economical . . . and live in a 
 very small house." 
 
 She clasped her large, white hands : 
 
 " I'm sick of economy," she said, coarsely, " sick 
 and tired of poverty. I've never had anything in 
 my life but poverty, decent, genteel poverty. I 
 would rather be a beggar, simply; I'd rather be a 
 poor girl in the street than go through decent, gen- 
 teel poverty again." 
 
 " It wouldn't be so bad as all that." 
 
 " Not so bad, perhaps, but still a small house, 
 with one servant, and seeing how far a pound of
 
 40 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 meat will go and watching every half-penny that the 
 servant spends. No, thank you, it's not good 
 enough." 
 
 "Then, Tilly ..." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 " Then I see no chance ... of moving to the 
 Hague." 
 
 " Well," she said in her dull tone of piqued indif- 
 ference, " then let's stay here." 
 
 " But you're not happy here." 
 
 u Oh, what does my happiness matter?" 
 
 " I should like to see you happy." 
 
 " Why, you no longer love me ! " 
 
 " I do love you, Tilly, very much." 
 
 " No, you don't love me. How could you love 
 me? Do you think I don't see it? You love all of 
 them here, all your relations: jou don't love me. 
 You hardly love your children." 
 
 'Tilly!" 
 
 " No, you hardly love your own children." 
 
 ' Tilly, you've no right to speak like that. Be- 
 cause I'm fond of Uncle Gerrit's children, is that 
 any reason why I shouldn't be fond of you . . . 
 and of Stan and little Jet? " 
 
 She had risen, tremulously. She looked into his 
 grave eyes, which gazed at her long and almost 
 sorrowfully, from under his heavily-knitted, tawny 
 eyebrows. She had intended to overwhelm him with 
 reproaches; but on the contrary she threw herself 
 on his breast, with her arms around his neck: 
 
 'Tell me that you love. me! " she cried, with a 
 great sob. 
 
 " I love you, Tilly, you know I love you." 
 
 He kissed her. But she heard it through his 
 voice, she felt it through his kiss: he no longer 
 loved her. All at once, suddenly, the certainty of it 
 poured a coldness as of ice into her soul. She held
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 41 
 
 him away from her for a moment, with her hand 
 against his shoulders. She stared at him. . . . 
 He also looked at her, with his sorrowful eyes, and 
 he spoke, but she did not hear what. . . . Then 
 she heard him say: 
 
 "Are you coming downstairs, Tilly? They will 
 be wondering what's become of us ! " 
 
 " No," she said, calmly. " I have a headache 
 and I'm going to bed." 
 
 "Won't you come down?" 
 
 " No." t 
 
 " Do, Tilly ! Please come down with me. I shall 
 be so glad if you will." 
 
 " I'd rather not," she said, softly and calmly. 
 " I really have a headache . . . and I'm going to 
 bed." 
 
 She looked at him gravely, for one more mo- 
 ment, and he also looked at her, very gravely and 
 very sorrowfully. But their souls did not come into 
 contact. She kissed him first: 
 
 " Good-night," she said, softly. 
 
 He said nothing more, but he returned her kiss, 
 very fondly. Then he left the room; and she heard 
 his steps creaking softly on the stairs. 
 
 " Dear God," he thought, u how am I to find her! 
 How am I to find her again ! . . . "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ADDIE remained in the drawing-room for only a 
 second : 
 
 " I'll go and keep Papa company for a bit," he 
 said. 
 
 And he went and looked up his father in his 
 room, where Van der Welcke always smoked his 
 three or four cigarettes after dinner, alone. 
 
 " Daddy, am I disturbing you? " 
 
 " Disturbing me, my dear fellow? Do you 
 imagine that you ever disturb me? No, you never 
 disturb me. ... At least, I can count the times 
 when you have disturbed me." 
 
 " But I've come to disturb you this time. ..." 
 
 " Well, that's a bit of luck." 
 
 "And have a talk with you." 
 
 " Good. That doesn't happen often." 
 
 Addie knitted his brows, which gave him an ex- 
 pression of sadness: 
 
 " Don't be satirical, Father. How can I help it? " 
 
 " I'm not being satirical, my dear boy. I accept 
 the inevitable. I've been accepting it now for five 
 days. After dinner I would come up here quietly 
 and smoke my cigarettes in utter resignation. Of 
 those five days, two have been windy and three have 
 been stormy. And I sat here calmly and listened to 
 it all." 
 
 "And . . .?" 
 
 " And . . . that's all. Life's an insipid busi- 
 ness; and the older I grow the more insipid I find it. 
 I don't philosophize about it very much. I never 
 did, you know. . . . But I do sometimes think, 
 
 42
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 43 
 
 nowadays, what a rotten thing life is, with all its 
 changes. At least, I should have been glad to let it 
 remain as it was. ..." 
 
 "How, Daddy?" 
 
 44 As it used to be when you were a small boy. I 
 have gradually come to lose you entirely . . . and 
 I have so little, apart from you." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense 1 " 
 
 44 Yes, I have gradually come to lose you en- 
 tirely. ... In the old days, when you were a 
 schoolboy . . . then you belonged to me. Then 
 came your time at college: that took a bit of you 
 from me. Your eighteen months in the hospitals at 
 Amsterdam : I never saw you. Your year, after 
 that, in Vienna: I never saw you. I was lucky if 
 I got a letter now and again. Then you came back, 
 took your degree. And then . . . then you went 
 and got married." 
 
 44 And we have always remained with you." 
 
 44 And every year I lost a bit more of you. You 
 no longer belong to me. There was a time when I 
 used to share you with Mamma ; and you remember 
 that I used to find that pretty hard occasionally. 
 But now I share you . . . with all the world." 
 
 u Not with all the world, Daddy." 
 
 "Well, with half the world then. With your 
 wife, with Aunt Adeline and your nine adopted 
 children, with all your outside interests." 
 4 Those are my patients." 
 
 44 You have a great many of them . . . for a 
 young doctor. And ..." 
 4 Well, Daddy?" 
 
 44 Nothing, old boy. I only wanted to give you 
 a piece of advice ; but who am / to advise youf " 
 
 44 Why not, Daddy?" 
 
 44 1 don't count." 
 
 44 Now then 1"
 
 44 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " I never have counted. You used to manage me; 
 and I just did what you told me to." 
 
 " Give me your advice now. Haven't we always 
 been pals? " 
 
 * Yes, but you were the one with the head." 
 
 ' There's not much head about me just now. 
 Give me your advice, Daddy." 
 
 ' You won't take it from me." 
 
 " Out with it, all the same ! " 
 
 " Well, my boy, listen to me : keep something of 
 your life for yourself." 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " You're giving it all away. I don't believe it 
 can be done. I believe a man to stand as much in 
 need of a healthy egoism as of bread and water." 
 
 " I should say that I was egoist enough." 
 
 " No, you're not. You keep nothing for your- 
 self. You'll think it funny of me that 7 should talk 
 to you like this; but, you see, the older I grow and 
 the more cigarettes I smoke the more I notice 
 that ..." 
 
 'That what?" 
 
 " That both your parents have never consider- 
 ing your character taken your own happiness into 
 account: Mamma no more than I." 
 
 " I don't agree with you." 
 
 " It is so, all the same. The years which you 
 spent as a child between your two parents made you 
 an altruist and made your altruism run away with 
 you." 
 
 Addie smiled and gazed at his father. 
 
 'W'ell? What are you looking at me for?" 
 
 " I'm looking at you, Father . . . because I'm 
 amused to see you so utterly wide of the mark." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I may have had a touch of altruism in me, but 
 of late years ..."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 45 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " I have thought a great deal of myself. When 
 I got married ... I was seeking my own happi- 
 ness. I wanted to find happiness for myself in my 
 wife and children, for my own self . . . and hang 
 the rest! " 
 
 " Ah, was that your idea? Well, it was a healthy 
 idea too." 
 
 "A healthy idea, wasn't it? So you were wide 
 of the mark, Daddy. I wanted a wife who belonged 
 to me, children who belonged to me: all forming 
 one great happiness for myself." 
 
 Van der Welcke wreathed himself in clouds of 
 smoke. 
 
 " So you see, Daddy, the advice which you gave 
 me I followed of my own accord." 
 
 " Yes, old boy, I see." 
 
 "That's so, isn't it?" 
 
 1 Yes. Well, that's all right, then." 
 
 " I'm glad to have had a talk with you. But new 
 I must talk not about myself but about something 
 else." 
 
 " Of course. You can never talk for more than 
 two seconds about yourself. However, you're right, 
 I know now; and you had already followed my 
 advice ... of your own accord. What else did 
 you want to talk about? " 
 
 " Daddy, I've been to Amsterdam." 
 
 " For Alex. Well, is that settled . . . about 
 the Merchants' School?" 
 
 " Yes, he can go up for his examination. But 
 afterwards ..." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I went to Haarlem. Near Haarlem." 
 
 " What took you there? " 
 
 " Someone sent for me." 
 
 "A patient?"
 
 46 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " A dying man." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 Suddenly, from the look in Addie's face, Van der 
 Welcke understood. He went very pale, rose from 
 his chair and stared in consternation into his son's 
 sad eyes : 
 
 " Addie 1 " he exclaimed, in a hoarse voice. " Ad- 
 die, tell me what you mean! I had no idea . . . 
 that you knew anyone near Haarlem! I didn't 
 know . . . that you had a patient there ! " 
 
 He seemed to be trying to deceive himself with 
 his own words, for he already understood. And 
 Addie knew by his father's eyes and his father's 
 voice that he understood; and, speaking slowly, in 
 a gentle voice, Addie explained, as though the name 
 had already been mentioned between them: 
 
 " Six days ago ... I received a letter . . . 
 written in his own hand, a clear, firm hand. . . . 
 The letter was quite short: here it is." 
 
 He felt for his pocket-book, took out the letter 
 and handed it to his father. Van der Welcke read : 
 
 "Dear Sir, 
 
 " Though I have not the pleasure of your per- 
 sonal acquaintance, I should consider it a great privi- 
 lege if I might see you and speak to you here at an 
 early date. I hope that you will not refuse the 
 request of a very old man, whose days are drawing 
 to an end. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " De Staff elaer." 
 
 Addie rose, for his father was shaking all over; 
 the letter was fluttering in his fingers. 
 " Daddy, pull yourself together." 
 " Addie, Addie, tell me, did you see him? " 
 " Yes, I saw him. I was with him twice."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 47 
 
 "And . . . and is he dying? " 
 " He's dead. He died this morning." 
 "He's dead?" 
 1 Yes, Daddy, he's dead." 
 " Did you . . . did you speak to him? " 
 " Yes ... I spoke to him. He was very clear 
 in his head: a clear-headed old man, for all his 
 ninety-two years. When I arrived, he pressed my 
 hand very kindly and nicely, made me sit beside his 
 chair. He was sitting up, in his chair. That's how 
 he died, in his chair, passing away very peacefully. 
 He told me that he had wanted to see me . . . 
 because I was the son ... of my mother. . . . 
 He asked after Mamma and made me describe how 
 you two had lived ... at Brussels. I told him 
 about my childhood. I told him of my later life. 
 He took a strange interest in everything . . . and 
 then . . . then he asked after you, how you had 
 been, how you were . . . asked if I was attached 
 to my parents . . . asked after my prospects . . . 
 asked after my aims in life. ... I was afraid of 
 tiring him and tried to get up, but he put out his 
 hand and made me sit down again : ' Go on, go on 
 telling me things,' he said. I told him about the 
 Hague, told him how we were now living at Drie- 
 bergen. He knew that Uncle Gerrit's children were 
 here. He seemed to have heard about us. ... 
 When I went away, he said, ' Doctor, may the old 
 man give you something?' And he handed me 
 three thousand guilders : * You must have patients, 
 Doctor, who can't afford things,' he said. ' You 
 won't refuse it, will you ? ' I thought it right to 
 accept the money. It was an obvious pleasure to 
 him to give it me. . . . Next day that was this 
 morning, when I went again he was much less 
 lucid. He just mentioned Mamma; and, when he 
 spoke of her, I could see that he imagined that she
 
 48 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 was still quite young. Still he understood that I 
 was her son. . . . Then he gave me his hand and 
 said, ' I am glad, Doctor, to have seen you. . . . 
 Give my regards to your mother . . . the old 
 man's regards . . . and to your father too.' 
 Then I went away; and, when I called again in an 
 hour to enquire, the butler told me ... that he 
 was dead. ..." 
 
 Van der Welcke sat in his chair, motionless and 
 bent, with his hands hanging between his knees. He 
 stared in front of him and did not speak. The past, 
 the times of bygone days rose tempestuously before 
 his eyes. It was as though that which had once 
 existed never perished, as though nothing could ever 
 change in what had once begun. . . . Life slid 
 on unbrokenly. . . . His eyes saw Rome, an old 
 palace, a lofty room . . . Constance fleeing down 
 a back stair, himself standing like a thief in the 
 presence of the old man . . . the good old man, 
 who had been like a father to him. . . . Now 
 . . . now the old man was dead. . . . And 
 Addie had been at his death-bed ! And Van der 
 Welcke's son was bringing the dying man's message, 
 his last message, his forgiveness ! . . . 
 
 Van der Welcke stared and continued to stare, 
 motionless; and a sob welled up in his breast. His 
 eyes, which were like a child's with their ever youth- 
 ful glance, filled with great tears. Nevertheless, 
 he controlled himself, remained calm; and all that 
 he said, quite calmly, was: 
 
 "Addie, does Mamma .. . . know?" 
 
 14 No, Daddy. ... I wanted to tell you first 
 . . . and to bring you . . . the old man's mes- 
 sage and ..." 
 'Yes?" 
 
 " His forgiveness. ..." 
 
 Van der Welcke's head drooped lower still; and
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 49 
 
 the great tears fell to the floor. Addie now rose 
 and went up to his father: 
 
 "Daddy ..." 
 
 "My boy ... my boy! " 
 
 " The old man sent you this message : * Tell your 
 father . . . that I forgive him . . . and tell 
 your mother so ... too. . . . ' : 
 
 Addie flung his arm round his father's neck; and 
 Van der Welcke now sobbed on his son's breast. 
 He could restrain himself no longer. He gave one 
 great, loud sob, clutching hold of his own son, like 
 a child. . . . Had it not always been like that, 
 the child the consoler of his father? The son now 
 his mother's consoler? 
 
 The emotion lasted but a moment, because of the 
 calmness of older years; but it was a moment full 
 as the whole soul and the whole life of a small 
 being. The older man felt all his soul, saw all his 
 small life. Was that coming for him : forgiveness ? 
 Was it coming to him through his son? Because of 
 his son, perhaps . . . mysteriously, for some mys- 
 terious law and mystic reason? . . . He felt it 
 . . . as an enlightening surprise . . . though he 
 merely said, after a pause : 
 
 " I'm glad, Addie . . . that you went. And 
 now you must tell . . . Mamma." 
 
 " I'll tell her this very evening, Father." 
 
 ' This evening? " 
 
 1 Yes, I can't wait any longer. Those last words 
 . . . are lying like a weight ... on my heart: 
 I must hand them on . . . " 
 
 "To Mamma also ..." 
 
 ' To feel relieved. ..." 
 
 * Then go to her," said Van der Welcke, very 
 calmly. 
 
 And he remained sitting in his chair. His fingers 
 mechanically rolled a fresh cigarette. But in his
 
 50 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 eyes, which had always remained young, there was 
 seen a faint inflexion, of surprise, as though for 
 the first time they had looked into the deeper life. 
 His son kissed him, gently, went away, closed the 
 door. And Van der Welcke's fingers continued to 
 fumble with a newly-rolled cigarette. He forgot to 
 light it. He stared in front of him. . . . 
 
 Outside the house the wind blew moaning along 
 the walls and drew its tapping fingers along every 
 window, as along a vast keyboard. . . . 
 
 Forgiveness, the very possibility of it, whirled 
 before his staring eyes. . . .
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHEN Addie came downstairs he met Constance. 
 A gas-jet was burning with a small flame in the 
 brown dusk of the oak wainscoting. She was obvi- 
 ously tired: 
 
 " I am going to my room," she said. 
 
 " I was looking for you, Mummy." 
 
 " Come along with me then." 
 
 " Perhaps you're tired, perhaps you want to rest 
 . . . and sleep." 
 
 " I can rest as well when you are with me as 
 when I am alone. Come." 
 
 She put out her hand, took his and drew him 
 gently up the stairs. She turned up the gas in her 
 sitting-room. She changed quickly into a tea-gown; 
 and he thought that he would not speak to her that 
 evening, because she really seemed very weary. 
 . . . While she was busy in her dressing-room, he 
 looked round him and felt the years of his boyhood. 
 The room was so exact a copy of the little drawing- 
 room in the Kerkhoflaan that the past always came 
 back to him here. And it brought with it the 
 strange melancholy of all things that had been and 
 no longer were. . . . 
 
 "Hark how it's blowing!" she said. "It re- 
 minds me . . . " 
 
 "Of what, Mamma?" 
 
 " Of an evening, more than ten years ago, at the 
 Hague. It was after the death of Grandmamma 
 van der Welcke. I had returned from here, from 
 the room which is now Papa's bedroom. I had been 
 to Grandmamma . . . and it was stormy weather, 
 
 51
 
 52 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 like to-day, and, when I got home, I was fanciful 
 and frightened: the wind seemed to me so gigantic 
 and I ... I was so small. . . . Then you came 
 home . . . and I was so frightened ... I crept 
 into your arms ... I looked into your eyes, 
 Addie. ... In those days, it was very strange, 
 they changed colour, they turned grey. . . . Now 
 they are sometimes quite dark-grey, but sometimes 
 I see a gleam of blue in them. I used to feel so 
 sorry . . . that they changed colour. . . . Do 
 you remember? It was not long before Uncle 
 Gerrit died. . . . Oh, how frightened I felt . . . 
 for days and weeks before ! . . . " 
 
 " And why are you thinking of those days, 
 Mammy darling? " 
 
 " I don't know why. Perhaps only because it's 
 blowing. . . . How small our country is by the 
 sea ! . . . It's always blowing, always blowing. 
 . . . One would think that everything that happens 
 is blown to us, across the sea, and comes down upon 
 us, in heavy showers of rain. ..." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " Oh, my boy, sometimes I feel so terribly heavy- 
 hearted, without knowing why ! . . . " 
 
 " Is it the house?" 
 
 'The house? No, no, it's not the house." 
 
 " Don't you like the house even now? " 
 
 " Oh, yes . . . I'm pretty used to the house ! " 
 
 " Is it the wind, the rain? " 
 
 " Perhaps both. . . . But haven't I known 
 them for years? " 
 
 " Then what is it that makes you heavy-hearted? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Come here, to me. ..." 
 
 "Where, my boy?" 
 
 " On my knees, in my arms. ..." 
 
 She sat down on his knees and smiled, sadly:
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 53 
 
 "It's an age ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Since I sat on your knee like this. . . . Do 
 you remember? Do you remember? When you 
 were quite a boy . . . and I felt frightened . . . 
 I used to creep up to your little study and creep into 
 your arms and look into your blue eyes. ... I 
 never do that now." 
 
 He clasped his arms round her: 
 
 " Then do it again. There, you're doing it now. 
 . . . My lap's bigger now. . . . My eyes have 
 changed colour. . . . " 
 
 " Everything, everything has changed ! " 
 
 " Has everything changed? " 
 
 "Yes . . . I've lost you!" 
 
 "Mamma!" 
 
 " I have lost you. . . . Hush, dear, it was 
 bound to come ! . . . Does a son belong to his 
 parents? . . . Does a son belong to his mother? 
 ... A son belongs to everybody and every- 
 thing . . . but not to his parents, not to his 
 mother. ... It is a cruel law, but it is a 
 law. ..." 
 
 " You're regretting the past . . . and there 
 was not so much peace and quiet in the past, 
 Mummie. . . . Do you remember, do you remem- 
 ber . . . how you used to be . . . you and poor 
 Father? . . . Now everything is much calmer 
 . . . everything has smoothed down so ... be- 
 cause life has gone on." 
 
 ' Yes, life has gone on. ... I had you . . . 
 and I have lost you ! . . . " 
 
 She was sobbing on his shoulder. 
 
 "Mamma!" 
 
 " Dear, it was bound to be ! Didn't I consider 
 .. . . that it would be so . . . years and years 
 ago? . . . When you were a little boy, I often
 
 54 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 used to think, * I've got him now ... but one day 
 I shall lose him irrevocably?' Now it has come. 
 . . . I must accept it with resignation. ..." 
 
 " But am I not living with you all? Have I ever 
 been away . . . except to college . . . and 
 sometimes on business? " 
 
 " Dear, it's not that. It's the losing each other, 
 the losing each other . . . out of each other's 
 souls. ..." 
 
 " But it's not that." 
 
 ;< That's just what it is. ... And it's bound to 
 be so, dear. . . . Only, because I no longer feel 
 any part of you in my soul, I no longer know any- 
 thing about you. ... I have known nothing about 
 you for ages. ... I see you going and coming 
 it's the patients, it's the children, occupying you 
 ... in turns but what do I know, what do I 
 know about you? ... It has become like that 
 gradually . . . and since . . . since you got 
 married, it has become irrevocable." 
 
 "Mamma ..." 
 
 " I oughtn't to talk like this, dear. I mustn't. 
 And I should be able to overcome this melancholy, 
 if I knew . . . that you were happy in your- 
 self. ..." 
 
 ' Why should you doubt it? " 
 
 " I don't know. There's something about 
 you ..." 
 
 " Mother," he said, " how strange it is that you 
 and Father ..." 
 
 'Well?" 
 
 " Have never really found each other 1 You so 
 often think the same things." 
 
 " Did Papa also think . . .?" 
 
 ' Just now . . . almost the same as you." 
 
 " We have learnt to bear with each other, dar- 
 ling."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 55 
 
 " But you have never found each other," he said, 
 faintly; and his voice broke. 
 
 She looked at him; she understood that he too 
 had not found his wife. She saw it: he was not 
 happy in himself. A sword seemed suddenly to 
 cut through her soul; and she was filled with self- 
 reproach as from a well. Was it not all her fault, 
 that her son was not happy now? . . . Was it 
 not the result of his childhood, the result of his 
 upbringing? . . . The melancholy that had come 
 after the excessive earnestness of his first youth 
 . . . was it not her fault? 
 
 But she merely answered his words mechanically: 
 
 " No," she said, " we have never found each 
 other." 
 
 He would have wished to tell her now . . . 
 about his journey, about the old man, who had died, 
 over there, near Haarlem. But he could not; a 
 feeling of discouragement prevented him. And they 
 remained sitting without speaking, close together, 
 with her hand in his. After his father, after his 
 mother had both, so soon after each other, spoken 
 to him of his own happiness . . . now that feeling 
 of discouragement prevented him, because he saw 
 life enveloping in clouds of darkness at his feet 
 ... black darkness out of an abyss . . . so that 
 he did not know whither the first steps would lead 
 him. . . . Black darkness and emptiness . . . 
 because he no longer knew, no longer knew what it 
 would be best to say and do. . . . He could no 
 longer speak now of the old man who had died 
 yonder, who had sent for him to tell him that he 
 forgave the two of them his father, his mother 
 who had once injured him: he could not do it. 
 Whereas, at the time of his father's words, the 
 black darkness had only whirled in front of him, 
 now that his mother, so strangely, was saying the
 
 56 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 same to him ... it had suddenly become an abyss 
 . . . pitch-dark . . . because he no longer knew 
 anything. . . . He no longer possessed the in- 
 stinctive knowledge by which he must tread his path, 
 which, while still so very young, he thought that he 
 knew how to tread in clear self-consciousness of a 
 clear soul that felt its own vocation. Oh, how often 
 of late years had he no longer known ! He no longer 
 knew what was right to do, because, whatever he 
 had done of late years, the heaviness had sunk 
 within him, as an insufficiency, giving him that feel- 
 ing of discouragement. . . . He had felt that dis- 
 couragement by the bedside of his needy patients. 
 . . . He had felt that discouragement in between 
 his cares for Uncle Gerrit's children. . . . He had 
 felt that discouragement when he was with his wife, 
 with his own children. . . . 
 
 Oh, world of feeling born just of the emptiness 
 of self-insufficiency, because self, alas, was never 
 sufficient, because something was always lacking and 
 he did not know what ! . . . And, when this came 
 over him, this night of sudden chaos, the word died 
 on his lips, the movement on his fingers, the deed 
 on his will. . . . Oh, world of darkness, which 
 then suddenly spread like the expanse of clouds out- 
 side over all the clear sky of himself! . . . He 
 knew he wanted what was right; and yet the insuf- 
 ficiency swelled up. . . . He know his powers of 
 alleviation and consolation; and yet it was the night 
 without a smile ... as now, when he sat with 
 his hand in his mother's; with no words after their 
 first, save that she shuddered and said: 
 
 " Hark . . . hark how the wind is blow- 
 ing! . . ." 
 
 He drew her to him, until her head sank on his 
 shoulder, and they remained like that, in the night. 
 
 The gale outside was like a living immensity, a
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 57 
 
 vast soul raging with world-suffering, thousand- 
 voiced and thousand-winged, and under its raging 
 agony, which filled all the air above the land, the 
 house that contained the life of them all was small 
 as some tiny casket. . . . 
 
 And that night he was unable to tell her. ... .,
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Now at last, after days, he was himself again! 
 Alone, all alone, in the night, in his study, while 
 everyone in the house slept, while only the night 
 itself was awake : the night and the immense wind 
 tormenting itself and struggling, raging and tearing 
 round the house. Now at last he was alone and 
 himself again, after Amsterdam and after Haarlem, 
 after the troubles and comings and goings, the ex- 
 citement needy patients, visited by stealth; the 
 Merchants' School; the old man, the old man espe- 
 cially ! and, tired as he was, yet he could not make 
 up his mind for bed. In the study which was now 
 getting dusky-brown to his eyes in the light of the 
 lamp, he sat in the low leather chair; and his head 
 wearily drooped on to his hand. Now that he had 
 no more need for action, waves of indeterminate 
 darkness surged and floated all around and within 
 him, bearing on their crests the mood of self- 
 insufficiency. No one else knew him as he now knew 
 and felt himself: not his parents, not his wife, not one 
 of Uncle Gerrit's children, not one of his needy pa- 
 tients, who only saw him composed and steady of 
 nerve, a little sombre-eyed, but so four-square and 
 firm, so calm and confident in his knowledge, always 
 sure what would be good for all of them, who were 
 ill and wretched. . . . No one knew him as he 
 was now, weighed down with such despondency 
 in his leather chair; and all who saw him four- 
 square and firm, calm and confident in his know- 
 ledge, would never have believed that he knew no- 
 thing at all ... for himself. Oh, however much 
 
 58
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 59 
 
 he might know for others, with that almost mystic 
 knowledge which healed as though by a suggestive 
 force deep down within himself, however much he 
 might know what was good for their bodies and 
 souls, for himself he knew nothing, least of all for 
 his soul I . . . To them his young life seemed to 
 move from one goal to another, always certain of 
 itself through the windings of its course; yet that 
 was all on the surface; and he knew nothing of 
 himself I . . . His own disease was insufficiency; 
 and of recent years he had felt it swelling within 
 him fuller and fuller, eating into him deeper and 
 deeper. . . . 
 
 He saw himself again as a child his first recol- 
 lection between his two parents, his father taking 
 him from his mother's lap, his mother taking him 
 from his father's arms; and amid the unconscious- 
 ness of his earliest childhood he had always felt 
 the jarring and jealousy between them. Very soon 
 his blood made him speak, that calm unfevered 
 Dutch blood; and his unfevered Dutch nature could 
 be seen in his serious eyes; from the first his Dutch 
 seriousness and steadying composure had been able 
 to find, if not always words, at least sounds of 
 consoling reconciliation, of riper tenderness for that 
 mother, who hugged him in her arms, for that 
 father, whom he came to regard so soon as a bigger 
 and older brother. And this when he was still a 
 little fellow. It had been like that ever since he 
 could remember; from the time when he was a 
 child in the nursery, stroking Mother's tearful eyes 
 and bringing a laugh to Father's pouting mouth; 
 and, as he grew older and bigger, he remembered, 
 it had always been like that: he knew himself to 
 have been their comfort. ... It was small won- 
 der that, when still quite young, he had begun to 
 think of the comfort that he was and had then
 
 60 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 known for certain that he was their comfort . . . 
 He knew it then, as child and boy no longer in 
 unconsciousness but in assured, unshakable know- 
 ledge and then it had become his destiny. So very 
 early it had dawned on his consciousness and after- 
 wards glittered before his eyes: 
 
 " I must help them, I must be to him and to her 
 what is dear to them and what comforts them." 
 
 So naturally had he taken that destiny upon his 
 young shoulders that it never became too heavy for 
 him; and there had grown up with him an inclina- 
 tion to comfort and alleviate those who were not 
 quite so near to him. Quite naturally he had spread 
 his wing over all Uncle Gerrit's children, to care 
 for them, to bring them up. Quite naturally, he 
 sought what he could find to alleviate and comfort, 
 whom he could cure, whom he could care for . . . 
 and this farther still from him, not close to his 
 home, but in outlying villages and ( distant towns. 
 . . . Thus had his nature grown and thus did he 
 act, naturally, in obedience to his nature. . . . But 
 the conflict between his parents, coming immediately, 
 in the first, unconscious years of childhood, had 
 made his tender nerves tremble with an incessant 
 thrill, like a stringed instrument that is never silent. 
 . . . And under the calm, earnest glance, under 
 the laugh of comfort or composure, under the sturdy 
 breadth of his young and manly strength, the strings 
 had always vibrated and never consented to betray 
 themselves. . . . They had betrayed themselves 
 once, once only, when his'very earliest childish pain 
 had given him a violent shock, in a despair too great 
 to be borne. . . . But immediately afterwards he 
 had known within himself that he must be strong to 
 overcome the cruelties of life. . . . Since then the 
 cruelties had blown against him, like piercing winds 
 . . . without causing the sensitive strings to
 
 DR. ADRIAN 61 
 
 vibrate visibly or audibly to others. . . . Oh, did 
 he not remember that suffering of his childish soul 
 when he fancied that all his childish love had been 
 wasted, because his parents in despite of it were 
 going to separate, each grasping at the happiness 
 that had smiled to him! ... no one had seen 
 that suffering and vibration. After the lirst suffer- 
 ing, no one had seen anything. And it was as if the 
 too-great sensitiveness of the ever-vibrant strings 
 had hardened in the robust young years of manli- 
 ness; the .god had stood before him so sharply 
 defined : yonder ! . . . Yonder! . . . 
 
 He had felt young and robust; and that too- 
 sensitive vibration had only developed his soul 
 mystically, so that it should heal, wherever it 
 directed its magic. ... It had been very strange 
 to him; but just with the medical studies, which 
 should have made him a materialist, there had de- 
 veloped within him a conscious mysticism, enquiring 
 into the essence of life, which the medical books 
 failed to teach him. When he discussed it with 
 his student friends, they answered with the scoff of 
 growing positivism, the barren philosophy which 
 clings to most men from their medical studies, be- 
 cause they ask only for the visible manifestations of 
 the life which it is their business to tend and not 
 for the invisible source, the holy well of life, whence 
 everything flows in a radiance that grows gradually 
 dim . . . until the first radiance is no longer 
 visible. . . . 
 
 So it had happened with his student friends; and 
 theirs had become the common materialistic doctor's 
 career. His eyes had always been set on the essence 
 of life, the source of the radiant spring. . . . And, 
 with his increase in practical science and positive 
 knowledge, the strange, mystic certainty had in- 
 creased in him, the certainty that he was able to
 
 62 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 heal if he wished . . . that he could heal through 
 sheer force of will. ... It was not a matter for 
 discussion, it was in him, a great instinctive know- 
 ledge. . . . Oh, that glorious certainty, which had 
 shone out before him so early, sending its rays 
 abroad. . . . Since he had felt it, very early, so 
 clear and certain in himself, he no longer spoke 
 about it; at most there was a very rare word to his 
 mother, an occasional word to his father; but for the 
 rest he would not touch his secret power with words: 
 they were breath to dim a mirror's lustre 1 
 
 Oh, why had he not this knowledge for himself! 
 Why, of late years, had he sunk deeper and deeper 
 in the vagueness of that self-insufficiency! Why 
 was the balance disturbed, why did he feel a con- 
 sciousness of blame welling within him ! 
 
 He now sat on wearily; and, though everyone in 
 the house was in bed, though the blowing wind, 
 gigantic and plaintive, moaned up over distant 
 heaths and slid along the walls and windows with 
 its sombre, swelling howl, he could not make up his 
 mind to go to bed, as though he knew that, if he 
 did, he would not sleep. And, as if to know for 
 himself how the discouragement could have over- 
 mastered him, he dived back into his memories, saw 
 himself a boy again, healthy, strong and composed, 
 loving his Dutch horizons and Dutch skies, with the 
 deep, growing conviction that he had within himself 
 the secret power which he could pour forth to heal 
 all who suffered in body or in nervous soul. . . . 
 lie saw once more the disappointment of his parents, 
 especially Papa, and of Grandmamma, because he 
 would not enter the diplomatic service, because he 
 wanted to become a doctor. . . . But he had car- 
 ried his wish, backed up by Mamma, who seemed 
 to understand him. . . . His rapid power of study, 
 which allowed him to attain in feverish haste the
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 63 
 
 aim which he saw so close before his eyes : matricu- 
 lating out of the fifth class at school; putting in 
 a short time at Heidelberg before he went to 
 Leiden: he was so very young, only seventeen; 
 passing his first examination in a year, his second 
 in eighteen months, taking three intermediate courses 
 in the next five years, during which period he also 
 acquired practical experience with a demonstrator 
 at Vienna; and lastly taking his degree at the age 
 of twenty-six. His parents rejoiced when, after 
 those nine years at the university and abroad, he 
 settled down with them at Driebergen, when they 
 had him back in their house, where, despite the 
 presence of all Uncle Gerrit's children, he had left 
 a feeling of emptiness. ... A short spell of the 
 tenderness of living with them all again; and his 
 love for mankind had developed so quickly, making 
 him find his patients inevitably among the poorest 
 of the rural population, or sometimes in the vil- 
 lages, or even at Utrecht or Amsterdam. . . . He 
 never spoke about them, maintaining an earnest 
 silence about the things which he did, even as he 
 was silent about the secret force which he so cer- 
 tainly knew himself to possess. . . . Never had 
 he spoken to anybody over that poor little girl, a 
 child of twelve, the daughter of two wretched 
 labourers, a cripple since the age of five, whom, with 
 the veriest trifle of material assistance, but more 
 particularly through his sure power of will, he had 
 gradually helped to raise herself from her bed of 
 straw, enabled to move herself about, until she could 
 now walk on her frail and yielding little legs. . . . 
 He might have been ashamed of a cure so incredible, 
 for he had never talked about it, not even to his 
 mother, not even to his father. . . . 
 
 Oh, it lasted such a short time, the tenderness of 
 that time when he lived with them all again, with
 
 64 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 his parents and the others! . . . When he re- 
 flected upon the strange double projection of his 
 soul, when he was meeting the girl, who was now 
 his wife, at the Hague: meeting her just now and 
 again. A strange projection one of them? Perhaps 
 not, after all; but, because of the stormy night wind, 
 sombrely sending its howl over the sombre heaths, 
 he was not able ... to read his own thoughts 
 plainly. . . . Mathilde ! The few meetings, at 
 the Hague; then that feeling, when he chose her, 
 of having been irresistibly compelled; and, combined 
 with a vague wonder within himself, the pride also 
 of introducing that good-looking and healthy young 
 woman into his family. . . . He was proud that 
 she did not belong to their class, especially on her 
 mother's side, because it gave her an opportunity of 
 triumphing over their arbitrary divisions; proud too 
 that she was healthy, with her complexion of milk 
 and roses, and above all did not suffer from 
 " nerves," that all too common complaint among 
 them all. . . . But they had not shared his pride; 
 and after his marriage, some hint of antagonism 
 seemed inevitably to arise between him and his 
 father; his mother, too, for all the liberalism that 
 had come to her late in life, remained antipathetic 
 to this girl, whose gait and voice, whose movements 
 and utterance all suggested a different environment 
 from that to which Constance was accustomed; it 
 was as if Aunt Adeline, Emilie, Uncle Gerrit's 
 children, all their big household, had been unable 
 to receive Mathilde in their midst without a certain 
 supercilious mistrust. . . . They could none of 
 them understand why he had married this 
 woman. . . . And he had not failed to see how 
 they always stirred themselves to be gentle and 
 amiable towards her because, when all was said 
 and done, she was his wife stirred themselves
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 65 
 
 especially not to let her see that they all thought 
 her not quite, really not quite. . . . Her footfall 
 was heavy, her voice not high-pitched enough; in 
 everything that she did or said they marked that 
 sometimes infinitesimal difference which betrays a 
 difference of station. He had not failed to see it, 
 but his pride had lain low and had never allowed 
 them to notice that he saw it, because he thought 
 it so small of them, so small-souled, that they could 
 not blind themselves to that infinitesimal difference 
 between Mathilde and themselves, yes, because he 
 considered even their assiduous amiability small- 
 souled. They showed it her so graciously some- 
 times, priding themselves, all of them, willy-nilly, 
 upon their greater native and acquired distinction, 
 all thinking themselves finer and better and higher 
 than his wife, whom nevertheless they did not wish 
 to wound. . . . He saw this last even in his 
 mother, in the boys, in Adeletje and in Gerdy 
 though Gerdy never succeeded and he really pre- 
 ferred the undisguised aversion of little Klaasje, 
 who clearly showed that she could not bear 
 Mathilde. . . . 
 
 And he now saw that, in marrying this woman, 
 who was not quite of their class, he had wanted to 
 display pride in particular against the arbitrariness 
 of those whom he called his people his parents, his 
 family he had wanted to show that there was no 
 longer any distinction of class, especially no dis- 
 tinction in those minor shades of class. If they were 
 going to think about distinctions, she had the dis- 
 tinction of health . . . while his own people were 
 all sick, in body and soul, not, it might be, suffering 
 severely, but all affected or tainted with those 
 " nerves " of their time. . . . Perhaps his pride 
 had just contained a desire to place his wife, 
 Mathilde, before them as an example:
 
 66 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " Look here now, here's a woman who is healthy 
 and simple." 
 
 For that was how he looked upon her soul and 
 body. Because he looked upon her thus, he had 
 felt for her the love that had driven him towards 
 her, his soul taking that direction of positivism and 
 materialism which, after his student days, had at 
 that moment mastered the mysticism of his soul. 
 . . . For he had known then, those moments in 
 which he tired of his text-books or hardened in 
 the operating-room had felt the mysticism within 
 him temporarily fading; and it was especially during 
 those intervals of materialism that the young doctor 
 had experienced Mathilde's attraction, the attrac- 
 tion of a healthy, pink-and-white woman who would 
 give him healthy children. At such moments he 
 saw the world, all mankind, renewed by careful 
 selection; the vigorous life-force of the future burst- 
 ing into luxuriant rose-blossoms which would over- 
 whelm the sickly lilies of these days of " nerves." 
 . .' . When, afterwards, the secret forces spoke 
 more loudly within him, then he would suddenly 
 feel himself far removed from his wife, as though 
 he had lost her; and especially in his dark, vague 
 self-insufficiency he lost her entirely, feeling himself 
 nerveless and without power even to return her 
 kisses with any warmth, while his voice in speaking 
 to her remained dull and his grey glance cold, what- 
 ever he said and however hard he tried to force 
 himself back into his healtbv, oositive love for the 
 healthy mother of his two children. . . . 
 
 Then he would feel guilty towards her. And the 
 inner conviction of his guilt increased. Was it her 
 fault that he had been able only to give her one 
 half of his soul, that he had it in his power to love 
 her only with the positive half of his nature 
 however sincere it might be while he gave her
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 67 
 
 nothing of what worked and moved in him more 1 
 profoundly and gloriously, the true web and woof 
 of himself? Was it her fault and was he really 
 entitled to take her, if he could not give her more 
 than half of himself, while all that was higher 
 and he well knew what was higher in him escaped 
 her and always would escape her? . . . But often 
 in his black insufficiency, even as now in his weary 
 nocturnal mood, his consciousness of guilt, though 
 it pained him, became suddenly too dreamy and 
 unreal; and he now comforted himself tranquilly: 
 
 " She is a simple woman. She has never thought 
 of other than simple and uncomplicated things, has 
 never lived among them; and she will never miss 
 this, all that I do not give her, he will never know 
 the lack of it, because she is simple, because she is 
 simple: a healthy, normal mother, the handsome, 
 healthy mother of my two dear children. . . ." , 
 
 Then again, tired and undecided to go to bed, he 
 was pricked by his consciousness of guilt, he thought 
 of her unhappy in the house that was dear to him, 
 and he knew that he was incapable to-day and so 
 often, so often ! of giving her that love, that posi- 
 tive half, that one half of himself. . . . Sinking 
 and sinking in his self-insufficiency, he now listened 
 to the wind howling round the house, the storm that 
 had lasted for days, and he seemed to hear voices 
 that came moaning up over the wide heath, as 
 though the wind were alive, as though the storm 
 were a soul, as though it concealed weeping souls, 
 complaining souls, and were their one manifestation: 
 souls blowing up again and again, souls which now, 
 in the night, tapped with soul-fingers at the trembling 
 panes. . . . Round about this house, in which his 
 grand-parents had lived so long and in such lone- 
 liness, until now life had come to fill all the empty 
 rooms, it suddenly seemed to him as though he heard
 
 68 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 something of their voices, moaning plaintively 
 through the storm . . . accusing him first and 
 then pitying him: the old man's voice, the old 
 woman's voice. But what they moaned he did not 
 understand in the ever shriller howl upon howl that 
 floated despairingly along the swishing trees . . . 
 until suddenly the window, fastened only by the 
 latch, blew open with a fierce tug, the Venetian 
 shutter flapped to and slung open again, banging 
 against the wall of the house. . . . The wind 
 entered and with one breath blew out the lamp. 
 The room now dark, the night luridly visible out- 
 side, the window so desperately pulled open took on 
 new outlines. . . . Adriaan, groping, knocking 
 against the chairs, moved towards the window, 
 seized the flapping, banging shutter, closed it, closed 
 the window, firmly this time, turning the old latch 
 that was stiff with rust. 
 
 The rain poured in torrents; the wind moaned 
 and sobbed with sorrowfully entreating voices and 
 tapped its fingers against the trembling panes. 
 
 That night he did not sleep, tired as he was. 
 And he kept thinking: 
 
 "Am I at fault?"
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE old lady was sitting silently at the window in 
 the grey morning, which seemed spent and weary 
 with the wind out of doors and her thoughts were 
 following a far course of their own in misty days of 
 long ago. Klaasje came up to her. The child had 
 two heavy books under her arm, bound volumes of 
 The Graphic and L' Illustration, and walked bent 
 under them; then she dropped them, clumsily. . . . 
 Cross with the weight of the books, she beat them 
 angrily, but the hard boards hurt her little hand; 
 and so she decided to drag them to Granny, the 
 naughty books which refused to come : she dragged 
 them by the open bindings which had hurt her so; 
 she tore them a bit, but that was their own fault, 
 because they wouldn't be carried. . . . Satisfied 
 with her revenge in tearing the books, she closed 
 the bindings contentedly; the books lay at Granny's 
 feet, against her foot-warmer; and now Klaasje 
 dragged up a hassock too, pushed it against 
 Granny's dress and, kneeling on the hassock, asked 
 Granny, in a motherly fashion : 
 
 " Granny ! . . . Granny ! . . . Granny like to 
 look at pictures? " 
 
 The old woman, with a vague, misty glance, 
 slowly turned her head towards the child, whose fair 
 hair fell loosely round the rather thin, sharp little 
 face, from which the over-bright eyes shone 
 strangely, hard and staring. The voice " Granny 
 look at pictures? " rang strangely kind, but too 
 childish for a big girl of twelve, with a maturing 
 figure. It was too maternal towards the old woman: 
 
 6 9
 
 70 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 "Granny! . . . Granny like to look at pic- 
 tures?" 
 
 The old woman, vaguely, fancied herself at 
 Buitenzorg, in a large white palace among mount- 
 ains, which stood out against a blue sky, and coco- 
 trees, which waved gently like ostrich-feathers; and 
 she thought that her little daughter Gertrude was 
 kneeling by her and wanting to look at the books 
 with her. Her old mouth wore a little puckered 
 smile; and she put out her hands for the book, 
 which Klaasje held up clumsily. But the old 
 woman was too weak to pull the heavy book on to 
 her lap and it slipped obstinately down her dress to 
 the floor, against the foot-warmer. Klaasje grew 
 angry : 
 
 " Naughty books, naughty books ! ..." 
 
 She flew into a temper and struck the books again; 
 but her little hand was hurt and she suddenly began 
 to cry. 
 
 "Ssh! . . . Ssh! . . ." said Granny, sooth- 
 ingly. 
 
 She bent painfully in her big chair and laboriously 
 pulled up the heavy, obstinate book; and Klaasje, 
 with her eyes still wet, pushed up from below, till 
 at last it lay in Grandmamma's lap. Then Klaasje 
 sighed, after the final victory : 
 
 " Turn over," she said. 
 
 She turned over the heavy, clumsy binding and 
 said: 
 
 " Klaasje will explain. ..." 
 
 But the black pictures, "the dark portraits held no 
 story for her; and, pointing her finger at the picture 
 or the portrait, she could not make one up, could 
 not find her tongue : 
 
 " Turn over, turn over," she repeated. 
 
 She was longing for colours, yellow, blue and 
 red; but the pictures contained black, all black
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 71 
 
 stripes and black patches, and she thought them 
 ugly. 
 
 ' Turn over, turn over, turn over," she kept re- 
 peating, excitedly yearning for them to become 
 yellow, blue and red. 
 
 The old woman, with her puckered smile, pa- 
 tiently turned over the pictures. For her too they 
 held no story, because they were black and sombre; 
 and she was already seeing colours for herself, the 
 dead-white and deep-blue, the bright, lacquered 
 green of houses, sky and trees in Java. Here, under 
 the sombre oppression of the skies, here, in the 
 sombre pictures, the old woman and the child found 
 nothing to charm them. 
 
 Then Klaasje became very angry and dragged 
 the heavy book from Granny's lap and beat it, 
 heedless of the pain, and scolded : 
 
 " Ugly books . . . ugly, black books I" 
 
 " Ssh ! . . . Ssh ! " said the old woman sooth- 
 ingly, laying her veined hand on the girl's fair head. 
 
 " Build a tower! " said Klaasje, with a gurgle of 
 laughter suddenly beholding a beautiful vision. 
 
 She sprang up quickly. On a table in a corner 
 of the room she found a box of dominoes. She 
 brought the box, beaming with delight, but the 
 smooth lid slid out of the box and the dominoes 
 rattled on the floor. Klaasje stamped her foot, but 
 the beautiful vision still shone before her and hur- 
 riedly and passionately she scrabbled them into her 
 little pinafore. Then she brought them to Granny, 
 like a harvest, like so much booty, and rattled them 
 down at her feet. With a great effort she again 
 pushed one of the heavy books on to Granny's lap; 
 and the old woman helped her, pulling while Klaasje 
 pushed. 
 
 " Build tower! " cried the child. 
 
 Granny held the book, held it straight, while
 
 72 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 Klaasje placed two, three, four pieces on their nar- 
 row edges. Upon these she went on building the 
 rickety black-and-white tower. 
 
 44 A door and two windows," the child explained, 
 lost in her game. 
 
 But the tower fell in with a crash. 
 
 " Granny mustn't move ! " she whimpered. 
 
 Balancing the heavy book on Granny's knees, she 
 went on building, hurriedly, so as to get very high. 
 
 44 Granny mustn't move again. . . . Tower 
 . . . with a wall round it. ... Higher . . . 
 the tower . . . one more stone on the wall . . . 
 one more stone on the wall. ..." 
 
 But the wall and the tower came down with a 
 crash. 
 
 " Naughty Granny! . . . Naughty Granny !" 
 
 " Ssh ! " said the old woman, soothingly. 
 
 Addie had entered; and the child, dropping the 
 book and the dominoes, crowed with delight and 
 ran up to him. She called him uncle, not realizing 
 that he was her cousin: 
 
 " Uncle Addie ! " she cooed. 
 
 He opened his arms wide, lifted her a few inches 
 from the floor: 
 
 44 Look in Uncle Addie's pockets," he said. 
 
 u What have you got? What have you got? " 
 
 She fumbled in his pockets. 
 
 44 No, that's Uncle's pocket-book. . . . No, 
 that's his watch. . . . Here, look, what's this?" 
 
 He now helped her find the little parcel. She 
 tugged hurriedly at the paper and string; and he 
 opened the parcel for her. It was a little kaleido- 
 scope. 
 
 14 Look through it. ... " 
 
 4< Lovely!" said the child, gleefully. "Lovely 
 . . . blue, red, yellow! . . ." 
 
 "Now shake it. ,."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 73 
 
 She shook the kaleidoscope: the colours, from a 
 square, changed their figure into a star. 
 
 " Green, blue, red ! " the child cried. 
 
 " Now shake again. ..." 
 
 11 Blue and yellow." 
 
 "There, what do you say to that?" 
 
 "Lovely! . . . Lovelv! ..." 
 
 She sat down on the floor, suddenly quiet and 
 good, peered and shook the little cylinder, peered 
 and shook it again. In the gaudy star she suddenly 
 beheld a paradise : 
 
 " Green, yellow, blue." 
 
 Addie relieved Grandmamma of the book, put it 
 down and began to arrange the dominoes in the box. 
 
 " It's been blowing," said the old woman, pointing 
 through the window. " There are great branches 
 lying in the garden."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THEN Adeline came in, looking for Addie. He 
 was so tired yesterday that she had not cared to 
 ask him the result of his visit to Amsterdam, but 
 now, while he was still playing with Klaasje, she 
 glanced at him with questioning eyes. She was still 
 a young woman, no more than forty, for she had 
 married Gerrit early and then borne him a child 
 every year; but, despite her gentle, round, fair face, 
 she was no longer young in appearance. Her lines 
 had become matronly; and, especially after the great 
 sorrow, after her husband's suicide, which had 
 plunged her and the children into perpetual shadow 
 like an indelible twilight, she had become so spirit- 
 less in all her simple energies that she came like 
 a child to Constance or Addie about anything that 
 concerned any one of them : mostly to Addie, whom 
 she had taken to regarding as her inevitable pro- 
 tector. She looked up at him with respectful con- 
 fidence; she always did literally what he told her 
 to; it was he who controlled their whole little for- 
 tune, investing it as profitably as possible for the 
 children; notwithstanding his youth, she turned to 
 him in all that concerned her boys; and the boys 
 themselves accepted it, inevitably, that their cousin, 
 who was only six or seven years older than they, 
 should look after their interests with paternal 
 earnestness. But Adeline was well aware that Addie 
 was very angry that Alex had had to leave Alkmaar. 
 At first, things had gone fairly well in the secondary 
 school at the Hague; after the third form he was 
 seventeen by this time he had just succeeded in 
 
 74
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 75 
 
 passing his matriculation; but, when he took two 
 years over his first examination and failed in the 
 second, Addie himself had considered that Alex had 
 better look out for something different, however 
 much his mother, with her mind full of Gerrit, 
 would have liked to see her eldest son an 
 officer. . . . 
 
 By this time, he was nearly twenty; and it was so 
 late for him to go to the Merchants' School at 
 Amsterdam that Addie had decided first to obtain 
 all the details for himself and therefore had gone to 
 Amsterdam, to see the head-master. . . . That 
 was why, this morning, Adeline came to talk to 
 Addie, a little nervously, rather frightened of what 
 he might say, because he had been exceedingly dis- 
 satisfied about Alex, discouraged, not knowing what 
 to do with him next. . . . He would like to have 
 a talk with Alex, he said; and Adeline, sad about 
 her son and rather frightened of Addie, went to 
 fetch Alex and brought him back with her. He 
 was tall, slender, pale, fair-haired: he did not look 
 strong, although he had resembled his father, espe- 
 cially as a child; every year his features seemed to 
 become more and more fixed and his face became 
 like a spectral mask of pallor, with the look in the 
 eyes a little shy under the lashes, as with a timorous, 
 bashful and at the same time deep inner conceal- 
 ment of invisible, silent things. . . . Now that his 
 mother had come to fetch him from the room where 
 he sat reading, he came in with her, evidently 
 nervous about the coming talk with Addie. But 
 Addie said: 
 
 " I ought really to be going out, Aunt. . . . 
 Alex, can you go with me part of the way? Then 
 we can talk things over as we walk. The roads are 
 too wet for cycling." 
 
 Addie's eyes and voice set Adeline's mind at ease,.
 
 76 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 as though he were telling her that it would be all 
 right at the Merchants' School. . . . 
 
 The cousins left the house together. The trees 
 dripped with water; and the swift and angry wind 
 chased the great clouds farther in one direction; 
 but the sky remained grey and lowering. The far- 
 stretching, straight country-roads vanished at last in 
 a melancholy drab mist; and the two young men 
 at first walked along without a word. 
 
 '' Well, I went and enquired for you yesterday," 
 said Addie, at last. " You can go in for your exam, 
 Alex . . . and you can go on working there for 
 some time yet. ... I hope things will go better 
 this time, old chap. . . . You're nearly twenty 
 now. ... If they don't ..." 
 
 He made a vague gesture ; and Alex took his arm : 
 
 " It's awfully good of you, Addie, to take so 
 much trouble about me. I too hope . . . that 
 things will go right . . . this time. ..." 
 
 " Mamma would have liked to see you in the 
 army." 
 
 " Still, I'm really not cut out for a soldier. . . . 
 It's a pity I didn't think of it before I went to 
 Alkmaar. . . . But, when I was there I felt it 
 at once : there's nothing of the soldier about me." 
 
 " And in that way years were lost. . . . Well, 
 I do hope that now, when you're at the Merchants' 
 School, you won't suddenly discover . . . that 
 you're not cut out for a business-man . . . that 
 you're not fit for ' trade.'. . . . You can become a 
 consul, you know." 
 
 'Yes . . . perhaps ..." 
 
 " It's a pity, Alex, that you don't know things for 
 certain in your own mind . . . that you have no 
 settled ideas. ..." 
 
 'Yes . . . that's just it! . 
 
 "But you must become something, mustn't you?
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 77 
 
 You have no money, you fellows; and, even if you 
 had ... a man must be something ... in 
 order to do any or get any happiness out of life 
 . . . for himself and those about him. . . ." 
 
 'Yes, Addie. ..." 
 
 " Promise me now, old chap, to do your best. 
 . . . You see, I'm playing the father to all of 
 you, even though I'm only six years older than you 
 are. I feel a sort of father to you . . . and I 
 should like to see you all happy . . . and pros- 
 perous. . . . But you must help me, Alex. Show 
 a little energy. If you hadn't thrown up the sponge 
 at once at Alkmaar, you'd almost have had your 
 commission by now. ..." 
 
 "Yes. ..." 
 
 " Like your father. Mamma would have liked 
 that. But we won't talk about it any more and 
 we'll hope that things will go better at Amster- 
 dam. ..." 
 
 " Addie . . . do you remember Papa well? " 
 
 " Of course I do." 
 
 " So do I. ... I was eight years old, when he 
 died. ... I even remember ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " That evening . . . though I didn't understand 
 at the time . . . why Mamma cried and screamed 
 like that ... or why Aunt Constance and Uncle 
 Henri were there. ... It was not until later, oh, 
 years later, that I understood! . . . But I saw 
 ... I saw Papa lying . . . with blood all 
 round him; and that's a thing which always . . . 
 always . . . hovers before my eyes. I'm always 
 seeing it, Addie! . . . Tell me, Addie, do you 
 know why Papa did it? . . . There was nothing, 
 surely, to make him so unhappy as all that? " 
 
 " He was very ill." 
 
 "But not incurably?"
 
 78 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " He thought himself incurable." 
 
 " Still, he was strong?" 
 
 11 Physically." 
 
 " He was like Guy, wasn't he ? " 
 
 ' Yes, Guy is very like him, to look at. ... 
 He was tall, broad, fair-haired ..." 
 
 " Yes, that's how I remember him. I was eight 
 years old then." 
 
 " You were a jolly little tribe." 
 
 " And now we're nothing but a burden ... to 
 you. ..." 
 
 " Nonsense, it's not as bad as that! " 
 
 " I hope things'll go better . . . Addie . . . 
 at Amsterdam. ..." 
 
 "Why aren't you more talkative, Alex? . . . 
 You haven't been for a long time." 
 
 "Haven't I?" 
 
 " You never talk, at home ... to the others. 
 Only once in a way to me . . . when we are alone. 
 It was after Alkmaar that you became so silent. It 
 wasn't surely because I was angry at the time?" 
 
 " Perhaps, partly ..." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I daren't tell you." 
 
 " Tell me, Alex, if there is anything I can do for 
 you." 
 
 " You do so much as it is, Addie. . . . You do 
 everything." 
 
 " But speak quite openly. Perhaps there is some- 
 thing more that I can do for you." 
 
 " No, what could there' be ? " 
 
 " Something's upsetting you." 
 
 "No . . ." 
 
 " You're unhappy." 
 
 "No . . ." 
 
 1 You're so reserved." 
 
 " I . never talk much."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 79 
 
 " Try and trust me, Alex." 
 
 " I do trust you." 
 
 41 Well, then, talk to me." 
 
 " But I ... I've nothing to tell you, Addie." 
 
 " I know, Alex, that you must have something to 
 tell me. . . ." ' 
 
 "No. . . ." 
 
 14 1 know it, Alex." 
 
 " No, Addie, really. . . . I've nothing to tell 
 you. ..." 
 
 The lad tried to release his arm from Addie's, 
 but Addie held him tight : 
 
 " Walk a bit more with me." 
 
 " Where are you going? " 
 
 " I have a couple of patients to see. . . . 
 Take me there, Alex . . . and speak, speak 
 openly. . . ." 
 
 14 1 can't speak." 
 ' Then try and find your words. I'll help you." 
 
 " Not to-day . . . not to-day, Addie, out here, 
 in the roads. . . . Perhaps another time . . . 
 indoors." 
 
 4 Very well, then, another time, indoors. I'll 
 keep you to your word. And now let's talk of 
 nothing but the Merchants' School. ..." 
 
 And, with Alex still hanging on his arm, he told 
 him about the head-master, the staff, the lessons 
 there . . . making a point of holding out hopes 
 to Alex that everything would go easily and 
 smoothly. Did Addie not know, did he not diagnose 
 that the boy was so terribly afraid of life, of the 
 days to come, because a twilight had always con- 
 tinued to press down upon him, the twilight of his 
 father's suicide? ... It had given the child a fit 
 of shuddering in so far as he had realized it at 
 the time; and things had suddenly grown dark, about 
 his child-soul; and, when the power of thought had
 
 8o DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 developed in him later, there had always remained 
 the fear in that darkness, because the unconscious 
 life went on daily . . . and because his father 
 why, why? had torn himself out of the unconscious 
 life and committed suicide. . . . That? though 
 Alex had not spoken was how Addie diagnosed 
 him, that was how he really diagnosed his state, 
 with that strange look of penetration, with that 
 strange vision. . . . And, when he looked into 
 another in this way, he no longer thought of himself, 
 his self-insufficiency fell away from him and he 
 seemed to know on the other's behalf, to know 
 surely and positively, to know with instinctive know- 
 ledge ... as he never knew things for him- 
 self. . t . . 
 
 While they walked on, arm in arm, he thought 
 that the boy's heavy step was becoming more 
 rhythmical and even, that his answers now that 
 they went on talking about Amsterdam and the 
 master in whose house he would be were becoming 
 firmer, as though he were taking greater interest. 
 . . . There was no note of doubt in Addie's voice : 
 his voice made the two years' schooling at Amster- 
 dam, the whole subsequent life as a busy, hard- 
 working man, stand out clear in the mist that hung 
 under the trees and over the roads, made it all take 
 on bright colours as a life spreading open_ with 
 unclouded horizons of human destiny, as though all 
 the unconscious life would run easily along ordered 
 lines. . . . He himself had never known that fear 
 of the days to come, because he had seen his goal 
 before him in the future. Yet why, then, that 
 morbid sense of insufficiency? . . . 
 
 He refused to think of it; and at once it passed 
 from him like a ghost. Even after his sleepless 
 night, he now felt the energy circulating strongly 
 within him, felt the magic pouring out of him as
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 81 
 
 vital warmth. He must make that boy by his side 
 realize the life before him, he must take away his 
 fear of the future. An unknown force inside him 
 ordained that he should make the future shine with 
 hope and promise for this boy, ordained that he 
 should purge the days to come of their sombre 
 terror. 
 
 And, when he had taken leave of Alex, because 
 he did not wish him to know where his patients 
 lived, the lad went back easier in his mind, with 
 his fears pressing less heavily upon him, with the 
 sullen sky growing gradually brighter . . . how- 
 ever much he might have to think always of his 
 father, however much he had to see his father's 
 blood-stained corpse daily more and more clearly 
 before his eyes. . . .
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE household took its everyday course of a 
 morning: the everyday life, driven indoors by the 
 merciless winter, the grey skies and blustering wind, 
 rolled on softly and evenly in the rooms and pas- 
 sages of the big house. Not much came from out- 
 side, where the great trees in the garden dripped 
 with chill rain; nothing to stir the big house, which 
 stood there like a great lonely block on the villa- 
 road, amid the sombre mystery of its wind-blown 
 trees. For the occupants of the big, gloomy house 
 had made as few acquaintances as possible among 
 their neighbours, though in the spring and summer 
 Gerdy would take her racket daily to the tennis- 
 club. ... In the winter, it was a quiet life indoors, 
 varied only by a walk, or a visit to a sick or poor 
 neighbour, a quiet life between the walls of the big 
 rooms, with the wind tapping at the window- 
 panes. . . . 
 
 The old grandmother sat mostly in the conserva- 
 tory and looked out into the garden, sagely nodding 
 her silver-grey head. She no longer recognized all 
 the children and as a rule thought herself back at 
 Buitenzorg, in the midst of her own family; even 
 when Klaasje sat playing at her feet, she would 
 think that it was little Gertrude, Gertrude who had 
 died, as a child, at Buitenzorg. . . . Constance, a 
 zealous housewife, active despite her fifty-five years, 
 moved about the house incessantly during the morn- 
 ing, with Marietje or Adeletie to help her. Twenty- 
 two and twenty-one respectively, they were always 
 with Constance: Marietje already full of unselfish 
 
 82
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 83 
 
 consideration and Adeletje delicate, not speaking 
 much, sitting with her needlework upstairs in their 
 room; and, because of Alex' strange melancholy, it 
 was only Guy and Gerdy that represented joyous, 
 healthy youth in the house, that rich health and 
 radiance which reminded Constance of their father, 
 of her brother Gerrit, who had been so noisy, broad 
 and strong until he fell ill, too ill to go on 
 living. . . . 
 
 Klaasje was very troublesome in the mornings, 
 very restless, full of freaks and cranks, always 
 bothering the others to play with her or at least 
 to make a fuss over her; and Constance was so sorry 
 that Klaasje could not be upstairs in the nursery 
 with Jetje and Constant, but Mathilde would not 
 have her there. And the poor, innocent child, 
 twelve years old by now, was jealous of Constant 
 and Jetje and hated Mathilde, as though, uncon- 
 sciously, she felt in the children a childishness that 
 was natural and as though she knew that, after 
 all, she herself was much too big to play about 
 like that and build houses with cards and 
 dominoes. . . . 
 
 Above the great sombre house, against the great 
 sombre skies and inside the house itself there was 
 always a strange melancholy of things that had 
 been. ... It floated through the passages and 
 creaked in the furniture; it could be felt in the old 
 grandmother's sitting at the conservatory-window, 
 in the pale, unchangingly sad face of Adeline, who 
 was so helpless; it appeared in the silent sorrow of 
 Emilie, who was spiritless and never spoke much 
 these days. In the sombre house they sat or moved 
 in an atmosphere of bygone things which mingled 
 with the atmosphere of the house itself, as though 
 they were small, pale souls, broken by life and 
 sheltering in the safe house, now that the winter
 
 84 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 seemed endless and the heavy clouds were so op- 
 pressive. ... A cloud of recollection hung over 
 the old woman, as she sat silently staring, as she 
 played with Klaasje, who would never grow up; a 
 last reflexion of sombre tragedy lingered around the 
 simple mother of so many children, as though her 
 husband's suicide still struck her with tragic wonder 
 that life could strike so suddenly and fiercely and 
 cruelly; it was as though a strange psychological 
 secret slumbered in the sad eyes of Emilie, who was 
 still a young woman ; a secret which she would never 
 speak. . . . 
 
 Sombre was the house and sombre the everlasting 
 wind that blew around it; full of strange voices, of 
 things of long ago; and they did not brighten the 
 house, those three sad, silent women, so different 
 in age, so sombre in their equal melancholy. They 
 did not brighten the morning which they spent there 
 together, in the house on the long, rain-swept road; 
 and it was Constance herself, followed quietly by 
 Marietje or Adeletje, who woke the house, stairs and 
 passages to life with her active footfall and the 
 shrill rattle of her keys. . . . The sound of a piano 
 came harshly from Mathilde's sitting-room upstairs; 
 and it had only to be heard to make the other piano 
 in the drawing-room downstairs cry out in pain 
 under Gerdy's furious little fingers, until Constance 
 was startled at so much noise and hurriedly whis- 
 pered to Marietje: 
 
 " Do tell Gerdy not to play when Mathilde is 
 playing upstairs ! ..." 
 
 Marietje would then rush to the drawing-room 
 and rebuke Gerdy; and, because it was Aunt Con- 
 stance' request, Gerdy's piano suddenly fell silenced, 
 leaving Mathilde's runs and flourishes to triumph 
 overhead. 
 
 The children drove out daily with their nurse in
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 85 
 
 the governess-court, whatever the weather: it was 
 Addie's principle and they throve on it; and their 
 youthfulness, stammering its first words, was like a 
 bright, rosy dawn of the future, as they went along 
 the sombre stairs and dark passages and rooms, 
 casting a sudden golden radiance in that atmosphere 
 of the past, as though they were suddenly powdering 
 through the brown of the shadows, as though they 
 were sprinkling the sound of children's voices 
 through the brown air, which had not caught a child- 
 ish sound for so many years. . . . 
 
 When Addie was out, visiting his patients, Van 
 der Welcke remained in his room, reading and 
 smoking, Uncle Jupiter, as Gerdy called him, be- 
 cause he usually sat enveloped in the blue clouds of 
 his cigarette; and Guy did a little work, for his 
 examination as a clerk in the postal service, except 
 when he went to Utrecht, where he was receiving 
 private tuition in geography. But when he was 
 working at home, in his little room, up on the third 
 floor, his young, healthy restlessness constantly made 
 him get up and run downstairs, to borrow an atlas 
 of Van der Welcke, hang round Uncle Henri for a 
 bit, smoke a cigarette with him, then go back up- 
 stairs. He would look at his books and maps for 
 three minutes and then jump up again, stretch him- 
 self, take up his dumb-bells, feeling stiff from the 
 long sitting, and go downstairs once more. 
 
 Constance met him in the hall: 
 
 " Aren't you working, Guy? " 
 ' Yes, I am, Auntie. Where are you off to? " 
 1 To the store-cupboard." 
 
 He went with her and Marietje to the store- 
 cupboard, conducted a raid among the almonds and 
 raisins, talked a lot of nonsense and made Constance 
 laugh, until she said: 
 
 " Come on, Guy . . . run along upstairs."
 
 86 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 But, because Adeletje looked after the flowers in 
 the conservatory and he saw her carrying a watering- 
 can, he assisted her and even sponged the leaves of 
 an aralia, while Klaasje played at Grandmamma's 
 feet, building houses with cards, which she loved for 
 the shrill colours of the court-cards, and aces l and 
 for the pretty figures of hearts and diamonds, clubs 
 and spades. He built a house for her; he teased 
 Gerdy, who was back at her piano, now that 
 Mathilde had left off overhead, until Truitje came 
 to lay the table for lunch and he raced up three 
 flights of stairs, terrified, to work at all costs . . . 
 hang it all, yes, to work! . . . He sat with his 
 hands to his ears, so as not to hear, and his eyes 
 fixed on the maps ; and, when the luncheon-bell rang, 
 he deliberately waited a few minutes, pretended to 
 himself to be annoyed because a morning passed so 
 quickly and never came down to lunch less than five 
 minutes late, making the excuse that he had been 
 working so hard. . . . 
 
 Now, in the winter, the short days passed in 
 peaceful, sombre domesticity: in the afternoon, Con- 
 stance went for a walk or to see a poor person, 
 generally with Adeletje; paying or receiving a visit 
 was cjuite an event, which happened only three or 
 four times during the winter; only Gerdy sometimes 
 entertained her tennis-club and gave the members 
 tea, upstairs in the girls' sitting-room, as though 
 striving for a little sociability from the outside. 
 . . . And, in the yellow, circle of light shed by the 
 lamps, the evening drowsed on gently after dinner, 
 with the wind whistling round the house, with 
 Gerdy's bustle amid the chink of her tea-things,, 
 with Guy and Adeletje rattling the dice : 
 
 "Two and five. ..." 
 
 1 The aces in Dutch packs of cards are set in brightly-coloured 
 pictures, usually town-views.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 87 
 
 " Double six. . . . Once more. . . . Imperial. 
 . . . Once more. . . . Three and five. . . ." 
 
 And Mathilde sat with a book in her hands, her 
 eyes expressing a weight of silent boredom, while 
 the room seemed full of things of the past, and the 
 voice of the wind outside and the mourning women 
 Granny, Adeline, Emilie like three generations of 
 dreaming melancholy depressed her until Addie 
 came in, for a brief hour, before going upstairs 
 again to his reading. . . .
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IT was raining on the morning when Adolphine 
 alighted at Zeist-Driebergen and hurried to the 
 tram which was on the point of leaving. She looked 
 very weary and lean, with bitter lines round her thin, 
 spiteful lips and a reproach in her sharp eyes; and 
 suddenly she reflected that she was sorry that she 
 had not put on a better cloak. 
 
 " Conductor, will you stop at Baron van der 
 Welcke's villa, please? " 
 
 " We don't pass the villa, ma'am, but it's quite 
 close to the road." 
 
 ' Then will you tell me where to get out? " 
 
 The conductor promised ; and Adolphine suddenly 
 became very uncertain of herself. All those years, 
 all the years that Constance had been living at 
 Driebergen, she had never been once to look them 
 up: really out of anger, because they had stolen 
 Mamma, because Mamma had gone to live with 
 them. In all those years, she had never seen her 
 mother, had seen Constance only once and again, 
 at Baarn, after Bertha's death; at the Hague, casu- 
 ally, exchanging a few words with her when they 
 met, by accident, at Aunt Lot's; and Addie also 
 she had seen but very seldom. She was sorry for 
 it now, it looked so strange, to arrive like this, all 
 of a sudden; and then she had not announced her 
 coming, because she disliked writing the letter. 
 ... If only Constance wasn't out, or away, or 
 perhaps gone to Utrecht or Amsterdam for a day's 
 shopping . . . which was possible. . . . She was 
 
 88
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 89 
 
 coming quite like a stranger; and her heart was 
 thumping; and she was almost sorry now that she 
 had taken this step. There were plenty of other 
 doctors besides Addie, who was still such an inex- 
 perienced boy, and yet . . . and yet ... In her 
 unstrung condition, the tears came to her eyes and 
 she felt overcome with her sorrow, with all the 
 bitterness of the last few melancholy years. It was 
 all very sad at home: Van Saetzema, retired on a 
 pension and now ailing . . . with cancer in the 
 stomach; the boys Jaap in the Indian Civil, Chris 
 in the army, Piet a midshipman never writing 
 home, now that they no longer needed the paternal 
 house; Caroline soured by not marrying; and the 
 youngest, Marietje, so weak lately, so queer, that 
 Adolphine did not know what to do with her! 
 Added to all this, because, notwithstanding her econ- 
 omy, they had lived on too lavish a scale in her striv- 
 ing after Hague grandeur, they had run into debt 
 and were now living in a small house, really vegeta- 
 ting, without seeing a spark of grandeur gleaming 
 before their eyes. It was all over, there was no- 
 thing left for them: it was all loneliness and dying 
 off ... relations and friends; there was no family 
 circle left at the Hague and it seemed as though 
 such family-circle as had survived was now united 
 how strange! in Van der Welcke and Constance' 
 house at Driebergen. . . . Adolphine had long 
 cherished a wonderful jealousy at this, as though, 
 after Van Naghel's death and Bertha's, it ought 
 to be her house which the family, however greatly 
 dispersed, would look upon as the family-house. 
 ... It was not that she was hospitable by nature, 
 but her vanity was injured; and to satisfy this she 
 would not have objected even to taking Mamma to 
 live with her, however doting and tiresome Mamma 
 might have become. But there had never been any
 
 90 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 question of that. No, Mamma had at once gone 
 to Constance; and Adolphine could feel, by the way 
 in which Paul, Dorine, the Ruyvenaers and even 
 Karel and Cateau spoke, that they all, with varying 
 degrees of affection, looked upon Van der Welcke's 
 house at Driebergen as still remaining the family- 
 centre! A nice state of affairs! Adolphine was 
 angry now, because she never succeeded in anything, 
 because she never had succeeded. . . . And now 
 she had actually set out for Driebergen, with the 
 very object of asking those two, Constance and Van 
 der Welcke, to do her a favour, though she refused 
 as yet to picture it so clearly as such. . . . 
 
 She was very nervous when the conductor, at a 
 halt, told her to get down, showed her a road, 
 pointed to a house distantly visible between the bare, 
 dripping trees. The great block loomed massive- 
 grey through the black boughs; the outline of the 
 long, straight roof stood out harsh and unwelcoming 
 against the grey winter sky. It was only the fancy 
 of overstrung nerves; but in the windows of the 
 front, with their reflecting panes and blinds half 
 down, Adolphine seemed to feel reserve, repellence, 
 pride, grudge, refusal. ... It all shot very 
 quickly through her, made her hesitate to go on 
 . . . and yet, now that she had come so far, now 
 that she was approaching the gate of the front- 
 garden, she realized that it was too late, that she 
 must go on, round the beds with the straw-wrapped 
 roses; and she rang at the great gloomy front-door. 
 She rang shyly, too softly; the bell did not sound; 
 and she stood waiting under her dripping umbrella. 
 Her heart was beating as she pulled a second time, 
 rather harder, in spite of herself. . . . Truitje 
 now opened the door and she recognized her as the 
 maid, the same maid, for whom Constance had rung, 
 years and years ago, in the Kerkhoflaan, to show
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 91 
 
 her the door, after their last private interview. She 
 was surprised to see the girl, looking older, but still 
 recognizable; and, because her thoughts were car- 
 ried back to so many years ago, the sight gave her 
 such a sense of hesitation that she could hardly 
 speak, especially as Truitje, equally surprised, was 
 also staring her in the eyes. Adolphine felt that she 
 was going to stammer, now that she had to open 
 her lips; but there was no way out of it; the ques- 
 tion must be put : 
 
 " Is . . .is me-mevrouw ... is mevrouw at 
 home?" 
 
 " Yes, ma'am . . . mevrouw's at home." 
 
 Adolphine had entered trembling; and the maid 
 closed the door behind her and took her wet um- 
 brella from her. Standing on the mat, she saw the 
 long hall before her, with the brown doors, the 
 antique cabinet, the portraits and engravings. It 
 gave her the impression of a very sober and serious 
 Dutch house, but an impression, too, of reserve, 
 repellence, pride, grudge and refusal. . . . And, 
 with her eyes anxiously fixed on the open oak door 
 at the end of the hall, she stammered once more 
 almost imploringly, with an irresolution in her voice 
 which she could not overcome : 
 
 " I'm not ... I'm not disturbing her?" 
 
 " Not at all, ma'am: pray come in." 
 
 Then the door of the drawing-room opened and 
 Constance herself stood before her: 
 
 "Adolphine!" 
 
 There was surprise in her voice, if not gladness: 
 surprise at finding Adolphine there, Adolphine 
 whom she had never seen at Driebergen, whom she 
 had never seen lately, for the matter of that, except 
 once or twice, casually, at the Hague or Baarn 
 . . . when poor Bertha had died. 
 
 "Adolphine!"
 
 92 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " I've come to see how you are getting on, Con- 
 stance . . . you and . . . and Mamma. ..." 
 
 Adolphine's voice wavered, jerkily, beseechingly, 
 uncertain of itself; and it was so strange for Con- 
 stance to see Adolphine, to hear her uttering such 
 words, in so hesitating a voice, that she was put out 
 for a moment and could not frame a phrase of 
 welcome, could not even make a show of cordiality. 
 But she saw that the door at the end of the hall 
 stood ajar; and she said to Truitje, almost 
 angrily : 
 
 "Truitje, why is that door open again? You 
 know I want it shut." 
 
 " It opens sometimes with the draught, ma'am," 
 replied the maid. 
 
 Truitje closed the door and went back to the 
 kitchen; and the two sisters were left alone. 
 
 " Come in, Adolphine." 
 
 " I'm not disturbing you ? " 
 
 u Of course not. I'm glad to see you again." 
 
 She forced a note of geniality into her voice. 
 
 " We haven't met for years," said Adolphine, in 
 hesitating excuse. 
 
 " Not for ever so long. I go to the Hague so 
 seldom. Here's Mamma." 
 
 The old woman was in the conservatory, gazing 
 out of the window. 
 
 " Mamma ! " said Adolphine, with emotion. 
 " Mamma ! " 
 
 She went nearer : 
 
 "Good-morning, Mamma. ..." 
 
 The old woman looked at her vacantly: 
 
 " It's windy," she said. " The garden is full of 
 big branches. ..." 
 
 " Mamma," said Constance, " here's Adolphine 
 come to see you." 
 
 The old woman did not recognize her daughter.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 93 
 
 She looked at Adolphine vacantly and indifferently. 
 Then she said: 
 
 " It's not right for Gertrude to run about in the 
 garden when it's so windy. . . . There are big 
 branches falling from the trees." 
 
 " No, Mamma, I'll go and fetch her in." 
 
 " Gertrude? " asked Adolphine. 
 
 " She means our poor Klaasje," whispered Con- 
 stance. 
 
 " But doesn't Mamma know me?" 
 
 " Not . . . just now. She'll recognize you 
 presently. . . . Mamma, don't you know Phine? " 
 
 " Phine?" repeated the old lady. 
 
 " Adolphine, Mamma. Look, she's come to give 
 you a kiss." 
 
 " She's dead," said the old woman . . . 
 
 11 Mamma ! Adolphine dead? Look, she's 
 here!" 
 
 The old lady shook her head: 
 
 " She's dead," she said, unshakably. " She died 
 ,. . . years ago." 
 
 Adolphine turned her head away and began to 
 sob. 
 
 " She'll recognize you presently," said Constance, 
 gently, consoling her. " She's sure to know you 
 presently. Adolphine, I'm so glad to see you." 
 
 But Adolphine was sobbing violently: 
 
 " Mamma doesn't . . . know me ! " 
 
 " My dear, she hasn't seen you for so long. I 
 know she'll recognize you later on. ... You're 
 staying to lunch, of course. ..." 
 
 " I . . . should like to. ... Constance, I've 
 come to . . ." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " To ask something. . . . But presently, not 
 now . . . I'm too much upset. ..." 
 
 " Let me help you off with your things."
 
 94 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 11 I'm dreadfully wet . . . it's raining so. . . ." 
 
 ' You've chosen a bad day." 
 
 u I didn't want to wait any longer." 
 
 ' Tell me, what is it, what can I do for you?" 
 
 " I can't tell you yet." 
 
 Gerdy peeped round the open door: 
 
 11 Is that Aunt Adolphine? " 
 
 ' Yes," said Constance. 
 
 Marietje and Adeletje followed: 
 
 "Is that . . . Aunt Adolphine?" 
 
 They came in and shook hands. 
 
 " Is Klaasje out in the garden ? " asked Con- 
 stance. 
 
 " I saw her running about just now." 
 
 " You have a busy household . . . Constance," 
 said Adolphine, waveringly. 
 
 " Yes," said Constance, smiling, " and yet I 
 should miss them if they weren't there. All my 
 daughters . . . and my boys." 
 
 The girls stood round her: Gerdy, looking very 
 handsome; Adeletje, weak and pale; and Marietje, 
 tall, lank and plain. 
 
 " And then you've got . . . Emilie . . . and 
 Adeline," said Adolphine, counting them shyly. 
 
 " Yes," said Constance. " We all keep together 
 now. . . . Children, Aunt Adolphine's staying to 
 lunch." 
 
 Something in her words seemed to ask the girls 
 to leave her alone with Adolphine. In the con- 
 servatory, the old woman sat gazing up at the 
 clouds, which came sailing along big and grey, and 
 she heard nothing, paid no attention. 
 
 " Adolphine," said Constance, when they were 
 alone once more, " we have a moment before lunch. 
 Come upstairs to my room, then we sha'n't be dis- 
 turbed." 
 
 She put out her hand. Adolphine took it; and
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 95 
 
 Constance led her sister almost mechanically 
 through the passages and up the stairs. 
 
 " It's a gloomy house," said Adolphine, with a 
 shiver at the sight of the oak doors. 
 
 ' Yes, it is rather gloomy. . . . Fortunately, it's 
 large; there's plenty of space." 
 
 " Really?" asked Adolphine, growing interested. 
 44 Have you many rooms? " 
 
 "Oh, a great many! . . . When the old man 
 was alive, they were all empty. Now they are 
 nearly all full." 
 
 'Nearly all?" 
 
 4 Very nearly. . . . This is my own sitting- 
 room." 
 
 They went in. 
 
 " It's the furniture from your drawing-room at 
 the Hague," said Adolphine. 
 
 4 Yes. I can imagine myself at the Hague here." 
 
 14 Do you like the Hague? " 
 
 " I'd rather live there than here. But Henri and 
 Addle are attached to the house: it's their family 
 house." 
 
 4 They are fine, big rooms," said Adolphine, in 
 humble praise. 44 I'm living in a very small house 
 now." 
 
 44 Ah, but there are so few of you ! " 
 
 4 That's true." 
 
 ' 4 How's your husband? " 
 
 44 He's not very grand . . . Marietje neither." 
 
 14 Isn't she well?" 
 
 " No. She's very full of nerves. I consulted Dr. 
 Berens, to ease my mind." 
 
 4 What does he say?" 
 
 4 ' He ... he suggested that ..." 
 
 'That what, Adolphine?" 
 
 44 He said . . . that Addie was beginning to 
 make such a name . , . as a nerve-specialist. He
 
 96 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 advised me to go to Addie . . . and talk to him 
 about Marietje. Perhaps one day, when he comes 
 to the Hague, he might see Marietje. . . . Do 
 you think he could be persuaded to, Constance? " 
 
 " Certainly, Adolphine. Of course he will, 
 gladly." 
 
 " I hear such good accounts of him . . . as a 
 doctor." 
 
 " Yes, he is getting a very big practice." 
 
 " And making a lot of money. ..." 
 
 " Well, not so very much, I believe." 
 
 " Ah, perhaps he's right, as a young doctor, to 
 be reasonable in his charges ! . . . You see, Con- 
 stance, that . . . that's really why I came down." 
 
 " You were quite right, Adolphine. Addie will 
 be home presently and then you can talk to him 
 yourself. . . . Poor Marietje: I'm sorry she's so 
 ill. How old is she now ?" 
 
 ' Twenty-six." 
 
 " I remember : she's a year younger than Addie." 
 
 " Who would have thought, Constance, that you 
 would come and live here . . . with Mamma 
 . . . and Adeline . . . and the children? . . . 
 But Mamma always liked you best. / should have 
 been glad to have Mamma with me . . . but it's 
 better as it is; our house is so tiny. . . . Does 
 Addie come to the Hague often? Would he be 
 able to treat Marietje regularly? " 
 
 " He would go specially." 
 
 " He hypnotizes, doesn't he? " 
 
 " Very often, I believe." 
 
 "Do you like that?" 
 
 " Addie often gets very remarkable results." 
 
 " I don't very much fancy it. I shouldn't like him 
 to hypnotize Marietje. But, if it's essential . . ,." 
 
 The gong sounded. 
 
 "Is that for lunch?"
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 97 
 
 "Yes. Will you come?" 
 
 Van der Welcke and Addie were downstairs. 
 They had just come in, but had heard from the girls 
 that Aunt Adolphine was there ; and Van der Welcke 
 welcomed her conventionally. Oh, what fights they 
 had had in the old days ! But so many years had 
 passed since those bygone times; and what did a 
 pressure of the hand and a kind word cost? He 
 had acquired a certain genial earnestness in his big 
 house, filled with his wife's family. He would have 
 missed them, all those big children . . . even 
 though Guy and Gerdy were the only cheerful ones. 
 . . . But those two were the sunshine of the 
 house; and the others still clung to him with sym- 
 pathy: their gratitude created a sympathetic at- 
 mosphere round Uncle Henri. . . . 
 
 At the long luncheon-table, Marietje cut the 
 bread-and-butter. Granny did not sit at the table; 
 and Mathilde came down very late. No one had 
 told her that Aunt Adolphine was there and she 
 stood amazed in the doorway before bringing her- 
 self to offer a non-committal greeting. She was aloof 
 in her manner, thought Adolphine, middle-class, put 
 on airs as she sat down. It was striking how her 
 personality failed to blend with that of the others, 
 as though she remained a stranger among them. In 
 the grey winter morning, hovering sullenly along 
 the dark walls of the dining-room, she was a fresh, 
 handsome woman; her full face was the colour of 
 milk and roses; her lines swelled with health. 
 Gerdy, beside her, was nothing more than a pretty 
 little smiling thing; Marietje and Adeletje were very 
 plain: Marietje so lank and yellow; Adeletje looking 
 quite old with her sickly face. Klaasje was very 
 tiresome, ate uncouthly and sat beside Constance, 
 who kept on gently reproving her and cut up her 
 bread-and-butter for her as though she were a baby.
 
 98 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 Guy carved the cold beef. All of them were silently 
 wondering what Aunt Adolphine had come down for 
 and their conversation sounded constrained; but Van 
 der Welcke talked nonsense calmly with Guy and 
 Gerdy. Adolphine, to keep the pot boiling, talked 
 about the Hague: Uncle and Aunt Ruyvenaer and 
 the girls had returned to India ever so long ago 
 and were not coming back to Holland, now that 
 Uncle and Aunt were older and preferred to live 
 in Java; Louise was living with Otto and Frances; 
 Frances always had something or other the matter 
 with her; and Louise looked after the house and 
 Hugo and Ottelientje, who were now thirteen and 
 fourteen. Then there were Karel and Cateau, 
 Ernst, Dorine, Paul. . . . 
 
 " We don't see much of one another nowadays," 
 said Adolphine, sadly. " Ah, Mamma's Sunday 
 evenings ! They were very pleasant, say what you 
 like. We didn't always agree, perhaps, but 
 still ..." 
 
 She started, became confused, pecked awkwardly 
 at her food. She felt that the illusion of an united 
 family Mamma's great illusion in the old days 
 was quite dispelled; and, older, more melancholy 
 and still bitter as she was, she felt sad about it, 
 sad about something which possibly she had never 
 valued but which she now missed. And she could 
 not help feeling acute envy that Constance was living 
 in so big a house and harbouring so many relations; 
 and suddenly she asked, sharply: 
 
 " Your house is rather damp, isn't it, Van der 
 Welcke J'\ 
 
 " Well, it's mostly on the ground-floor," said Van 
 der Welcke, good-humouredly. " And we've had a 
 lot of rain." 
 
 " One's feet get so chilly." 
 
 " Guy, give Auntie a footstool."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 99 
 
 Guy fetched a stool; Adolphine let him push it 
 under her feet. 
 
 " There are so many trees round the house," she 
 said. " That's what makes it gloomy and chilly. 
 You should have them thinned out. ... It must 
 be very lonely, living here." 
 
 "Don't you see the others regularly?" asked 
 Constance, trying to change the subject. 
 
 " No. Karel and Cateau pay me a visit now and 
 again. It's not much of a pleasure to anyone: it's 
 never more than a visit! " said Adolphine, criticizing 
 her brother and sister-in-law and forgetting that, in 
 the old days, she herself never honoured Constance 
 and Van der Welcke with more than a " visit." And 
 she went on, " Paul one never sees; nor Dorine; and 
 Ernst . . . you know he has not been very well 
 lately?" 
 
 Constance gave a start : 
 
 " No, I didn't know. I saw him only three weeks 
 ago. ... I wish he would come and live here, at 
 Driebergen, say in a nice, bright room at a good 
 boarding-house. I really think the country life 
 would do him good and he probably feels rather 
 lonely at the Hague. . . . But he wouldn't do it. 
 . . . He's been living all these years in the same 
 room and seems so much attached to that room that 
 he simply can't leave it ... and yet he is never 
 satisfied with the landlady and her brother. That 
 brother is his constant bugbear. . . . And yet I 
 thought that he was living quietly enough. ... Is 
 he still always calm, however self-absorbed he may 
 be? You say he hasn't been well lately? " 
 
 ' Well, he's not as bad as he was how long ago 
 is it? ten or eleven years ago." 
 
 " Eleven years." 
 
 " He's not like that. But he looks very queer 
 at times . . and . ."
 
 ioo DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " I'll go to the Hague to-morrow and look him 
 up," said Constance, with decision. 
 
 " My dear ! " said Adolphine, in an aggrieved 
 tone. " I assure you that he's nothing out of the 
 way. Besides, we are there ... if anything 
 should happen." 
 
 " He's living by himself too much. I've thought 
 it for a long time. And I reproach myself ..." 
 
 " I've seen Uncle Ernst once or twice lately, 
 Mamma," said Addie, to calm her. " He was just 
 as usual; no worse. I pressed him then to come and 
 live at Driebergen. He refused . . . but he was 
 quite calm about it." 
 
 " He has not been calm the last few days," said 
 Adolphine." 
 
 " I shall go to the Hague to-morrow," Constance 
 repeated, tremulously. 
 
 ' Would you like me to go? " asked Addie. 
 
 " Really, Constance," Adolphine resumed, in a 
 superior tone of mock moderation, " you needn't 
 get into such a fluster. If there should be anything 
 wrong . . . we're there . . . and Karel . . . 
 and Dorine and Paul. You can leave Ernst to 
 us quite safely. It's just as though we didn't 
 count! " 
 
 " It's not that, Adolphine . . . but . . . " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " You don't trouble about him . . . and I feel 
 remorseful that I myself, lately. . . . But I am 
 very busy . . . and ..." 
 
 "Busy?" echoed Adolphine, in amazement. 
 " Here, at Driebergen? " 
 
 The atmosphere of the room was filled with a 
 sudden tremor of nerves becoming too highly 
 strung; the girls looked anxiously at Aunt Con- 
 stance. She felt, she realized that she was losing 
 control of herself and made an effort to keep calm.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 101 
 
 But her eyes and lips trembled. She saw, however, 
 the concern overcasting the features of all of them 
 except Mathilde and she now mastered herself 
 entirely, though the tremor remained, very deep 
 down within her. 
 
 " Yes," she replied, in a gentler voice, " we arc 
 really rather busy here ... all sorts of things, 
 you know. Of course, Adolphine, it is comforting 
 to feel that you are all there ... at the 
 Hague ... in case anything should happen to 
 Ernst." 
 
 The tension was relaxed, the luncheon ended 
 quietly; only Adolphine said: 
 
 " Is this home-made jelly? . . . Why do you 
 have it made so sweet, Constance? " 
 
 In her secret heart she thought the sweet jelly 
 delicious. 
 
 " Aunt Adolphine wants to talk to you, Addie," 
 said Constance, when the meal was over. 
 
 Adolphine now felt very humble. Yes, she would 
 like to talk to Addie; and she went out with him 
 alone. 
 
 " She's come about Marietje," said Constance, 
 when Adolphine and Addie had left the room. 
 
 " But why didn't she write," asked Van der 
 Welcke, " instead of coming down? " 
 
 Suddenly the sound of Adolphine's sobbing 
 reached their ears from the next room. 
 
 "Is Marietje really bad, Auntie?" asked the 
 girls. 
 
 And they sat expectantly. The voices of Adol- 
 phine and Addie sounded one against the other from 
 behind the folding-doors. They listened in spite of 
 themselves. 
 
 " She must certainly change her present environ- 
 ment," said Addie. 
 
 Adolphine sobbed:
 
 102 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 ' That's what our doctor said . . . and . . . 
 and Dr. Berens of the hospital," she hiccoughed 
 through her tears. 
 
 Constance did not want to listen any more; but, 
 though she had controlled herself just now, her 
 nerves were still on edge. Pretending that she was 
 waiting for Adolphine, she went through the 
 drawing-room and sat down beside the old lady in 
 the conservatory. 
 
 " Yes, yes," mumbled Mrs. van Lowe. " If it 
 goes on raining like this ... we shall have floods 
 again . . . just as we did last year." 
 
 Before her staring eyes she saw the tropical 
 floods of Java. 
 
 Half an hour later, Adolphine and Addie came 
 to look for Constance. Adolphine was suffering 
 under the influence of great emotion, with red eyes 
 which she kept on wiping. Constance went up to 
 her: 
 
 " Adolphine, dear," she said, " you must have 
 confidence in Addie." 
 
 Motherly pride mingled with the pity in her 
 voice. 
 
 " I have, Constance," said Adolphine. " Only 
 
 "Only what?" 
 
 "What am I to do with the child? Change of 
 environment, our doctor said. So did Dr. Berens, 
 of the hospital. And yet we're very nice to her. 
 . . . Why this change "of environment? And 
 where's she to go to? . . .1 haven't the money 
 to ... to take her to the country for any length 
 of time. ... In this season too ... in the 
 autumn ! . . . What . . . what am I to do with 
 the child?" 
 
 " I was thinking . . ."said Addie. 
 
 He looked at his mother.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 103 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " If you and Papa approved ... I could ob- 
 serve and treat her best here." 
 
 Constance suddenly stiffened. 
 
 " I don't know, Addie," she said. " I don't know 
 that Papa would agree to that." 
 
 How tactless it was of him to say this in 
 Adolphine's presence ! She regretted that she had 
 not told Adolphine, before lunch, in her sitting- 
 room, that the house was full, quite full. But he 
 continued, quietly: 
 
 " I should like to ask Papa. Marietje could 
 have Guy's room and Guy the little room next 
 to it." 
 
 " That's too small for Guy. You must remember, 
 he's got work to do." 
 
 He was conscious of the reluctance in her words. 
 Nevertheless he said: 
 
 " Guy could do his work in my study. I am never 
 there in the mornings." 
 
 " No, no," said Adolphine, joining in. " No, 
 Addie, it wouldn't do. Your mother's busy enough 
 as it is. ..." 
 
 " It's not that I'm ,so busy," said Constance, 
 "but . . ." 
 
 "Well, Mamma?" 
 
 " Our weekly books, you know. ..." 
 
 He had never known his mother so hard or so 
 cruel. And he now said : 
 
 " Of course, Mamma, if you think it can't be 
 done . . . I'll see what I can do for Aunt Adolph- 
 ine . . . somewhere in the neighbourhood. Per- 
 haps Marietje could go and live in a family at 
 Zeist" 
 
 " Do you think you know some one there? " asked 
 Adolphine, mournfully. 
 
 But suddenly Constance felt very yielding. She
 
 104 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 became so yielding because Addie had said this; all 
 her hardness and cruelty melted away in remorse 
 at her last words; and she said: 
 
 " Addie ... go upstairs and . . . and ask 
 Papa. . . ." 
 
 Adolphine looked up with wonder in her red 
 eyes. She was struck that Constance was altering 
 so suddenly in tone, from reluctance to assent; and 
 she was also struck that Constance did not appa- 
 rently wish to decide and that she was leaving the 
 decision to Van der Welcke. 
 
 Addie went upstairs at once. The sisters re- 
 mained silent and alone; the old lady was sitting in 
 the conservatory. 
 
 " Oh, Constance ! " said Adolphine. " Do you 
 think that Van der Welcke . . . ? " She did not 
 complete her question, but went on, " Yes, I suppose 
 your weekly books are very expensive? " 
 
 ' They are heavy," said Constance. " You under- 
 stand it's ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " It's my husband's money . . . spent on my 
 relations." 
 
 " But Gerrit's children have something." 
 
 Constance shrugged her shoulders : 
 
 ' You know exactly how much they have. A 
 couple of thousand guilders apiece." 
 
 'Well, that's something." 
 
 " We keep it for them . . . and don't touch 
 it." 
 
 "Really?" said Adolphine, in surprise. "But 
 then there's Mamma." 
 
 "Mamma?" 
 
 " Yes, you have her money too," said Adolphine, 
 looking Constance in the eyes. 
 
 Constance returned the look: 
 
 " My dear Adolphine," she said, gently, " as
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 105 
 
 Mamma is not fit to attend to her affairs, her money 
 is in the hands of our solicitor at the Hague; and 
 he controls it for her." 
 
 " And the income . . . ? " 
 
 " It's invested. We get none of Mamma's money. 
 Surely you knew that? " 
 
 " No, I didn't." 
 
 11 The books can be seen at the solicitor's by any 
 of the brothers and sisters." 
 
 'Why do you do that?" 
 
 " Because we don't want to touch Mamma's 
 money." 
 
 " But why not? She's living with you ! " 
 
 " We want to avoid unpleasantness with any of 
 the brothers or sisters." 
 
 " But which of us would create any unpleasant- 
 ness? " asked Adolphine, very humbly. 
 
 " By our way . . . there's no question of any 
 unpleasantness." 
 
 ;' Yes," said Adolphine. " Still, I thought . . ." 
 
 " That we received all the interest on Mamma's 
 money?" 
 
 " Yes. The money's lying there quite useless." 
 
 " There will be all the more for her grandchildren 
 later on." 
 
 " Yes," said Adolphine, greatly surprised, re- 
 membering her long conversations during those 
 many years with Saetzema, Karel and Cateau . . . 
 because Van der Welcke and Constance at Drie- 
 bergen were quietly taking Mamma's money for 
 themselves. " I wonder the solicitor never told 
 us!" 
 
 " I thought you knew all about it." 
 
 41 No," said Adolphine, humbly, and did not add 
 that the solicitor had once told Karel, but that they 
 had all refused to believe it. " So Mamma . . . 
 is really living at your expense ! "
 
 io6 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 Constance smiled: 
 
 " Her needs are so small . . . poor Mamma! " 
 
 "But you keep a special maid for her?" 
 
 * Yes, that's the only thing." 
 
 " Still, it makes everything dearer, in food . . . 
 and taxes." 1 
 
 " Yes," said Constance, calmly. 
 
 She heard Van der Welcke and Addie come down 
 the stairs; they entered the room. And it was 
 strange to see the father and son together: Van der 
 Welcke with his irrepressibly young, bright face and 
 his boyish eyes, though his hair was turning grey 
 and he was becoming a little stout from his sedentary 
 life; and Addie beside him, with his serious direct- 
 ness of mind, like a very elderly young man, his 
 grey eyes filled with thought and care. 
 
 " Addie tells me Marietje's not at all well," said 
 Van der Welcke, by way of preamble. 
 
 Adolphine gave a great sob that shook her whole 
 body; she nodded and began to cry. 
 
 " Well," said Van der Welcke, who was always 
 moved by tears, " if Addie would like to have her 
 here ... to keep her under better observation, 
 you know . . .let her come, Adolphine, by all 
 means. We'll find a bed for her somewhere. It's 
 the family hospital, after all! . . ." 
 
 And, when Adolphine began to sob violently, he 
 added, with a little pat on the shoulder: 
 
 " Come, cheer up and hope for the best. . . . 
 Addie's sure to make her all right again." 
 1 There is a tax on all servants in Holland.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ERNST was still living in his rooms in the Nieuwe 
 Vitley, surrounded by his collections, surrounded by 
 his hobbies. A man of fifty now, he led a silent, 
 solitary life amid his books, his china, his curiosities ; 
 and the landlady looked after him and cooked his 
 meals, because he paid well, paid too much indeed. 
 He saw little of the family because the others really 
 lived as secluded as he did, Paul in his rooms, Dorine 
 at her boarding-house, though she was never satisfied 
 and was constantly changing her boarding-house; 
 and no family-tie drew him to Van Saetzema's house 
 or Karel's. In this way a separation and estrange- 
 ment had grown up among all of them; the bond 
 between them had perished, now that Mamma was 
 no longer at the Hague to gather them all around 
 her on Sunday evenings in her big house in the 
 Alexander Straat; and Constance, of late years, had 
 often pressed him to come and live at Driebergen. 
 But he obstinately refused; and yet, on the rare 
 occasions when he saw her at the Hague, he would 
 take her hand and sit knee to knee with her, un- 
 bosoming himself of all his stored-up discontent 
 with the rooms, the meals, the landlady, that 
 brother of hers: the brother especially, whom he 
 could never stand, the vulgar bounder, as he called 
 him. Constance then felt him to be an aging, always 
 lonely man, who never uttered his thoughts and who, 
 because of this continual silence, bottled up within 
 himself the thousands of words which he now poured 
 forth to her all in one torrent with a timid look, as 
 if he were afraid that the landlady and her brother 
 
 J07 
 
 ';!
 
 io8 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 were standing behind the door, listening. When 
 Constance, at such times, tried to persuade him to 
 move to Driebergen, he shook his head obstinately, 
 as though some part of him had grown fast to that 
 room of his, as though he could not tear himself out 
 of it; and his eyes would glance at his books and his 
 china, as though to say that it was impossible to 
 remove all that. And, because he was calm and no 
 trouble and quiet in his behaviour, she let him alone, 
 because this was what he preferred: to live within 
 himself, among his hobbies, solitary, shy and eccen- 
 tric. Five years ago, it was true, he had been ill 
 again, had talked to himself for days on end, had 
 wandered about in the Wood. Paul wrote to Con- 
 stance and she had come over; but Ernst had soon 
 grown quiet again, afraid no doubt that he would 
 have to go bade to Nunspiet, afraid of a change of 
 residence, afraid of keepers, of nurses, of the things 
 which he had never been able to forgive any of 
 them, not even Constance. That was years ago, five 
 years ago; and lately Constance and Addie too had 
 never seen Ernst other than calm and peaceful, 
 though a good deal of strange and silent brooding 
 seemed to lurk behind the silent cunning of his dark, 
 staring eyes. But then, months and months would 
 again pass without their seeing him, without their 
 hearing of him; they were all accustomed to his 
 strangeness; and the months would drag past with- 
 out the threatened crisis coming. No, nothing came, 
 even though the man was strange, though he did talk 
 to himself, though he was 'full of bottled-up griev- 
 ances; and, when they saw him again after a lapse 
 of months, they were struck by a certain artistic 
 method in his rooms with their beautiful warm 
 colouring, struck by some new arrangement of the 
 furniture, by some new purchase; and he, as though 
 conscious that he was on trial, would talk almost
 
 Era. ADRIAAN 109 
 
 normally, terrified lest they should drag him from 
 his rooms, to which he was attached even though 
 the landlady and her brother always stood spying 
 behind the door. . . . 
 
 Constance, feeling suddenly upset and filled with 
 self-reproach at neglecting Ernst, went to the Hague 
 with Addie the day after Adolphine's visit; and the 
 two of them arrived unexpected in the Nieuwe 
 Vitley. 
 
 " Meneer is out," said the landlady. 
 
 " In this rain? " asked Constance. 
 
 1 Yes, ma'am, he went out early this morning." 
 
 " How has he been lately? " 
 
 " Pretty well, ma'am. As usual. Meneer is al- 
 ways odd, you know, but he is not troublesome. He 
 is fairly well." 
 
 'Not like . . .?" 
 
 "Some years ago? No, ma'am. Meneer has 
 been talking to himself rather more of late, but 
 that's all. Will you wait for him? " 
 
 11 Yes." 
 
 " He is sure to be back by twelve o'clock or so. 
 He is very regular in his habits. Won't you come 
 upstairs? " 
 
 Constance and Addie went upstairs and waited in 
 Ernst's room. 
 
 " Poor fellow, poor fellow ! " said Constance, with 
 emotion. 
 
 She did not know what was the matter with her, 
 but she felt full of self-reproach. Oh, were they 
 not leaving him too much alone, sunk in his solitude ? 
 How she wished that she could coax him to go 
 back with her to Driebergen and to live there, not 
 far from them, in a little villa, with some people 
 who were in the habit of looking after invalids! 
 Oh, not in their own house, not in their own house ! 
 She would never have dared suggest that to Van
 
 no DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 der Welcke; nor had Addie ever proposed it. No, 
 not at home, not at home, but somewhere near, so 
 that she could see him at any moment and not 
 worry herself with the idea of his suddenly having 
 a nervous breakdown with no one by him to take his 
 piteous soul-sickness to heart. 
 
 And, as she sat thinking, she looked around her 
 and was struck by the manner in which the eerie 
 lines of the old porcelain and new pottery curved 
 against the sombre hangings and furniture. It was 
 very strange, stranger than she had ever noticed. 
 The setting enhanced the eeriness of it all. As the 
 years passed, the vases had become more and more 
 of a disease, blossoming in eerie lines and glowing 
 glaze like some vicious orchid, high against the 
 walls, rising to the ceiling, in a riot of exotic forms, 
 like a vegetation reaching up, stretching up, stretch- 
 ing up necks and hands with the necks and handles 
 of the vases, as though trying to rise higher and 
 higher beyond the grasp of profane mortals. 
 
 "Why does Ernst put his vases so high up?" 
 Constance wondered, as she looked round the room. 
 
 Suddenly he entered. The landlady below must 
 have told him that his sister and his nephew, the 
 young doctor, were upstairs, for the movement with 
 which he turned the door-handle was abrupt, his 
 glance as he stood and looked from the one to the 
 other was laden with suspicion and his voice trembled 
 violently as he asked: 
 
 "What are you here for?" 
 
 He stood before them- an old, trembling man. 
 His neglected clothes hung in old, slack folds about 
 his angular limbs; his hair already almost entirely 
 grey, hung long and lank around his lean, trembling 
 features and dark, staring eyes, which looked with 
 a martyred glance from the one to the other. And 
 yet, however neglected and soul-sick this trembling
 
 DR. ADRIAAN in 
 
 man might be, who looked an old, old man though 
 he was not more than fifty, a gleam of intelligence 
 shone deep down in his suspicious glance; and his 
 long, lean fingers were those of an artist: impotent 
 to paint or model, in lime, colour, wood or sound, 
 the fluttering, ever-present dream of a beauty only 
 just divined.. 
 
 They both strove to reassure him, said that they 
 happened to be at the Hague and so had come to 
 look him up ; and, after the first shock, he really did 
 not strike them as strange or more ill than usual. 
 Suddenly even a ray of sympathy seemed to shoot 
 through him and he sat down between them, took 
 their hands and delivered himself of his complaint: 
 
 " Hush ! They're always listening behind the 
 door, the brutes ! " he whispered, timidly. ' The 
 landlady and her brother ! I can't call my soul my 
 own; they're always spying. . . . When I'm un- 
 dressing, when I go to bed, when I have my meals 
 . . . they're always spying. I can hear them grin- 
 ning. . . . They're standing there now, to hear if 
 we're talking about them. . . . And, when I open 
 the door, they're gone in a moment ... so 
 quickly, just like ghosts. . . . The other day, he 
 lay under my bed all night. I'm getting used to it, 
 I no longer mind. . . . But, properly speaking, I 
 can't call my soul my own. Any one with less 
 steady nerves than mine simply could not stand it, 
 could never stand it. ..." 
 
 " But, Ernst, why don't you move? " 
 
 He knew the question well, he recognized the 
 motive. He gave a kind and condescending little 
 smile, because they did not know, because they were 
 so coarse of fibre. 
 
 " I can't very well move," he said. " You see 
 ... I have everything here . . . everything 
 here. ."
 
 ii2 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 His glance and his gestures became very vague, 
 as though he did not wish to say more. And Addie 
 saw how it was: Uncle Ernst still believed, had 
 always, all those years, believed in the souls that 
 swarmed around him, the souls that had been con- 
 jured like spirits out of books, curiosities and old 
 vases. But he never spoke of the souls now, be- 
 cause he remembered only too well how stupid and 
 wicked his people had been in the old days. After 
 that attack twelve years ago, he had gone on believ- 
 ing in these brain- and soul-phantoms of his, but 
 he had learnt to keep silent about them, to talk as 
 the stupid people talked. Or by preference he did 
 not talk at all. . . . But this very silence had 
 caused his mistrust to develop into a mania that he 
 was being persecuted, a mania that made him con- 
 stanty look round, timidly. . . . He would open 
 the door, look into the passage. . . . And Con- 
 stance knew that, in the street, he was for ever 
 looking round, attracting the attention of the 
 passers-by with this frightened, suspicious trick of 
 his. 
 
 Addie saw it: Ernst believed in the souls which 
 lay crowding around him, which linked themselves 
 with chains to his soul, which he dragged with him 
 through the mud of the streets and the wretched- 
 ness of life, the souls that thronged in agony around 
 him, until they weighed down his chest and stifled 
 him so that he longed to run half-naked into the 
 street to cool himself in rain and air, to gulp down 
 the wind. And very deeply bedded in the sick soul 
 Addie saw hypersensitiveness hiding as an adorable 
 tenderness which, instead of turning to a disease, 
 might have developed into the profoundest qualities 
 of sympathetic feeling, not only to feel, but also to 
 know and understand, because of the slumbering 
 spark of intelligence, because of the knowledge so
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 113 
 
 eagerly gleaned. . . . And now these were wasted 
 gifts, morbid qualities, now it was all useless and 
 sick and had become more sick and more useless as 
 the sick years of shadow drearily dragged on their 
 misty-melancholy introspection and increasing dis- 
 trustfulness. It was all, all lost. And, in his pity 
 at this fatal waste, at this tenderness which had 
 soured almost into maclness and was devoted to 
 shadows while the poor world stood in such real 
 need of tenderness and feeling, Addie remembered 
 how once, years ago, he had felt conscious of a 
 longing with a single word to cure the sick man: 
 but which, which word? It was as though he knew 
 that one word to be hovering in the air around 
 him, while he was still too young and ignorant to 
 catch it as he might have caught a butterfly with 
 his hat! And now, now he knew for certain after 
 all those years of misty-melancholy introspection 
 and increasing distrustfulness that it was too late 
 and that the man could not recover and that he 
 would die as he had lived in the almost proud hal- 
 lucination which brought around him for protection 
 the numberless oppressed, persecuted and martyred 
 souls, suffocating him in the cloud of their frail tor- 
 tured and complaining bodies. And it was not only 
 the souls : the living who sought him out were also 
 included in his proud illusion; they also needed his 
 support, because he alone was strong and all of them 
 were weak. 
 
 It was too late for a cure ; but still Addie longed, 
 though he knew for certain that no cure could ever 
 take place, to free that lost and impaired quality of 
 noble feeling from everything that could shock or 
 offend the silent, suffering man; and he swore to 
 himself to get Uncle Ernst out of the Hague, out 
 of these rooms, where he was taking root and at the 
 same time being tortured. He happened that day
 
 ii 4 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 to feel very restful, very calm, even though, deep 
 down in the subsoil of his soul, black self-insuf- 
 ficiency lowered as usual. He would not know what 
 to do for himself; for this sick man he did know 
 what to do ! For himself, he groped around in a 
 dark labyrinth; for the man of stricken brain and 
 soul he knew it all suddenly, with a bright ray of 
 clearest perception, knew with a sacred, instinctive 
 knowledge ! And yet there was not a touch of joy, 
 not a touch of ecstasy or fervour in his sombre, 
 melancholy glance, in his deep, sombre voice, when, 
 with his customary earnestness of words and manner, 
 he said to his mother: 
 
 " Mamma, you must leave me alone with Uncle 
 Ernst." 
 
 She looked at him. And, despite his quietness, 
 his earnestness, his calm and sombreness, she knew 
 her son too well not to feel, suddenly, that he knew. 
 ' Very well," she said, " you stay with Uncle 
 Ernst. I'll go round to Aunt Adolphine and see 
 Marietje. When and where shall I see you? This 
 evening, at the hotel? " 
 
 He shook his head: 
 
 " No," he said. " You had better go back by 
 yourself to Driebergen, with Marietje. As for 
 me . . ." 
 
 He paused, as though reflecting, passed his hand 
 across his forehead: 
 
 " As for me, you'll see me to-morrow," he said, 
 " or the next day. ..." 
 
 " At Driebergen ? At'home ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And . . . your uncle?" 
 
 He made a sign with his eyelids; and she under- 
 stood him, partly, and asked no more. She took 
 leave of Ernst and moved to go; but Ernst kept 
 her for a moment at the door:
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 115 
 
 "Constance ..." 
 
 " What is it, Ernst? " 
 
 " If there's anything . . . that I can do for 
 you, you'll tell me, won't you? Tell me frankly. 
 . . . It's very difficult for me, I know ... to 
 look after all of you . . . but, if I don't, nobody 
 else will. ... So tell me plainly if I can help you 
 in any way. ..." 
 
 "There's nothing at the moment, Ernst. ..." 
 
 "But later on? ..." 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " Then I shall be very glad to help. You must 
 ask me straight out." 
 
 " I will." 
 
 " Look here . . . you must be careful ..." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Of the brother. . . . The fellow's a scoun- 
 drel. Take care, don't speak too loud: he's stand- 
 ing behind the door. You see, he can't reach so 
 high." 
 
 '* What do you mean? " 
 
 " He can't reach up to my poor vases. He would 
 have to take the steps . . . and he won't do that 
 in a hurry." 
 
 11 What used he to do to the vases, Ernst? " 
 
 " Take them in his hands." 
 
 " I dare say he admired them." 
 
 " No, he used to break them ... on purpose. 
 He ... he ..." 
 
 14 What, Ernst?" 
 
 " He used to throttle them. Hush ! He used to 
 wring their necks with his vile fingers." 
 
 Then he realized at length that he was saying too 
 much and he gave a loud, kindly laugh : 
 
 " You don't believe that he used to throttle them. 
 Well, at any rate, they're safer up there." 
 
 " At least, he can't break them."
 
 n6 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " No. What's the matter with Addie? He's not 
 looking well." 
 
 ' Nothing. He's staying on to talk to you." 
 
 " Is there anything I can do for him? " 
 
 " Perhaps there is, Ernst. Have a talk with 
 him." 
 
 ' You people are a heavy burden on me. ..." 
 
 " I must go now, dear." 
 
 She kissed him good-bye. 
 
 " Be careful," he whispered. 
 
 Suddenly, he swung open the door: 
 
 " There ! " he cried, triumphantly. u Did you 
 see? The scoundrel slips away so quickly. Just 
 like a ghost. No, more like a devil." 
 
 She gave a last glance at Addie; her eyelids 
 flickered at him and she went away. Ernst closed 
 the door very carefully. 
 
 " He simply can't go on living by himself," 
 thought Constance, as she hurried to the Van 
 Saetzemas'. 
 
 It was a very small house in a side-street at 
 Duinoord; and she found Van Saetzema sick and 
 ailing in a stuffy little sitting-room; she saw Caro- 
 line, too, bitter-eyed and bitter-mouthed, generally 
 embittered by her dull existence as spinster of nearly 
 thirty, with no prospect of marrying. Meanwhile, 
 Adolphine kept her sister waiting. She had obvi- 
 ously run upstairs to put on a clean tea-gown. At 
 the back of the little house, under the grey sky, 
 which sent down a false morning light through the 
 heavy rain-clouds, the atmosphere seemed full of 
 bitterness . . . bitterness because they were ill 
 and poor and disappointed; and all this dreariness 
 was scantily and narrowly housed between the 
 father, mother and daughter, in the little room 
 where they kept getting in one another's way. A 
 melancholy born of pity welled up in Constance;
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 117 
 
 and she tried to talk cheerfully, while Van Saetzema 
 coughed and complained, Caroline, bitter-mouthed 
 and bitter-eyed, sat silent and Adolphine suddenly, 
 with no attempt at preamble, observed to Constance : 
 
 " It's splendid air here, at Duinoord. . . . And 
 the house is extraordinarily convenient ..." 
 
 But her boasting voice choked as she completed 
 her sentence more humbly: 
 
 " For the four of us." 
 
 "And where is Marietje?" asked Constance. 
 
 " Upstairs. She likes being upstairs, in her own 
 little room. . . . " 
 
 " How is she to-day? " 
 
 " Just the same." 
 
 "May I see her?" 
 
 Adolphine rose with some hesitation. But she 
 took Constance upstairs and opened a door : 
 
 " Marietje, here's Aunt Constance." 
 
 The girl rose from her chair in the grey light of 
 the little room. She was tall and pale and, in that 
 light, seemed suddenly to blossom up like a lily of 
 sorrow, with the white head drooping at the neck, 
 a little on one side. The very fair hair hung limply 
 about the temples. It was heavy her only attrac- 
 tion and was wrung into a heavy knot which she 
 wore low at her neck. The movements of her long 
 arms, of her long, thin hands betrayed a listless, 
 lingering anaemia; and her blouse hung in folds 
 over her flat bosom. She was twenty-six, but looked 
 younger; her lacklustre eyes were innocent of all 
 passion, as though she were incapable of ever be- 
 coming a woman, as though her senses were dying 
 away like some fading lily on its bending stalk. 
 
 " Good-morning, Auntie." 
 
 The little room was grey and white as a nun's 
 cell, with the cloistered simplicity of a hermitage. 
 
 " I'm so glad to see you, Marietje."
 
 n8 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " Auntie, Mamma said that you and Uncle ..." 
 
 " Yes, Marietje, we'll be glad to have you with 
 us. Mamma has told you, hasn't she? . . . Then 
 Addie can ..." 
 
 " It's very kind of you, Auntie. But . . . but 
 I would rather not come." 
 
 11 What do you mean, dear?" 
 
 " I would rather stay here. . . . There's not 
 much about me to cure; and I'm not anxious to be 
 cured. And in your house ..." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I should be so gloomy. I am never bright or 
 cheerful, you know. And I hardly ever come down- 
 stairs." 
 
 Adolphine's eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " It's true/' she said, softly. " She lives up 
 here." 
 
 " You would be cheerful enough with us, Mari- 
 etje." 
 
 " No, Auntie, I should feel uncomfortable with 
 you . . . because I am not cheerful. I should 
 depress you all." 
 
 " We are not so easily depressed. And the chief 
 thing is that Addie could treat you regularly." 
 
 Marietje gave a pale smile. 
 
 14 Why won't you go, dear? " asked Adolphine. 
 
 The girl retained her pale smile. She seemed to 
 be wrestling with a temptation that opened up soft 
 and peaceful visions in her pale life as a constant 
 invalid; but she did not wish to yield. 
 
 " Come," said Constance, " you had much better, 
 really." 
 
 Suddenly Marietje felt herself grow very weak. 
 She saw death, saw the end so very close before her 
 eyes; and the soft, peaceful visions would never 
 be more than a very brief hallucination, which after 
 all she might as well accept. And, because she sud-
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 119 
 
 denly felt as though in a dream, she had no strength 
 to resist the gently persuasive voices of her mother 
 and her aunt, which were luring and luring her, like 
 voices from very far away, voices which she seemed 
 to hear through the haze of vague and enticing 
 distance. Yet her own wan voice did not reveal what 
 she felt, as she continued feebly objecting: 
 
 " I should be too much trouble. An invalid is so 
 depressing." 
 
 " It would be very difficult for Addie to look 
 after you here." 
 
 " Besides, you have Grandmamma ..." 
 
 " She's no trouble." 
 
 11 And little Klaasje." 
 
 4 Yes, but that's different." 
 
 " How are Marietje and Adele? " 
 
 " Quite well, very well indeed. We'll go on call- 
 ing her Marietje and, if you come down, we'll call 
 you . . let's say Mary, to avoid confusion." 
 
 " Mary " 
 
 "Will that do?" 
 
 " But your house is so full as it is." 
 
 " Guy is giving you his room." 
 
 The girl uttered more faint words and phrases, 
 but they were like little waves which carried her 
 softly and tenderly towards the gentle vision and 
 the dream. 
 
 u Very well, Auntie," she said, at last. " You are 
 very good to me." 
 
 " It's only natural, as far as I'm concerned. But, 
 when you're at Driebergen, you'll thank your uncle, 
 won't you? " 
 
 " Of course. It's his house." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Won't it be rather damp . . . for Marietje? " 
 asked Adolphine, hesitatingly. 
 
 " I don't think so," said Constance.
 
 120 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " Constance," said Adolphine, taking her hand, 
 " it is so kind of you . . . and I am so grate- 
 ful. . . ." 
 
 Her voice trembled as she spoke. 
 
 " My dear, what a fuss you make ! " said Con- 
 stance. " I'm your sister and Marietje is my niece. 
 But . . ." 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " It certainly is kind ... of Henri." 
 
 * Yes, it's very nice of your husband." 
 
 ' You see, it's his house." 
 
 ' Yes . . . and he had so many calls on him," 
 said Adolphine, humbly. " Constance, won't you let 
 me pay something . . . for Marietje's keep? So 
 much a month, I mean . . . until she's a little 
 better. ..." 
 
 1 You'd better not bother to do that, Adolphine." 
 
 ' You have so many expenses." 
 
 " Yes, but you've plenty of use for your money 
 too." 
 
 ' What I mean is ... it's your husband's 
 money." 
 
 " I know. But Henri would rather you didn't 
 pay anything . . . really." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 " I'm sure of it. If you or Van Saetzema wrote 
 him a line . . . he'd like that." 
 
 " Of course I shall. I shall thank him myself." 
 
 " And you'll come and see the child whenever you 
 like, won't you, Adolphine? " 
 
 ' Yes, Constance, I will. . . . What a pity it is 
 that you don't live in the Hague ! " 
 
 ; 4 Why?" 
 
 11 Oh, the Hague is so much our town, our family 
 town; and your house, now that Mamma is so old, 
 is certainly the house ... of the family, the 
 centre, so to speak. ..."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 121 
 
 11 It's Henri's house." 
 
 " Yes, that's what I mean." 
 
 Constance stood up to go : 
 
 " Then will Marietje come down with me to- 
 morrow?" 
 
 ' Yes, we'll pack her trunk." 
 
 Marietje rose suddenly, threw her arm round 
 Constance and sobbed excitedly: 
 
 "Auntie . . . Auntie ... I do think it 
 so . . ." 
 
 "So what, dear?" 
 
 The rapture died out of her voice; and she con- 
 cluded : 
 
 " I think it so kind ... of Uncle ... of 
 Uncle and you ... to have me ... to live 
 with you, to live with you. ..." 
 
 Van Saetzema downstairs had a violent attack of 
 coughing; and Adolphine rushed anxiously out of 
 the door.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 DAYS had come of endless flaking snow; and the 
 hard frost kept the snow tight-packed in the garden, 
 alongside the house, the silent, massive building 
 whose thick white lines stood out against the low- 
 hanging snow-laden skies: one great greyness from 
 out of which the grey of the snow fell with a sleepy 
 whirl until it was caught in the grip of the frost 
 and turned white, describing the outlines of villa- 
 houses and the branching silhouettes of black and 
 dreary trees with round soft strokes of white. The 
 road in front of the house soon soiled its whiteness 
 with cart-tracks and footprints; and with the snow 
 there fell from the sky, like so much grey wool, the 
 pale melancholy of a winter in the country, all white 
 decay and white loneliness: days so short that it 
 seemed as though the slow hours slept and, when 
 awake, but dragged their whiter veils from grey 
 dawn to grey twilight, so that dawn might once 
 again be turned to night. And the short days were 
 like white nights, sunless, as though the light were 
 shining through velvet, as though life were breath- 
 ing through velvet, velvet cold as the breath of 
 death, the breath of death itself, striking down and 
 embracing all things in its chill velvet. . . . 
 
 In the big house reigned the silent warmth of 
 domesticity in big heated rooms and passages, with 
 the rich browns of the heavy old carpets and cur- 
 tains which had lived long and were beginning to 
 grow worn in weary attitudes and folds of chamber 
 contemplation, as though the dead stuffs looked 
 down and dreamed and breathed in sympathy with
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 123 
 
 all that lived among them, while in the snowy light 
 reflected from outside the mahogany furniture also 
 gleamed with its own life or cast back things of long 
 ago, past sufferings of small people and past senti- 
 ments. The silent moods of old and lonely people 
 seemed to rise up from the old, solemn furniture, 
 which smiled good-humouredly because so much new 
 life had come into the midst of it from the outside : 
 the chair-springs moaned, the cupboard-doors 
 creaked, the looking-glasses grew dull and bright in 
 turns, the china became chipped, the silver became 
 scratched, full of the serviceable humility of those 
 very old, wearing things of daily life, which had 
 long been used and were dying off slowly, while all 
 around and about them blossomed the new move- 
 ment of the new life from without. And yet, despite 
 that new movement and that new life, a soul of the 
 past seemed to hover through the long passages, up 
 the brown stairs, to skim along the dark doors, even 
 though these, when opened, gave admission to the 
 rooms of the new life. Even in the rooms them- 
 selves, something still hovered of that soul of the 
 past; and the furniture reflected that soul, as though 
 it were vaguely clinging to material things, a soul 
 catching at earthly things when itself had not yet 
 died out entirely. . . . 
 
 In among these reflections of the soul-things of 
 the past there lingered a remnant of biblical piety, 
 because of the titles of certain books in the book- 
 cases, because of certain old-fashioned engravings 
 in the dark rooms; and at certain hours of silent 
 twilight there passed through the house a sort of 
 hover of prayer, which Constance sometimes felt so 
 intently that, on Sunday mornings, she always in- 
 sisted that the girls at least should go to church, 
 as though they were almost bound to do so out of 
 reverence for the old people who used to live and
 
 i2 4 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 pray here . . . and especially for the old man. 
 And the thought that she herself did not go troubled 
 her so greatly that, very occasionally, she accom- 
 panied the girls, though she continued insensible to 
 any impression derived from liturgical religion. 
 And the things of the past that flickered and ho- 
 vered and formed the intangible atmosphere of the 
 dark passages and the rich-brown rooms, in which 
 the only gay note was struck by the blue-and-white 
 of the Delft pots and jars: those things of the past 
 all unconsciously harmonized with the mood only 
 of Van der Welcke, because something of his child- 
 hood was wafted and reflected in them, and of 
 Addie, because of his vague sense of inheriting not 
 only the material but also the immaterial things 
 with which the big house remained filled. Though 
 he felt a stranger to the old man, he felt related 
 to the old woman, with a strange retrospect of 
 what he knew of her and remembered of her later, 
 silent, mystic years, when liturgical piety was not 
 enough to satisfy her. 
 
 But for the rest the house remained as it were 
 one great hospitality, though alien in blood to so 
 many who had found a shelter in it and a sanctuary : 
 the old, doting woman at the window, peering out 
 at the snow-grey garden-vistas; the mourning and 
 still young mother, with her grown-up children ; and 
 Emilie, full of silent mystery. And, the other day, 
 in a drifting blizzard, Constance had brought home 
 Marietje van Saetzema Mary, as they decided to 
 call her and they had given her Guy's room, now 
 that Guy worked in a corner of Addie's study, where 
 he heaped up his books on a little table. The house 
 gradually became very full. The daughter-in-law 
 also remained alien to the big house; but the children, 
 Constance and Jetje, were always like golden sun- 
 beams, sometimes whirling in a sound of yet stam-
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 125 
 
 mering voices of early springtime, as they went 
 along the stairs and passages with their nurse one 
 already toddling on foot, the other still carried to 
 go for a drive in the governess-cart or to play in 
 the conservatory, where the old great-grandmother, 
 at the window, looked on with vague smiles at their 
 playfulness, which was that of very small children. 
 And, the day after Constance' arrival with 
 Marietje in the grey-white blizzard, how surprised 
 they all were when Addie telegraphed that he was 
 coming, next day, with Uncle Ernst ! Two or three 
 words only in the telegram, with no explanation: 
 how astounded they were that Addie had managed 
 to get that done ! Constance and Guy went at once 
 to the little villa where they took in patients: yes, 
 the doctor had already wired for the two rooms, 
 they were told, and everything was being got ready, 
 that was to say, the bedroom; for the gentleman 
 would furnish the sitting-room himself. And on the 
 next day Addie and Uncle Ernst actually arrived. 
 Ernst's furniture was being sent on from the Hague ; 
 his china had been packed up under his own and 
 Addie's supervision; and, though Ernst at first 
 looked at the bare sitting-room with great suspicion, 
 tapping at the walls, listening at the partition and 
 declaring that the people the man of the house, 
 himself a male nurse, and the trained nurse, his 
 wife were spying behind the door, just like the 
 landlady and her cad of a brother at the Hague, 
 nevertheless he was pleased, surprised to find the 
 room so large, though he missed the sombre canal in 
 the Nieuwe Vitley, which he loved for the gloom 
 of its colouring and atmosphere. As he passed 
 through the garden with Addie, leaning on Addie's 
 arm, he thought it strange that he saw walking 
 through the white snow, accompanied by the nurse, 
 an old lady, the only patient at the moment, though
 
 126 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 there were several in the summer, and he looked at 
 her with suspicion; but he was pleased again and 
 surprised when Addie explained to him how very 
 near he would be living to all of them; and, when 
 Addie brought him to the house, Ernst stood by the 
 garden-gate gazing at it and looked up at the snow- 
 corniced gable, at the soft snow on the straight 
 lines of the windows and above the door. The great 
 house seemed to look down upon him benignly with 
 all the eyes of its window-panes; and he went on, 
 leaning on Addie's arm, through the garden and 
 inside. He had never been there before. He took 
 an immediate interest in the antique cabinet in the 
 hall, the engravings, the Delft jars and nodded his 
 head approvingly, admitting that this was beautiful. 
 Constance welcomed him cordially; and, though he 
 had not seen Mamma for years, he greeted her in 
 all simplicity, as if he had parted from her only 
 yesterday. She held his hand, looked him in the 
 face, recognized him for a son of hers but did not 
 know his name, imagined that he had come from 
 Java, asked after things and mentioned names. . . . 
 They did not understand each other; and Constance 
 felt very sad, especially because of little Klaasje, 
 playing at Mamma's feet with lovely coloured 
 picture-books which " Uncle " Addie had given 
 her: 
 
 " Look ... a blue man . . . yellow woman 
 . . . red! And outside . . . everything white 
 '-. . . everything white . . . everything white! 
 
 M 
 
 And suddenly so heavy a melancholy arose in 
 Constance that she could have burst out sobbing 
 because of her mother, her brother, because of thnt 
 child of her poor brother Gerrit! But she made 
 a violent effort of self-control, put her arm round 
 Ernst's shoulder and led him away from Mamma;
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 127 
 
 and Adeline and Emilie came to speak to him. Oh, 
 the things of the past not the past things of which 
 the atoms still hovered about this house, those of 
 the old people, but the things of their own past, of 
 the bygone dead years of all of them, years of a 
 youth not so long ago how they crowded in 
 amongst them all, how they filled the atmosphere of 
 the faintly sombre room, while the snow reflected 
 its gleams indoors to water away brightly in 
 the old mirrors! . . . How did they all come 
 to be here like this, how did they all come 
 to be here like this, as in a refuge, as in a 
 sanctuary, a silent haven of simple love? . . . 
 How nerveless she became, how nerveless, when 
 she saw her husband and her son come in, 
 those two who . . . ! She could not pursue her 
 thoughts of nervelessness and sadness any further. 
 Alex also now entered; and in him, so young, so 
 young, she also saw all the past, flashing at her 
 suddenly out of his eyes, with the vision of his 
 father's death. . . . But now the girls came in 
 too, and, when Guy and Gerdy came, both laughing, 
 she also laughed, because of their gaiety, their 
 flaxen-haired joy in living, young and strong and 
 healthy and simple, both of them. . . . How 
 happy, how happy those two were ! Oh, the more 
 the past heaped itself up, the more the present was 
 overcast with shadow; but those two, Gerdy and 
 Guy, were young and strong and healthy and simple ! 
 . . . Happy, happy! And, with a laugh almost 
 of happiness, however intensely she might feel all 
 the things of the past, she asked Addie : 
 
 " Isn't it too much for Uncle Ernst, now? " 
 ' Yes, I shall take him home," said Addie. 
 
 " Can't he stay and dine one day?" 
 
 " Perhaps later on; he must get used to it first. 
 The great thing is not to force him."
 
 128 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 And he suggested to Ernst that they should go 
 back. 
 
 But Ernst said: 
 
 " When will my packing-cases come? " 
 
 " To-morrow, Uncle." 
 
 " You see, if I'm to get everything in order . . . " 
 
 " I'll help you." 
 
 14 Will you help me unpack? " 
 
 " I'll help you too, Uncle," said Guy. 
 
 " Yes," said Ernst, " that's right. . . . You 
 see," he whispered to Addie . . . 
 
 "What, Uncle?" 
 
 " It's not good . . . for the vases to remain in 
 the cases so long. . . . You don't believe it, of 
 course, but . . ." 
 
 He did not complete his sentence, would not say 
 that the vases were suffocating in their cases, with 
 all that paper and straw; he would not say it, be- 
 cause Addie was so kind, a kind-hearted fellow, 
 really, but devoid of understanding, stupid, just as 
 stupid as all the rest of them. . . . 
 
 " We shall unpack as quickly as we can, Uncle, 
 and make the room comfortable for you." 
 
 " Yes. I have only the bedroom at present." 
 
 1 The bedroom's all right, isn't it? " 
 
 4 Yes. Am I to have my dinner there to-night? " 
 
 " If you don't mind ... as your sitting-room 
 isn't ready. . . ." 
 
 ' Yes. I don't care for dining in my bedroom. 
 Can't I stay and dine here?" 
 
 " Certainly, Uncle. We should like that above 
 all things. Aren't the troop of us too noisy for 
 you?" 
 
 ' They are a bit noisy, but . . . no, they're 
 very good. Tell me, Addie, they're all children of 
 Uncle Gerrit, aren't they? " 
 
 " Of Uncle Gerrit, yes."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " Yes, yes, I remember. I should like to stay and 
 dine, if I may. It's because the sitting-room isn't 
 ready, you see." 
 
 ' Very well, Uncle. Then come upstairs now, to 
 my study. Then you can rest a bit and read, or 
 sleep if you like, on the sofa." 
 
 " No, I never sleep by day." 
 
 " It'll be quiet for you there." 
 
 ' Yes, it's quiet where you are." 
 
 " Come with me." 
 
 He took Ernst upstairs. 
 
 ' This is a nice, quiet room," said Ernst. 
 
 " Then I'll leave you by yourself. You'll find 
 books and papers. . . . Can you manage to occupy 
 yourself alone? " 
 
 ' Yes, my dear boy; I want to be alone. You're 
 kind, you're very kind. You understand me. I 
 shall be glad to stay and dine." 
 
 ;< Would you like your dinner up here? " 
 
 " No, downstairs, with all of you. They're 
 Uncle Gerrit's children, aren't they? You see, it's 
 all family. I'd rather dine downstairs." 
 
 " All right, I'll come and fetch you."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A FEW days' skating produced a sudden, unex- 
 pected lightness of heart; and Mathilde grew more 
 animated. The members of Gerdy's tennis-club met 
 again on the ice; Guy did nothing but skate these 
 days, excusing himself to Constance and Addie for 
 his idleness by saying that one had to make the 
 most of the ice, which never lasted long; and even 
 Van der Welcke was persuaded by Guy to fasten 
 on his skates, remaining young as ever in his quiet 
 way. It was indeed a sudden, unexpected lightness 
 of heart after so many rainy days: the cold wind 
 whipped up their blood ; the snow crackled like 
 powdered crystal under their eager, hurrying feet; 
 young men and girls of Gerdy's little circle came to 
 fetch her in the morning and again after lunch; and, 
 when the skating was over, they would all meet 
 round the tea-table, in the big drawing-room. And 
 Addie taught Klaasje to skate on the pond in the 
 garden; and, under the jovial influence of the frosty 
 snow, he romped about the garden with his children, 
 with little Jetje and Constant. And yet perhaps 
 none of them sniffed up the healthy outdoor life of 
 those cold days of east-wind and ice so greedily as 
 Mathilde, suddenly quickened in her rich blood, her 
 somewhat coarse build, her heavy tread and her 
 loud, full, womanly voice. It had been no life for 
 her, with the silent, dripping rain, in the noisy but 
 yet sombre big house. She and the children had 
 kept upstairs as much as possible in her own rooms, 
 because she felt out of tune with the whole pack 
 below, unable to coalesce with the big household: 
 
 130
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 131 
 
 those sad women and all those children of Uncle 
 Gerrit's, who daily monopolized Addie more and 
 more, until he had hardly a moment to give to his 
 own children and her. What was he to her now, 
 always busy, always occupied, always away, always 
 attending to the pack below or to poor people out- 
 side, poor people about whom she knew nothing? 
 What was her life to her, the life in which she 
 pined away in that musty atmosphere, in which she 
 always remained a stranger, for lack of any sort 
 of sympathy, because she did not any more than 
 any of them wish for the establishment of any 
 harmonious intimacy? Was it not really a terrible 
 existence, for a young and spirited woman, in the 
 country, in the winter, at Driebergen, with no 
 friends, in a house with rooms so dark and gloomy 
 that the servants declared that it was haunted; then 
 downstairs, always at the window, the doting grand- 
 mother; Klaasje, half an imbecile; Adeline and 
 Emilie, never cheerful, always melancholy; and 
 those who were cheerful, Guy and Gerdy, never 
 nice to her; her father-in-law much fonder of Guy 
 and Gerdy than of herself, whom, as she well knew, 
 he actually disliked; her mother-in-law, kind at 
 times, it was true had she not given Mathilde the 
 beautiful brilliant which now sparkled on her fin- 
 ger? but still cold, she thought, cold even to the 
 children, just forcing herself to be kind because 
 Mathilde happened to be her son's wife. No, she 
 couldn't say who or what was to blame, but a 
 stranger she remained, a constant stranger, half- 
 forgotten, together with her two children, the child- 
 ren who alone, besides Papa and Addie, bore the 
 name of the house, of Van der Welcke Baron and 
 Baroness van der Welcke the children neglected, 
 because the whole troop of Van Lowes made them- 
 selves masters of the house; of the affection of her
 
 132 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 father-in-law and mother-in-law, of every minute 
 that Addie had to spare ! Oh, it was just a hospital ! 
 Adeletje was always ailing; and now Marietje van 
 Saetzema, really very seriously ill, had been added 
 to the rest. Or wasn't it rather, with their exag- 
 gerated clinging to that family of semilunatics, a 
 mad-house, now that, over and above doting Grand- 
 mamma and half-witted Klaasje, this Uncle Ernst, 
 who was quite out of his mind, had appeared upon 
 the scene? True, he did not live in the house, but 
 he was there a great deal and would come in to 
 meals unexpectedly, without a word of warning. 
 She was frightened when she met him suddenly in 
 the passages, always carrying on about the Delft 
 jars; and then he didn't recognize her, didn't know 
 who she was, what she was doing there, until he 
 remembered: Addie's wife. Perhaps he only be- 
 haved like that from craftiness, from wickedness. 
 
 A haunted house, a sick-house, a mad-house: 
 that's what it was; and this was where she had to 
 spend her life, for Addie's suggestion, that they 
 should live by themselves, economically, at the 
 Hague, did not attract her: she had had enough of 
 economy, she had not married him for economy! 
 She had not married him for his money or for his 
 title either: she had really and truly married him 
 because she loved him, loved his quiet, charming, 
 serious face, his eyes, his mouth, loved having him 
 in her arms, because she loved his voice, loved, 
 strange though it might seem, his rather elderly, 
 restful manliness, calmness and strength suggested 
 by that rather short, sturdy, blond frame. She had 
 looked upon him with love, had felt love for him; 
 and no one could blame her for being sensible and 
 for not being prepared to marry him if he had been 
 quite without money. Of course she thought it nice 
 to have a title: well, there may have been a little
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 133 
 
 vanity in that; but weren't there hundreds like her? 
 And did that make her bad and so contemptible that 
 they just left her to her own devices, Addie himself 
 just as much as the whole pack of them? 
 
 All the little grievances accumulated within her 
 breast, weighing her down and almost stifling her: 
 the tea, which Gerdy purposely made not fit to 
 drink; the half-witted child, which pushed against 
 her chair; the imbecile man, who did not recognize 
 her; the coolness of Papa, who never spoke a kind 
 word to her, not even when he was playing with his 
 grandchildren, Jetje and Constant, who were just 
 as much her children as Addie's. . . . The griev- 
 ances accumulated within her: grievances against 
 Papa, Mamma, the sick people and the mad people 
 they had to live with them all because they were 
 relations against the servants, against Truitje, 
 against everything and everybody. . . . Oh, how 
 gloomy that rainy winter had been, ever and ever 
 raining, with the great wind blustering round the 
 house, drawing such strange, moaning sounds from 
 the creaking windows and shutters and bellowing 
 down the chimney, till ail the old wood of the house 
 and the furniture came to life, took soul unto itself 
 and squeaked and groaned, until the whole place was 
 one errie horror of inexplicable noises! . . . 
 Those noises, oh, those noises ! They all knew of 
 them and not one of them spoke of them, because, 
 in spite of it all, they clung to the old, creepy 
 haunted house; they even denied their existence to 
 her; and the best thing that Mathilde could do was 
 not to speak about them, because they refused to 
 hear them ! But she was frightened, she had gradu- 
 ally become frightened, with that long keeping 
 indoors: where could she go, with the rain, the 
 wind, the storm, lashing for days and days? She 
 had become frightened, frightened; and they, all
 
 i 3 4 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 of them, had one another, whereas she had nobody, 
 with her husband generally out, visiting his patients : 
 she had only her two little children; and she was 
 frightened on their account too ! And now, when 
 she suddenly came upon Ernst on the stairs, she 
 became frightened again; and she could see that the 
 children also were frightened. No, she was not 
 happy and she was angry with herself at not being 
 pluckier and choosing poverty and economy oh, 
 how sick of it she was! at the Hague rather than 
 the so-called luxury of this haunted house. And 
 such luxury: the furniture old, the carpets worn, the 
 table very simple; really, a simple, middle-class life 
 and one that cost thousands and thousands, as Addie 
 would assure her on the first of the month, when 
 handing her her allowance for herself and the 
 children ! With those thousands and thousands they 
 could surely have had a more genuine luxury, if 
 Papa and Mamma and Addie hadn't been such soft- 
 hearted fools as to take in that pack of Uncle 
 Gerrit's: you could do good and still think of your- 
 self. . . . With those thousands but without the 
 pack they could start and furnish the house in a 
 better, less stuffy and more modern style; paint all 
 those brown, gloomy doors a cheerful white and 
 gold; have cheerful new carpets, curtains and furni- 
 ture, with flowers and Japanese fans in the con- 
 servatory; make a summer-residence of the house 
 and in the winter live at the Hague, keep their car- 
 riage, have their opera-box, go out and entertain. 
 . . . They could have lived like that, Papa, 
 Mamma and Addie, if they -had wished, for the 
 thousands were there to do it with; at the Hague, 
 Addie, as Baron van der Welcke, could have ac- 
 quired a smart practice, the good-looking, pleasant 
 fellow that he was! . . . That was how they 
 might have lived, deriving some enjoyment from
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 135 
 
 their money; and even then they could very well 
 have helped Aunt Adeline with the up-bringing of 
 her children; and everyone would have thought it 
 very handsome of them and no one would have 
 thought that they were living or acting unreasonably 
 or selfishly or inexplicably, whereas now! . . . 
 Whereas now ! . . . Locking themselves up in the 
 dark haunted house, all through the long, long win- 
 ter, with nothing but sick people, all through the 
 long, long winter, with nothing but sick people, no- 
 thing but mad people about them ! . . . 
 
 Fortunately it had begun to freeze. It was as 
 though this glorious ice had brought about a friend- 
 lier feeling: Gerdy was not so very horrid; Guy 
 skated with Mathilde because she was a good, 
 finished skater, fond of good, finished, unwearied 
 skating; and the crisp crystal cold, after all the days 
 of rain and storm, made everybody cheerful and 
 indulgent. Oh, those skating-trips ! First a short 
 journey by train; and then along the waterways, 
 endlessly, endlessly ! And she was so grateful when 
 Addie, one single morning, was able to escape going 
 to all those sick, poor people, whom he had to visit 
 daily she hated the sight and the feel of him when 
 he returned and went with her, for half a day's 
 skating! And she took possession of her husband, 
 glad to have him with her, with crossed hands, 
 swaying evenly and rhythmically with him, in the 
 rhythm of hip to hip, in the swing of firmly-shod 
 feet, while she cut through the broad blast of the 
 wind with her swift, powerful movement, till her 
 eyes and face shone and she was drunk with swallow- 
 ing the ice-cold distance, shooting far ahead in canal- 
 vistas between the snow-clad meadows, under the 
 low-hanging skies, swept clean as with giant besoms 
 of wind, while the horizons of skeleton trees 
 dwindled and faded away, and the wind-mills, with
 
 136 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 the broad, black, silent gestures of their sails, loomed 
 up and disappeared as she shot past. 
 
 Fortunately it had begun to freeze. It seemed to 
 her as if, suddenly, in these days of winter pastime, 
 she had found her husband again, as if she half 
 felt that he was finding her again ! He did love 
 her then? He was not quite indifferent to her? 
 Through her glove, she felt his hand glowing in 
 hers; she felt the swift rhythm of their hips as a 
 voluptuousness; and she could have hung round his 
 neck because he took her with him like that, rushing, 
 rushing over the straight streaks of endless smooth 
 ice! 
 
 " Addie, Addie, you do love me, don't you? " 
 Amid the swift movement she looked at him and 
 laughed; and his eyes turned, with a little laugh, to 
 her. Oh, how they knew how to laugh, those great, 
 earnest eyes of his, with the often strange blue 
 spark, like a flash of secret fire, which she sometimes 
 did not understand but which she understood now! 
 For what else did it mean, that flash, than that 
 he loved her too, that he thought her pretty? And 
 was he not telling her with his eyes as he had often 
 told her in words that he loved her because she was 
 so attractive, so palpably healthy and pretty and 
 that it was this that attracted him in her: her pink- 
 and-white complexion, her rounded form, her young 
 and vigorous limbs? Then she felt him akin to 
 herself, a young man, a man made young again, a 
 man with a clear, materialistic soul; and in this man 
 she read the young doctor, who loved her healthy 
 body, her rich, healthy blood, weary as he must be 
 of the morbid nerves of his mother's family! Oh, 
 those Van Lowe's: she hated them all, she felt 
 herself to belong to another race ! And was Addie 
 himself, like his father, not healthy, simply healthy 
 and manly, a good-looking young fellow, a man,
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 137 
 
 even though he was almost prematurely old? Was 
 he, in the very smallest degree, a Van Lowe, with 
 all their nerves, the morbidity, their semilunacy, so 
 sickly in constitution one and all, that she could not 
 stand any one of them? Bah, they turned her 
 stomach: Adeletje, always ailing; Marietje, really 
 very ill; Alex, so weak; Emilie, so crushed and 
 melancholy: a Van Naghel, she, but still with Van 
 Lowe blood in her : and Guy was a nice-looking boy, 
 but so dull and sleepy; and Gerdy was a nice-looking 
 girl, but full of eccentric ways, of course because 
 she was a Van Lowe ! Bah, they turned her stomach, 
 that always ailing, half-mad family of her mother- 
 in-law's, who had ensconced themselves in their 
 house; and it was lucky that in Addie she found 
 simply a Van der Welcke, Baron van der Welcke, 
 a healthy fellow belonging to a healthy, normal 
 family. That was how she looked at it: normal. 
 That was how she looked at it while she let her 
 husband swing her along the endless, endless streaks 
 of ice; the snow-fields flew past; the horizons of 
 leafless trees approached, changed their aspect, dis- 
 appeared; the spreading sails of the windmills 
 loomed up, disappeared, loomed up, with the silent 
 tragedy of their despairing gestures outlined against 
 the sky. That was how she looked at it: normal. 
 True, Addie employed hypnotism from time to time, 
 but that was the fashion nowadays: he could not lag 
 behind when medicine was making progress in all 
 directions. . . . And, utterly blind to the really 
 duplicate soul that was her husband's, she saw him 
 merely single, simple and normal, because she re- 
 membered now, in the joy of their sport on the ice, 
 the vigorous embrace of his arms, the hunger and 
 thirst of his unsated kisses. . . . Normal, quite 
 normal; and oh, she felt herself so strong now to 
 win him, to bind him to herself, because she herself
 
 i 3 8 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 was comely and healthy and normal: his delight, 
 when he was tired of every sort of ailment; his 
 luxury, which already had given him two pretty 
 children. . . . People were skating in front of 
 her, behind her, like the pair of them; and she was 
 proud that she was skating with her husband; she 
 would not let him go; he was hers; he was 
 hers. . . . 
 
 It was fortunate that it had begun to freeze. 
 They had had three fine days and this was the 
 fourth; and already alas! a touch of thaw 
 seemed to slacken the crystal-clear firmness of the 
 sky which had been so transparent at first. But still 
 the ice was in no way impaired; a trip was planned 
 and Mathilde felt sure that Addie would come. 
 And great was her disappointment when he said: 
 
 " Not to-day, Tilly. I must go to my patients 
 this morning." 
 
 ' You managed with the afternoon yesterday." 
 
 " I can't wait so long this time : there's an old 
 woman who expects me. And Marietje isn't so well 
 .to-day: Mary, I mean, as Mamma calls her." 
 
 ' Then I sha'n't go either," she said, crossly. 
 
 14 Why shouldn't you go?" he persisted, gently. 
 " You enjoy it so." 
 
 ' With you." 
 
 " I can't come this morning." 
 
 ' Yes, you can ... to please me." 
 
 " No, I can't come this morning, Tilly. But you 
 would please me by going." 
 
 " I like skating with you." 
 
 His eyes laughed. 
 
 " And do you imagine that I don't enjoy it? " 
 
 " You don't love me." 
 
 " You know better." 
 
 'Then come." 
 
 " Not this morning."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 139 
 
 4 You're always so self-willed." 
 
 44 Because I mustn't go this morning. ... Be 
 sensible now and go without me." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders: 
 
 11 All right, I'll go, I'll go." 
 
 It was just after breakfast; and the children were 
 still downstairs. He played with them: Constant 
 toddled to him on shaky legs; Addie held Jetje on 
 his arm and rubbed his moustache against her milk- 
 white little face, to make her laugh and crow. A 
 soft feeling of bliss welled within him, because he 
 was pressing against him a life that was his life, a 
 small shrine of frail and tender child body in which 
 flashed an atom of soul that laughed and crowed 
 and lived. And the baby was so ordinary, a baby 
 just like other babies, when he looked at it as a 
 doctor; and the baby was so mystic when, as a 
 father, he pressed it to himself. What was more 
 mystic than a little child? What was more mys- 
 terious and higher in divine incomprehensibility than 
 a little child, a little child born just ordinarily a few 
 months ago? What was more divinely mysterious 
 and mystic than birth and the dawn of life? Where 
 did it come from, the baby with its tiny atom of soul, 
 the baby which his wife had borne him? As a 
 doctor, he laughed at his own nai've question; as 
 a father and man, he grew grave in awe of it. ... 
 He felt two beings within himself, more and more 
 clearly every day; two beings long maintained in 
 a strange equilibrium, but now trembling, as at a 
 test. He felt two within himself: the ordinary, 
 normal, practical, almost prematurely old, earnest 
 young scientist and doctor; and within that soul his 
 second soul: a soul of mystery, of divine incompre- 
 hensibility; a soul full of mysticism; a soul full of 
 unfathomable force, a force which unloosed a magic 
 that was salutary to many. . . . And, when that
 
 140 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 magic passed out of him, salutary to many, he would 
 feel himself normal, practical and serious, but sud- 
 denly blind for himself, as though he knew nothing 
 for himself, because he was two souls, too much 
 two souls to know things for himself. . . . Oh, 
 what was more incomprehensible than the essence of 
 life, what more incomprehensible than himself, what 
 more incomprehensible than this little baby and that 
 little toddling boy! . . . And it was born so sim- 
 ply, in the womb of a healthy woman, and it grew 
 up so ordinarily; and that very ordinary growth was 
 as great a riddle as anything or everything. . . . 
 Oh, who knew, what did anyone know ? . . . And 
 the strangest thing of all was that he knew, with a 
 strange consciousness for others, what to do, what 
 to say, how to act; that he had known, uncon- 
 sciously, as a child, when he had spoken words of 
 consolation to his father, to his mother; later, con- 
 sciously, with a salutary and sacred knowledge, not 
 alone for father and mother but for others, for so 
 many, for so many ! 
 
 Now he handed her back to the nurse, his little 
 Jetje, his little riddle of birth and the dawn of life, 
 his little atom of soul; now he stroked the silky 
 curls of Constant, who was clinging to his legs, and 
 went upstairs, knowing. How strange that was in 
 him, that calm, quiet knowledge, that certainty of 
 his will, which would shine forth in a setting of calm 
 speech ! . . . He went up the stairs, to the top 
 floor, to what used to be Guy's room, where Guy 
 had generally sat in the morning bending over his 
 books and maps, until, in an impulse of youthful 
 restlessness, he would wander through the house, 
 looking for his sisters or aunt. Marietje now occu- 
 pied the room, or Mary, as she was usually called. 
 . . . Addie knocked and she asked who was there, 
 kept him waiting for a moment in her modesty as
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 141 
 
 she nervously tidied something in her room and put 
 away her clothes. When he entered, she was sitting 
 in a big arm-chair, looking very pale. . . . 
 
 But Mathilde, angry that Addie had refused to 
 come skating, suddenly felt a violent jealousy, a 
 violent, dagger-sharp jealousy in her soul, because 
 Addie had spoken of patients who expected him and 
 because he had spoken of Marietje. And, in her 
 room, undecided whether to go or not, whether to 
 stay indoors and sulk or to seek her amusement 
 without her husband, she suddenly felt an irresistible 
 impulse to follow her husband upstairs. She went; 
 and, in order to keep in countenance should she meet 
 anybody, she resolved that she would pretend to be 
 fetching a coat hanging in a wardrobe-closet next 
 to Marietje's room. The wardrobes were used for 
 clothes that were not worn every day. Entering the 
 closet, she softly closed the door and held her keys 
 in her hand : if she were surprised, she would quietly 
 open the big wardrobe. Meanwhile she listened at 
 the partition. And she heard the voices of her hus- 
 band and Marietje as though they were sounding 
 across a distance and an obstacle : 
 
 " How did you sleep, Marietje? " 
 
 " I haven't slept at all." 
 
 " What was the matter? " 
 
 " All night long I had a buzzing in my ears. . . . 
 It was a roaring and roaring like the sea. ... I 
 wanted to get up and come downstairs ... to 
 Auntie, but I was afraid to ... and I didn't want 
 to disturb the house. ... It was just like waves. 
 ... I didn't sleep at all. . . . And then I 
 dream, I dream while I lie awake. . . . All sorts 
 of things flash out before me, like visions. . . . 
 And it makes the night so long, so endless. . . . 
 And I feel so tired now and above all so hopeless. 
 I shall never get well."
 
 142 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " Yes, you will." 
 
 " No, Addie. I have always been ill." 
 
 " You must have a quiet sleep now." 
 
 ;' I sha'n't be able to." 
 
 ' Yes. Come and lie here on the sofa. I'll draw 
 the blinds." 
 
 " Addie 1" 
 
 'What is it, Marietje?" 
 
 " Do you know what I should like? " 
 
 'What?" 
 
 " I should like, when you have put me to sleep, 
 as you did yesterday and the day before, I should 
 like never to wake again, to remain asleep always. 
 I should like your voice to lull me to sleep for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 "And why don't you want to go on living? 
 You're young and you will get better." 
 
 ' Tell me what's the matter with me." 
 
 " Don't think about that." 
 
 " My body is ill, but isn't my soul ill too? " 
 
 "Don't think about that; and lie down . . . 
 keep very still . . . give me your hand. . . . 
 Hush, sleep is coming, peaceful sleep. . . . The 
 eyelids are closing. . . . The eyelids feel heavier 
 and heavier. . . . The eyelids are closing. . . . 
 Heavier and heavier the eyelids. . . . You can't 
 lift them, you can't lift them. . . . The hand 
 grows heavier and heavier; you can't lift the hand, 
 . . . The whole body is growing heavy, heavy, 
 heavier and heavier with sleep, peaceful sleep, com- 
 ing, coming. ..." 
 
 Mathilde listened breathlessly at the partition. 
 All was silent now in Marietje's room; Mathilde 
 no longer heard Addie's soothing voice summoning 
 sleep, the magic of peaceful sleep. And suddenly, as 
 she listened, she grew frightened, she, Mathilde, 
 grew frightened of things which she did not under-
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 143 
 
 stand, grew frightened as she was frightened when, 
 in the evening, late, she went along the dark pas- 
 sages and the dark staircases. And yet it was 
 morning now and the wintry reflexion of the snow, 
 a little faded by the first touch of the thaw, fell 
 shrill into the narrow closet, without any shade of 
 mystery. . . . 
 
 She trembled where she knelt, frightened of what 
 she did not understand. She trembled and in her 
 trembling became conscious of a fierce jealousy not 
 only of Marietje but of all Addie's patients, those 
 outside, whom she had never seen, living in their 
 poor little houses, which she did not know. But 
 she was most jealous of Marietje. Was the girl 
 asleep now? . . . She heard Addie's footstep, 
 heard his hand on the handle of the door, heard him 
 go out. He was going out . . . Marietje was no 
 doubt asleep. . . . She waited a few seconds 
 longer, heard the stairs creak lightly under his feet 
 as he went down; and now, after her fears and 
 jealousy, she was seized with curiosity. She left 
 the wardrobe-closet, listened in the passage outside 
 Marietje's door. And suddenly, grasping the handle 
 firmly and carefully, she opened the door and saw 
 Marietje slumbering peacefully in the darkened 
 room, her face white and relaxed on the sofa- 
 cushions. Then she closed the door again and went 
 downstairs. She was no longer frightened, no 
 longer curious; only her jealousy burnt fiercely 
 within her, like an angry fever. She had just time 
 to put on her things and pick up her skates: Guy, 
 Gerdy and their friends were waiting for her down- 
 stairs.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THAT evening Gerdy said to Constance : 
 
 "Auntie, Mathilde carried on like a lunatic to- 
 day. ..." 
 
 But Constance refused to listen. She well knew 
 that there was no love lost between Mathilde and 
 the rest of them; and it always upset her that, on 
 the one hand, Mathilde always remained a stranger 
 and that, on the other, one of the children always 
 had some remark to make about Mathilde. She, 
 on the contrary was always glossing over Mathilde's 
 shortcomings and nearly always took her side. 
 
 " Honestly, Auntie, Mathilde carried on like a 
 lunatic this afternoon. ..." 
 
 Gerdy was in a great state of excitement and she 
 determined to tell her story. It was after dinner, 
 tea had not yet been served and Mathilde was up- 
 stairs, putting the children to bed. The others in 
 the room were Adeline, Emilie and Guy; Granny 
 was sitting in her corner. And Constance refused to 
 listen : 
 
 " You mustn't always be so intolerant . . . 
 about Mathilde," said Constance, by way of 
 reprimand. 
 
 "Intolerant? Intolerant?" echoed Gerdy, ex- 
 citedly. " But you didn't see her, the insane way 
 she behaved. . . . We were on the ice ... 
 and ..." She lowered her voice to a whisper, 
 though Granny was not likely to understand. " We 
 were on the ice ... and there were others: the 
 Erzeeles from Utrecht and Johan Erzeele from the 
 Hague, you know, the one who's in the grenadiers. 
 
 144
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 145 
 
 . . . Yes, I know, Mathilda and he are old 
 acquaintances, she used often to dance with him 
 . . . but that's no reason for carrying on with 
 him as she did." 
 
 " I say, it wasn't as bad as all that," said Guy, 
 in a tone of palliation. 
 
 " Not as bad as all that, not as bad as all that? " 
 repeated Gerdy, very angrily, because Guy, Con- 
 stance and everybody were making excuses for 
 Mathilde. "Not as bad as all that? Well, if I 
 was married, or even unmarried, I should be 
 ashamed to carry on like that with any man, though 
 I'd met him at a hundred dances! " 
 
 " Do let Mathilde enjoy herself," said Constance. 
 " Really, she has so little ..." 
 
 "So little what?" said Gerdy, almost imperti- 
 nently. " She has everything, she has everything 
 she could wish for! She has a darling of a hus- 
 band, she has the 'sweetest of children . . . she 
 has everything. . . ." 
 
 " But she sometimes feels ... a little neglected 
 and strange . . . among all of us," said Con- 
 stance, still taking Mathilde's part. " So, if she's 
 a little irresponsible once in a way, I don't grudge 
 it her for a moment." 
 
 " But it was more than being irresponsible, it was 
 much worse : she was simply carrying on ! " 
 
 " For shame, Gerdy ! You mustn't be so spite- 
 ful." 
 
 Gerdy shrugged her shoulders angrily. She 
 simply doted on Aunt Constance; nothing on earth 
 would induce her to quarrel with Aunt Constance: 
 Aunt Constance, who was so kind to all of them; 
 and so she preferred to say nothing. But her dear, 
 eager little soul was up in arms; she was very angry 
 indeed; she pitied Addie. She was so angry, she 
 felt such pity for Addie that really she did not
 
 146 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 quite understand her own feelings. After all, this 
 was not the first time that Mathilde had annoyed 
 her; she had never liked Mathilde; it was enough 
 to make her spill the tea or the milk if Mathilde 
 entered the room unexpectedly; and so she really 
 could not quite understand why she was so very 
 angry and thinking so much of Addie, simply be- 
 cause Mathilde had carried on so with Johan 
 Erzeele, why it should irritate her so that Con- 
 stance on principle, she could understand that 
 much was taking Mathilde's part, why it should 
 irritate her that Mamma and Emilie were sitting 
 so sad and silent, that Granny was sitting so feeble 
 and silently trembling in her far corner, why it 
 should irritate her that Adeletje and Guy should 
 keep on playing backgammon : 
 'Three and four. ..." 
 
 " Two and five. . . . Imperial. . . . Once 
 more. ..." 
 
 She was very much overwrought; and, when 
 Mathilde came in for tea the children were now 
 asleep Gerdy's little face quivered; she could 
 hardly contain herself; but she made the effort, be- 
 cause Constance was looking at her in such surprise. 
 And, to keep herself in countenance, she went in 
 search of Uncle Henri, found Van der Welcke in 
 the passage, on the point of coming in, and asked 
 him: 
 
 " Uncle, are you coming to play a rubber? " 
 " If you like, dear. Who's going to make up?" 
 " Marietje, I dare say, -and Alex." 
 "Is the other Marietje, Mary, downstairs?" 
 " No, Uncle, she's up in her room." 
 ' This house of ours is a regular hospital, eh? " 
 "Oh, it's not as bad as that, Uncle 1 ... I 
 think it's a very nice house." 
 "You do, do you?"
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 147 
 
 Gerdy, usually so cheerful, suddenly became 
 very nervous, cross and angry, very limp; and 
 she didn't understand herself, couldn't understand 
 herself. . . . 
 
 " Well, come and have a rubber." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I'm coming. . . . Don't hustle your 
 uncle : he's getting old." 
 
 But Gerdy laughed, shrilly, though she had to 
 keep back her tears : 
 
 " You'll never be old." 
 
 "You think that?" 
 
 " No, never." 
 
 " Ah ! Then I shall remain a scapegrace to my 
 dying day? " 
 
 " No, a dear, kind uncle. . . . But come and 
 have a rubber now." 
 
 She dragged him into the room. Constance grum- 
 bled mildly: 
 
 " Gerdy, you're just like a naughty child. Every 
 time you run out of the room, you leave the door 
 open." 
 
 And Gerdy, from being limp, became filled with 
 poignant self-pity. Aunt Constance had ceased to 
 care for her, cared more for her daughter-in-law, 
 Mathilde. . . . Everybody, everybody cared more 
 for Mathilde. . . . Addie, Johan Erzeele : they all 
 cared more for Mathilde. . . . She, Gerdy, was 
 misjudged by everybody . . . everybody except 
 Uncle Henri, who was nice and kind. . . . 
 
 She made a great effort, mastered herself, mas- 
 tered her volatile emotions. Alex had come over 
 that Saturday from Amsterdam, where he was now 
 boarding with a tutor at the Merchants' School ; and 
 he and Marietje soon got the bridge-table ready. 
 And it became quite a serious rubber, in the still, 
 pale-yellow atmosphere of the big living-room, 
 where the lamps shone sleepily through their yellow-
 
 i 4 8 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 silk shades, just bright enough to light the books 
 or crochet-work in the hands of the silent women, 
 Constance, Adeline, Emilie. ... At about nine 
 o'clock there was a certain movement in those inti- 
 mate, silent, almost melancholy indoor lines and 
 colours, when Adeline took Klaasje to bed and Con- 
 stance and Adeletje helped Grandmamma upstairs: 
 the child and the old woman at the same hour, the 
 one never outgrowing her first childhood, the other 
 relapsing into her second, after so well knowing the 
 many sad things that were to come, that had come, 
 that had already faded away, even as all life, that 
 comes and goes, fades away in the faded pallor of 
 the past. . . . And, when Constance and Adeline 
 returned downstairs together, they seemed to hear 
 the wind getting up around the house; and Adeline 
 said, on the stairs : 
 
 " Listen, the wind's getting up." 
 
 ' There's a change in the weather," said Con- 
 stance. 
 
 " That means thaw ; it's a westerly wind and we 
 shall have rain." 
 
 On entering the room, they found Ernst there. 
 He often came round in the evenings. He watched 
 Gerdy's cards and sat very still, never spoke much, 
 feeling that they never understood what he said 
 and that it was better to talk to them as little as 
 possible, even though there was some good about 
 them, even though they were not utterly depraved, 
 even though they meant the suffering souls no harm, 
 although once in a way, all of them, they would 
 trample on them unconsciously, because they did 
 not see and understand and because they were so 
 stupid and so innately rough. . . . Nevertheless, 
 rough and stupid as they were, they were his rela- 
 tions and he came and looked them up, feeling at 
 home in the house of his sister Constance and her
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 149 
 
 husband, in the house also of Addie, who was the 
 cleverest of them all and who, he felt certain, did 
 hear and see the souls, for he often spared them. 
 . . . He now stared at the cards and thought of 
 the rubbers at Mamma's in the Alexanderstraat, 
 when he used to go there on Sundays in the old 
 days. . . . Strange, that everything changed, that 
 nothing remained, he thought. ... It was no 
 longer the Hague now: it was Driebergen; it was 
 Van der Welcke's house and Gerrit's children: 
 Gerrit, how rough, how very rough he used to be, 
 but even so not exactly wicked and depraved ! And 
 the cards as they were played one after the other 
 fell from the fingers of Van der Welcke, Gerdy, 
 Alex and Marietje. The same game; only life 
 changed; the game did not change nor did the souls, 
 the poor souls, ever and ever suffering around him, 
 linking themselves to his soul with dragging chains. 
 . . . He sat in silence and followed the play of 
 the hand, understood it, nodded his approval of 
 Van der Welcke's careful game. . . . 
 
 Mathilde had come in; so had Addie, for a mo- 
 ment, before going upstairs to work; and they met 
 as husband and wife who, after dinner, in a bustling 
 house, seek each other out for a moment to ex- 
 change a word or two. Mathilde's eyes were red, 
 Addie looked serious; and they all noticed it; it 
 struck them, it saddened them, while they heard the 
 wind flapping like a sagging sail and the panes 
 lightly creaking and the windows lightly rattling in 
 their frames. . . . Constance wondered what had 
 happened and thought that it must be Mathilde, 
 always urging him to move to the Hague; and 
 Addie would be quite willing, for his wife's sake, 
 but then the money-question would crop up and 
 remain insoluble, because Mathilde would not be 
 economical. . . . And that indeed was how it was;
 
 150 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 and they had lost each other, Addie and Mathilde; 
 and they would find each other again in a rebirth 
 of desire, when Addie reflected : 
 
 " What a beautiful, healthy woman she is ! And 
 we have to be healthy in our bodies and normal in 
 our longings if we would be healthy of soul, in the 
 life of our bodies and our physical being." 
 
 On the evening after the excursion on the ice, they 
 found each other again. The wind had lashed their 
 blood to a warm glow, the exercise had sent it 
 coursing through their veins. Love was reborn of 
 their embrace until drowsiness overtook them. And 
 Mathilde thought that she had found him again and 
 Addie thought that he had found her again, because 
 their kisses had sealed one to the other, because 
 their arms had clasped one to the other, but they 
 lost each other again at once, as ever and always, 
 because Mathilde just did not know him in his two- 
 sided soul and he never knew things for himself, 
 whatever he might know for others, in the clarity 
 of his knowledge; in any of the manifestations of 
 the instinctive knowledge which he knew silently 
 and blissfully in his soul's soul: the hidden spark, 
 from which treasure shone. 
 
 Mathilde sat down quietly in a corner, sitting a 
 little way from the others, to catch the light of a 
 lamp on her book; and Addie remained for only 
 a moment, saying that he had work to do. And, 
 as he went out of the door, there was a sudden 
 draught, so that the lamps flickered and smoked and 
 nearly went out. 
 
 ' There's something open," said Constance. 
 " Where can that wind come from? " 
 
 " I'll look," said Addie, closing the door. 
 
 " You see," said Gerdy, pursing up her mouth 
 and turning to Aunt Constance, " you see it's not 
 always my fault when there's a draught."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 151 
 
 Silence fell; there was not a sound but the hard 
 tap of the dice on the backgammon-board and the 
 rustle of the cards as they were played, while Con- 
 stance, Adeline, Emilie and Mathilde read or 
 worked, and the evening hours in the soft light of 
 the sitting-room dozed away as with soft-trailing 
 minutes and quarters, dull reflexions in the mirrors, 
 faint lamplight on the furniture and the rhythmical 
 ticking of the clock in the almost entire silence, 
 broken only now and again by an occasional word, 
 at the card-table, or when Guy said : 
 
 " It's blowing . . . and thawing. . . . There'll 
 be no skating to-morrow. ..." 
 
 A piercing scream rang through the house; and 
 the scream so suddenly and unexpectedly penetrated 
 the silence of the stairs and passages of the great 
 house, outside the room in which they were sitting, 
 that all of them started, suddenly : 
 
 "What's that? . . . What's that? ..." 
 
 They all sprang up ; the cards, thanks to Gerdy's 
 fright, fell on the floor, and lay flat with their gaudy 
 pictures. When Van der Welcke opened the door, 
 there was no longer any draught; the maids were 
 running into the hall, anxiously, through the open 
 door of the kitchen. Everybody asked questions at 
 once. They heard Addie come down a staircase; 
 and the hurried creaking of his firm step on the 
 stairs reassured the women. They called out to 
 him, he to them; and, amid their confusion, they 
 at last heard his voice, clearly: 
 
 "Help me! . . . Here! . . ." 
 
 "Where? ..." 
 
 " On the stairs." 
 
 They ran up the stairs. 
 
 " On the back-staircase ! " they heard him call. 
 
 And Constance saw that the partition door was 
 standing ajar at the end of the long passage. She
 
 152 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 gave a cold shiver and she heard Mathilde suddenly 
 say: 
 
 " Oh, nothing . . . nothing will induce me to 
 go up that staircase I " 
 
 But she forced herself and went; and the others 
 followed her. 
 
 They found Addie on the small, narrow back- 
 staircase; and he was carrying Marietje, Mary, in 
 his arms. She hung against him unconscious, like 
 a white bundle of clothes, with her nerveless arms 
 hanging slack and limp. 
 
 'What happened?" 
 
 " I heard her call out. . . . The staircase-door 
 above was open. ... I expect she meant to go 
 downstairs ... to fetch something . . . and 
 was taken ill on the stairs. . . . Help me, can't 
 you?" he said, almost impatiently. 
 
 The women helped him carry Marietje upstairs. 
 They all went up now, to their rooms; the maids, 
 still pale and trembling, put out the lamps in the 
 sitting-room; and silence and darkness fell over the 
 house, as they went creaking up the stairs, with 
 candles in their hands. 
 
 The wind outside increased in violence; and the 
 dripping thaw pattered against the panes. 
 
 The three sisters were together in their bed- 
 rooms : Marietje and Gerdy in their room, Adeletje 
 in her own room, with the door open between them. 
 And they spoke very low, in whispering voices : 
 
 " I'm getting used to it," said Marietje, sensibly; 
 " I'm no longer frightened." 
 
 " I heard it quite lately," said Gerdy. 
 
 And Adeletje answered : 
 
 4 Yes, I hear it nearly every evening." 
 
 u Uncle and Aunt don't speak about it." 
 
 11 No, it's better not to." 
 
 " It's always the same sound : like the dragging
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 153 
 
 of heavy footsteps, in the garret, under the 
 roof ..." 
 
 " And then it goes downstairs." 
 
 " Yes . . . then it goes downstairs." 
 
 " Uncle had the garret examined." 
 
 " Addie has been up there, with Guy." 
 
 ' They found nothing." 
 
 " It can't be a rat." 
 
 " It's quite unaccountable." 
 
 14 I'm getting so used to it," said Marietje. 
 
 " It sometimes comes down the little staircase." 
 
 " Aunt Constance is afraid of the little staircase." 
 
 " She doesn't like the house at all." 
 
 " But Uncle does and Addie does." 
 
 " Mathilde was so frightened! " 
 
 " Uncle and Addie wouldn't like to leave the 
 house." 
 
 " And it's a nice house," said Gerdy. " I . . . 
 I'm frightened myself lately . . . and yet I'm fond 
 of the house." 
 
 " I love the house too," said Adeletje. " It's 
 so brown, so dark . . . like something safe and 
 something very dear . . . around us all. I should 
 be very sorry to leave the house. I shall never 
 marry shall I? because I'm ugly and delicate 
 . . . and I shall always remain with Uncle and 
 Aunt. ..." 
 
 Gerdy took her in her arms. 
 
 " You won't," Adeletje went on. " You'll marry 
 one day, Gerdy . . . and so will Marietje." 
 
 " Oh, stop ! " said Gerdy. " Do stop, Adeletje ! 
 . . . What are you talking about marriage ! . . . 
 I'm ugly as well; nobody likes me! " 
 
 " Listen! " said Marietje. 
 
 "What did you hear?" 
 
 ' The sound ... I thought." 
 
 " I hear nothing."
 
 154 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 "Listen!" 
 
 "Yes, listen!" 
 
 " It's trailing up the stairs." 
 
 "Oh, I'm frightened, I'm frightened!" said 
 Gerdy. 
 
 The sisters all crept together. 
 
 " I'm not frightened," said Marietje. " I often 
 hear it, like that." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 <r The maids say ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "That it's ..." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "The old man. ..." 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 "Listen, listen! " 
 
 ' They say the house is haunted." 
 
 " It may be nothing at all," said Marietje. " It 
 may be the wind, making a draught." 
 
 " But everything's shut." 
 
 " Old houses have queer draughts sometimes, for 
 all that." 
 
 4 The furniture's old too." 
 
 44 Listen, it's trailing! " 
 
 4 That's the wind." 
 
 44 There's the same trailing sound in the wind 
 sometimes, blowing round the house. I'm getting 
 used to it," said Marietje. 
 
 44 Yes," said Adeletje, " one gets used, one gets 
 used to everything. ... I shall always remain in 
 this house, with Uncle and' Aunt. I love them." 
 
 4 They never talk about it." 
 
 4 That's by far the best way." 
 
 44 Mathilde, how frightened she is! " 
 
 " Listen, listen ! It's going upstairs ! " 
 
 44 It's the wind . . . taking the draught up- 
 stairs."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 155 
 
 ** In an old house . . . it's as though the old 
 wood were alive." 
 
 " And the furniture." 
 
 "What can have been the matter with Mary?" 
 
 " Can she . . . have seen anything? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 11 No, no." 
 
 " She wanted to fetch something. . . . She 
 fainted. . . . She's very ill, I believe, very weak." 
 
 " Addie says that she's not so very ill." 
 
 "Listen!" 
 
 u Could it really be ... the old man? " 
 
 " And, if it were the old man . . . what then?" 
 said Adeletje. " I . . .1 shall remain in the 
 house. I shall die, here, I think, at Uncle and 
 Aunt's." 
 
 " Oh, do hush, Adeletje ! " said Gerdy, limply, 
 nestling in her sister's arms. 
 
 " I'm not afraid of dying." 
 
 "Oh, Adeletje, do hush, do hush! You mustn't 
 talk of dying." 
 
 " Listen ! I hear it again ! " 
 
 " But now it's trailing away." 
 
 " Like a draught sucking in the air." 
 
 " Yes," said Adeletje, " I expect it's the old man." 
 
 ;' Why should it be he?" 
 
 " He can't tear himself away from the house." 
 
 " He was always implacable ..." 
 
 ' To poor Aunt Constance." 
 
 ' The old woman was different." 
 
 ' Yes, she was different." 
 
 " No, it's the draught, it's only the draught. 
 . . . And the house, creaking." 
 
 " It's nothing." 
 
 li It's nothing." 
 
 " But perhaps we imagine . . . because we 
 hear .
 
 156 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " We all feel ... a sort of fear ... be- 
 cause we hear." 
 
 " Mary saw something, I expect." 
 
 " Come, girls, let's go to bed." 
 
 " Do you dare sleep alone in your room, 
 Adeletje?" 
 
 * Yes, Gerdy . . . but leave the door open be- 
 tween us." 
 
 ' Yes, that's nicer." 
 
 " Good-night then, darlings." 
 
 " Adeletje . . . you won't think any more of 
 dying, will you?" said Gerdy, moist-eyed. "Per- 
 haps I shall be dead before you are." 
 
 "Hush, darling! How can you talk like that? 
 . . . I'm delicate and ugly. . . . You're strong, 
 you're pretty." 
 
 " I may be dead first, for all that ! " said Gerdy, 
 sobbing. 
 
 " Gerdy, don't excite yourself so," said Marietje. 
 " That's because we've been talking about it. Now 
 you won't sleep all night." 
 
 " I dare say I shall be frightened to-night," said 
 Gerdy. "If so, I'll wake you, Marietje, and creep 
 into bed beside you." 
 
 ' Very well, do. ... And don't worry. ..." 
 
 "Good-night, then. ..." 
 
 "Good-night. , . ." 
 
 "Good-night. ..." 
 
 Round the house the thaw wept; and in the 
 night the sinewed grain of the ice broke and melted 
 in weeping melancholy, with the added melancholy 
 of the west wind blowing up heavy clouds, the west 
 wind which came from very far and moaned softly 
 along the walls and over the roof, rattling the tight- 
 closed windows of the night. . . . 
 
 Inside the house reigned the darkness of repose
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 157 
 
 and the shadow of silence; and the inmates slept. 
 Only Gerdy could not fall sleep: she lay thinking 
 with wide-open eyes, as she listened vaguely to the 
 wind blowing and the thaw pattering, thinking 
 that she hated . . . and loved . . . that she 
 hated. Math ilde . . . and loved . . . him . . . 
 Johan. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 " YES," said Paul, as he followed Constance out of 
 her own sitting-room, while she, with her key- 
 basket over her arm, went down the stairs with 
 Marietje and Gerdy, " yes, I'm not ashamed to con- 
 fess it: I've come to see how the country suits me. 
 The Hague is becoming so dirty that I can't stand 
 it any longer. What a dirty place a town is! It's 
 much cleaner in the country. . . . You're for- 
 tunate, you people. But I daresay I should have 
 stayed on at the Hague I'm not really a man for 
 the country if my landlady wasn't getting so old, 
 if she wasn't always changing the servants, if those 
 servants weren't so unspeakably slovenly and dirty. 
 . -. . She produced such specimens lately that I 
 gave her notice. . . . I'd had those rooms four- 
 teen years. . . . It'll be a great change for me. 
 ... . But I couldn't stand it any longer. I had 
 to see to everything myself; and I'm getting too old 
 for that. . . . Yes, I still do my wash-hand-stand 
 myself. . . . But look here, Constance, when it 
 came to making my bed because the servant's hands 
 were dirty and my sheets one night smelt of onions 
 you know, that was really too much to expect. 
 I'm no longer a young man: I'm forty-six. Yes, 
 that's right, you young baggages, laugh at your old 
 uncle ! I'm forty-six, forty-six. Lord, what a lot 
 of dirt I've seen in those years ! ... As the years 
 go by, filth heaps itself around you like a mountain: 
 there's no getting through it. Politics, people, 
 servants, bedclothes, everything you eat, everything 
 you touch, everything you do, say, think or feel: 
 
 158
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 159 
 
 it's a beastly business, just one sickening mass of 
 filth. . . . The only pure, unsullied thing that I 
 have found in the world is music. Ah, what a pure 
 thing music is ! . . . " 
 
 " Paul, I must just go down to the store-room 
 and have a talk with my cook about the filth which 
 I'm to give you this evening," said Constance; and 
 the girls laughed. 
 
 " All right, I'll come with you ... I sha'n't be 
 in the way. Ah, what a pure thing music is ! " he 
 continued, in the store-room, while the cook opened 
 wide eyes. " Look at painting, for instance, how 
 dirty: oil-colours, turpentine, a palette, paint- 
 brushes, water, all equally messy. Sculpture: clay 
 and damp cloths; literature: what's more loath- 
 somely dirty than ink, the oceans of ink which an 
 author pours forth? . . . But music: that's tone, 
 that's purity, that's sheer Platonism. . . . Oh, no, 
 since they've taken to building public conveniences 
 at the street-corners in the Hague, I can't go on 
 living there ! " 
 
 "Paul!'' said Constance, warningly; but he was 
 too much worked up to understand that she was 
 rebuking him. " Run away now, with the girls and 
 leave me with Keetje. 1 Look at her, staring at you 
 and not minding a word I say. . . . Keetje, listen 
 to me, I want to order the dinner; and you, Paul, 
 ajo, 2 beoff!" 
 
 " Come away, Uncle ! " said Marietje, " Keetje, 
 at Driebergen, isn't accustomed to hear everything 
 called so dirty." 
 
 " Keetje's proud of her kitchen, aren't you, 
 Keetje?" said Gerdy. 
 
 " Oh, well," said Keetje, " I expect meneer doesn't 
 mean all he says." 
 
 "Not mean all I say I" Paul shouted at the 
 
 1 Kate, Kittie. * Malay : clear out !
 
 160 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 servant, who stood calmly with her arms akimbo. 
 " Not mean all I say ! " 
 
 " One can do a lot with scrubbing, sir, to keep 
 things nice and clean." 
 
 " And I tell you," Paul blazed out, " that every- 
 thing's dirty, except music ..." 
 
 44 And except my kitchen ! " said Keetje, greatly 
 offended. " I don't know what sort of servants 
 meneer's had. But we're good cleaners here, aren't 
 we, ma'am? . . . Yes, I know, old Mie * is very 
 old and mevrouw only keeps her on out of kindness 
 . . . and we've got young help besides. . . . 
 But dirty ! " shaking her head energetically. 
 ' There's no dirt here . . . though it is an old 
 house . . . and a big family. ..." 
 
 " Girls ! Paul ! " cried Constance, in despair. 
 44 I've no time to stand in my store-room arguing 
 about what's dirty and what not in the world or 
 in Keetje's kitchen. . . . Get out of this! . . . 
 And you, Keetje, listen to me and answer me." 
 
 4 Yes, ma'am." 
 
 " Uncle, come along! " said Gerdy. " We'll show 
 you Keetje's kitchen." 
 
 14 Well, meneer can inspect that with pleasure! " 
 said Keetje, by way of a last shot. 
 
 The girls dragged Paul off to the kitchen, where 
 they were joined by Adeletje and even by Marietje 
 van Saetzema; and they screamed with merriment 
 when Paul examined the pans one after the 
 other : 
 
 44 But look, Uncle . .- . they're shining like 
 silver and gold ! " 
 
 ' Well, we can have our dinner out of them to- 
 night. . . . Still, children, music, music is the only 
 pure thing in the world ! " 
 
 44 Provided it's not false." 
 
 1 Mary.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 161 
 
 " Of course it mustn't be false. . . . Have you 
 a good piano here? " 
 
 " Yes, Uncle, Mathilde has hers upstairs and 
 here's mine, in the conservatory," said Gerdy. 
 " I'm the only one who plays." 
 
 Paul sat down at the piano, struck a few chords : 
 
 " The tone is fairly good. . . . Ah, music, 
 music! ..." 
 
 And he played. He played Wotan's Farewell, 
 followed by the Fire Magic. . . . He played very 
 well, by heart: his pale, narrow features became 
 animated, his long fingers quivered, his eyes lit up. 
 In the conservatory the old mother listened, heard 
 merely a flow of soothing sound. At her feet, 
 Klaasje listened, playing with her toys. Mathilde 
 came from upstairs; after her came Guy, deserting 
 his books. Paul played, went on playing ... he 
 had forgotten all about them. Suddenly he stopped : 
 
 " You mustn't think," he said abruptly, " that I 
 am an unconditional Wagner-worshipper. His 
 music is delightful; his poetry is crude, childish and 
 thin; his philosophy is very faulty and horribly Ger- 
 man and vague. . . . Proofs? You ask for 
 proofs? . . . Take the Rheingold: did you ever 
 see such gods? With no real strength, no real 
 marrow in their coarse thieves' souls, their burglars' 
 souls full of filth. ... Is that the beginning of 
 a world? No, a world begins in a purer fashion. 
 . . . And so childishly and crudely: the world's 
 treasure, the gold, the pure gold guarded by three 
 dirty Lorelei, with their hair full of sea-weed, 
 who, the moment they set eyes upon a dwarf, start 
 giggling and making fun. . . . Are those the pure 
 guardians of the pure gold? But the music in itself, 
 the purity of tone.: oh, in that purity of tone he is 
 a master! ..." 
 
 And he played the prelude to the Rheingold,
 
 1 62 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 played it twice consecutively. Suddenly he stopped 
 once more : 
 
 "Oh, Gerdy, how dusty your piano is! . . . 
 Does no one ever wipe the keys? . . . Where can 
 I wash my hands? " 
 
 " Uncle dear, do go on playing! " 
 
 "And my fingers black with dust? No, look 
 here, Keetje's pans may shine like silver and gold, 
 but your piano is a sounding-board of dirt. Where 
 can I wash my hands? " 
 
 " Here, at the tap." 
 
 She led him to the hall. 
 
 " Well, first find me a clean towel." 
 
 " The towel is clean, sir," said Truitje, who hap- 
 pened to be passing. 
 
 " No, I want a towel fresh from the wash, folded 
 in nice, clean folds." 
 
 And it was great fun: Marietje ran hunting for 
 Constance, to get the keys of the linen-press. 
 
 "So you've come to live here?" said Van der 
 Welcke, who came down while Paul was washing 
 his hands. 
 
 " Yes, I had a sudden, irresistible impulse to 
 move to Driebergen. I was feeling a little lonely 
 at the Hague," he confessed. " I am growing old 
 and lonely. And it's cleaner in the country; the air 
 is less foul, though I'm not lucky with this thaw. 
 The road outside was one great puddle. But I 
 have found two airy rooms, in a villa. . . . It's 
 strange, I should never have believed that I could 
 ever come and live at Driebergen . . . and in the 
 winter too ! . . . " 
 
 He inspected his hands, which were now clean: 
 
 " Imagine," he said, " if there were no water 
 left! I should be dead next day! " 
 
 Paul really brightened up. He was a great deal 
 at the house, very soon got into the habit of dining
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 163 
 
 there every evening and, because he felt scruples 
 at always taking his meals at Van der Welcke's 
 expense, he made handsome presents, as a set-off for 
 his sponging, he said, so that in the end it cost him 
 more than if he had dined every day at home. He 
 ordered fine flowers and fruit from the Hague; on 
 Van der Welcke's birthday, he gave him a case of 
 champagne; on Constance' birthday, a parcel of 
 caravan tea, because he came and had tea with them 
 every afternoon. In this way he contributed gene- 
 rously to the house-keeping and relieved his scruples. 
 He brightened up considerably, after his recent 
 years of loneliness, talked away lustily, broached 
 his philosophies, played Wagner; and even Ma- 
 thilde accepted him as a pleasant change, with a 
 touch of the Hague about him. 
 
 Constance would rebuke him at times and say: 
 
 " Paul, I won't have you constantly ordering that 
 expensive fruit for me from the Hague." 
 
 " My dear Constance," he would answer, " I'm 
 saving the cost of it on my ties ; for my dandyism is 
 gradually wearing awav." 
 
 In the evening, in the great sitting-room while 
 the wind blew round the house and the dice fell 
 hard on the backgammon-board and the gaudy 
 colour of the cards flickered in the hands of the 
 bridge-players Paul's music came as a new sound, 
 driving away the grey melancholy, tinkling in drops 
 of silver harmony. He played everything by heart; 
 and the only thing that his attentive audience 
 couldn't stand was his habit of suddenly breaking 
 off in the most delightful passages to defend some 
 philosophical thesis which no one at that instant was 
 thinking of attacking, with which everyone agreed 
 at the time. Nevertheless, despite his playing and 
 his new-found cheerfulness, he felt old, lonely and 
 aimless. Whenever he had an opportunity of talk-
 
 i64 OR- ADRIAAN 
 
 ing quietly to Constance for a moment, without 
 having to run after her downstairs, to the store- 
 room, he would say, sadly: 
 
 "I? I'm an old bachelor, an old boy. I'm a 
 typical old bachelor." 
 
 ' You ought to get married, Paul," she said, one 
 day. 
 
 He gave a violent start: 
 
 " Constance," he said, " if ever you try to lay 
 a trap for me, I swear I'll run away and you shall 
 never set eyes on me again! . . . Where should 
 I find a wife who would be as tidy as I? And then 
 I'm so difficult to please that the poor child would 
 have a terrible life of it. ... Sometimes, yes, 
 sometimes I do cherish the illusion ... of mar- 
 riage with a very young girl, one whom I could train 
 according to my ideas, my philosophy, my ideas and 
 philosophy of purity ... of which the loftiest is 
 the idea of purity in soul and life. ..." 
 
 " That's a regular old bachelor's idea, Paul : get- 
 ting married to a very young girl, training her in 
 your ideas. A fine woman of thirty or over: that's 
 better." 
 
 " As old as that ! " exclaimed Paul. 
 
 " A woman of thirty is not old for a man of 
 forty-six." 
 
 " No, Constance, don't trouble your head. Mar- 
 riage is a desperate affair. No, it's a good thing 
 that I never got married. . . . But I do feel lonely 
 sometimes. I'm glad I came to live here. . . . It's 
 you who are providing, the family-picture now. 
 . . . Poor Mamma ! She still knows me quite well. 
 But she thinks that I am still very, very young. 
 . . . Yes, the family-picture is with you now, not 
 on Sunday evenings, but every day of the week. 
 . . . Now that I'm growing old, I feel myself 
 becoming more pastoral than I used to be. Do you
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 165 
 
 remember how I used to abuse the family and deny 
 family-affection and how angry poor Gerrit used to 
 get? Now I'm growing very idyllic and I'm throw- 
 ing back and longing for the family in the desert. 
 . . . I'm glad that your house has become a centre 
 for the family, Constance. But for that, there 
 would be nothing to keep us together. Oh, it's a 
 melancholy thing to grow so old, lonely as I am! 
 What have I to live for? Nothing. . . . Well, 
 with you, I am still at least a sort of rich uncle, 
 one from whom the children may have expectations : 
 I dare say I shall leave each of my nephews and 
 nieces a trifle. I must have a talk with my solicitor 
 one day. It won't be much for them, but I'll leave 
 them enough to buy a clock, or some other ornament 
 for their mantelpiece.. . . . And your old friend 
 Brauws is back at the Hague, you know. . . . 
 Oh, didn't you know? Hasn't he written? He's 
 sure to soon. ... I met him the other day: the 
 fellow's grown old. He always had an old face : 
 wrinkles are things that need looking after; they 
 want massage. ... I used to massage mine, but 
 I've given it up: my personal vanity has gone. As 
 you see, I wear the same tie always. I'm fond of 
 this tie. I have it steamed from time to time: that 
 keeps it fresh. It's a nice tie; but I no longer have 
 such a collection as I used to. ... Yes, the family 
 no longer cling together at the Hague. Karel and 
 Cateau still do nothing but eat good dinners by 
 themselves. For years and years they have done 
 nothing but eat good meals together. Lord, Lord, 
 what a disgusting pair to find their pleasure in that ! 
 . . . Saetzema and Adolphine: that's a sad case; 
 you people have been very kind to Marietje. . . . 
 Otto and Frances have a heap of children now and 
 that good Louise looks after them, while Frances 
 makes a scene one day and embraces her the next
 
 166 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 with a great display of emotion and loads of tears. 
 And that has lasted for years too. . . . Yes, the 
 years pass. I simply couldn't bear it any longer, 
 especially with those sluts of servants whom my 
 landlady started engaging lately. I yearned for 
 cleanliness and . . . for my family. It's a sign 
 that I'm growing very old, Constance. My dotage 
 is always marked by that idyllic longing. . . . 
 That's why I take so much pleasure in immersing 
 myself amid you all in family-affection. It's a great 
 thing that none of you quarrel; even you and 
 your husband don't quarrel any more. It's become 
 the golden age."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 AND the hard-braced north-east winds, which had 
 brought the nipping frost with them, came no more; 
 they had passed; and it was no longer the strong, 
 boisterous winds, but the angry winds, the winds 
 that brought with them the clouds of grey melan- 
 choly, in eternal steady-blowing sadness, as though 
 in the west, yonder, there were a dark realm of 
 mysterious sorrow, whence blew huge howling 
 cohorts of gigantic woes, titanic griefs, overshadow- 
 ing the small country and the small people. The sky 
 and the clouds now seemed bigger and mightier than 
 the small country and the small people ; the sky now 
 seemed to be the universe; and houses, roads, trees 
 and people, horizons of woods and moors, lastly, 
 human souls all seemed to shrink under the great 
 woes that drowned the small country and the small 
 people from horizon to horizon. Curtains of 
 streaming water cloaked the vistas and a damp fog 
 blurred the distant wavering line of trees; a rainy 
 mist washed out the almost spectral gestures, the 
 silent, despairing movements of the windmill-sails; 
 and the low-lying world, feeble, small, sombre and 
 bowed down, endured the crushing, oppressive force 
 of rain and wind lasting night and day and all day 
 long. 
 
 Constance and Brauws were sitting once more in 
 her own sitting-room, which was a replica of the 
 little boudoir in the Kerkhoflaan at the Hague. 
 Along the curving folds of the curtains, through the 
 grey, clouded panes, they watched the grey rain 
 
 167
 
 i68 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 falling, now in vertical streaks, now aslant, driven 
 by the raging wind. 
 
 " I so well remember this weather," he said, " in 
 the old days, when I used to sit chatting with you 
 at the Hague, in your room which was so like this 
 room." 
 
 ' Yes," she said. 
 
 " I would come late in the afternoon, find you 
 sitting in the dark and scold you because you had 
 not been out; and we used to talk about all sorts 
 of things. ..." 
 
 " It's a long time ago." 
 
 ' The years fly past. Do you remember, we used 
 to fight a little, both of us, against the years that 
 were overtaking us, against the years that would 
 make us old? " 
 
 She laughed: 
 
 " Yes," she said. " We no longer fight against 
 them now. We are old now. We have grown 
 old." 
 
 " We are growing old. And yet what an amount 
 of youth a human being possesses! As we grow 
 older, we always think, ' Now we are growing old.' 
 And, when we are older than when we thought that, 
 we feel . . . that we have always remained the 
 same as we were from a child." 
 
 ' Yes ... a person doesn't change." 
 
 " Only all his joys and all his sorrows change 
 and become blurred; but we ourselves do not." 
 
 " No, we don't change. Then why should there 
 be joy and sorrow . . .when, after many years, 
 we have remained the same as we were from child- 
 hood?" 
 
 " Because we remain the same . . . and yet do 
 not remain the same." 
 
 " Yes," she said, smiling. " I understand what 
 you mean. We remain the same from childhood
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 169 
 
 . . . and yet . . . yet we change. It is like a 
 game of riddles. I ... I am the same . . . 
 and I am changed." 
 
 " I too. My soul still recognizes in itself my 
 former child's soul . . . and yet . . . yet I am 
 changed. . . . Tell me: I believe things are run- 
 ning smbothly with you. ..." 
 
 " Sometimes." 
 
 "Not always?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I am so glad to see ... that things are going 
 well as between you and Henri." 
 
 " We are growing so old. . . Everything gets 
 blunted." 
 
 " No, it's not only that." 
 
 " No, not only." 
 
 "You have grown used to each other . . ." 
 ' Without talking about it." 
 
 " You set store by each other by now. . . ;.." 
 
 " Perhaps. . . . Gradually. ..." 
 
 " Hans is a good sort." 
 
 " Yes, he's just simply that." 
 
 " And you appreciate this now." 
 
 "I think I do." 
 
 " You both have full lives." 
 ' Yes. Who would ever have thought it? " 
 ' You have so much to make you happy : Addie 
 always with you ..." 
 4 My poor boy ! " 
 
 " Why do you say that? " 
 
 " I am frightened ..." 
 'What of?" 
 
 " I don't know. On days like the last few days, 
 I am sensitive to every sort of fear, I always have 
 been." 
 
 " Have the fears been justified? " 
 
 " Sometimes."
 
 i 7 o DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " What are you afraid of? " 
 
 " I have sad thoughts." 
 
 " That is sheer melancholy." 
 
 " A melancholy which is a presentiment .., ra t ., 
 on days like these ..." 
 
 " And everything is well." 
 
 " Only the material things." 
 
 " Be happy in that your life is so richly 
 filled, both yours and Hans'. . . . It's a life 
 of the richest security . . . with all that you 
 do." 
 
 " With all that we do ? We do nothing ! " 
 
 ' You do a great deal . . . for people who are 
 small ! " he smiled. 
 
 " For small souls ! . . . Do we do enough ?" 
 
 " You do a great deal." 
 
 She shook her head: 
 
 " I don't. . . . Hans does: he is good." 
 
 "Just simply good. . . . Tell me, is it merely 
 because of the weather that things don't seem to run 
 smoothly ? " 
 
 " No, material things aren't everything." 
 
 " Is it because of Addie? " 
 
 " Perhaps. I can't say. I feel an oppression, 
 here." She put both her hands to her heart. " It's 
 always liable to come, a day ..." 
 
 11 Yes." 
 
 " A day of sorrow, illness, wretchedness . . .-. 
 of misfortune ... of disaster." 
 
 ' Why should you think that? " 
 
 " I often think it : now there's a misfortune 
 coming, a disaster. ... I sit and wait for it. 
 .. . . Oh, I've been waiting for it for months! 
 .... The children look at me, ask me what's the 
 matter, whether anything has happened . . . with 
 Mathilde. . . . No, nothing ever happens. . . . 
 There is no sympathy between us ... but I, I am
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 171 
 
 calm and I wish her every good . . . my son's 
 wife. ..." 
 
 ' You must get over that oppression." 
 
 " It can't be argued away." 
 
 " You must be happy. I have been here for some 
 days now. I see nothing but love all around you." 
 
 " From her side?" 
 
 " Well, perhaps not from hers." 
 
 " She always remains a stranger." 
 
 4 Then win her to you." 
 
 " It's very difficult, when there is no sym- 
 pathy." 
 
 " But, apart from that, there is nothing but love 
 around you. Really, you are wrapped about with 
 silent happiness." 
 
 She shook her head : 
 
 " They are fond of me . . . but there are 
 things slumbering. ..." 
 
 " There are always slumbering things. Happi- 
 ness without shadow doesn't exist. And one even 
 doubts whether it ought to." 
 
 " No, perhaps not . . . for later, for later. 
 But . . . there are things that slumber, silent, sor- 
 rowful things." 
 
 " I see you can't overcome it." 
 
 " No. I am glad to see you again." 
 
 " After so many years. And I too am glad to 
 see that things are going so well with you . . . 
 even though there are sorrowful things that slum- 
 ber." 
 
 ' There are many good things." 
 
 ' There is much love . . . and much living for 
 others." 
 
 She laughed softly: 
 
 "So simply . . . with no great effort! " 
 
 " When we are not great . . . why should we 
 act as though we were? We are small; and we act
 
 172 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 accordingly. If we do good in a small way m & M 
 isn't that a beginning? " 
 
 " A striving ..." 
 
 " For later." 
 
 ' Yes, for later." 
 
 "I, I can't even say . ... that I am doing 
 good in a small way." 
 
 ' Tell me about yourself." 
 
 "There is nothing to tell. Thinking, living, 
 seeking . . . always seeking. . . . There has 
 been nothing besides." 
 
 ' Then do as we do," she laughed, softly. " Do 
 good in a small way ... as you say that we 
 do." 
 
 " I shall try. . . . But I am disheartened. I 
 admire you and I envy you." 
 
 " I . . .1 am disheartened. I am sometimes 
 quite dejected. I should like to live quietly, with a 
 heap of books around me. I ... I'm giving it 
 up." 
 
 'The struggle?" 
 
 ' Yes, the struggle to seek and find. Little by 
 little, it has conquered me. Can you understand 
 me? You . . . you have conquered it." 
 
 "What have I conquered? " 
 
 4 You understand." 
 
 ' You rank that conquest too high. . . . And 
 you, why are you conquered? " 
 
 " Because . . . because I have never achieved 
 anything. ... I may sometimes have found, but 
 never, never achieved. . . - . And now I want to 
 rest . . . with a heap of books around me . . . 
 and, if I can, follow your example . . . and do 
 good in a small way." 
 
 " I will help you," she said, jesting, very sadly. 
 
 They were silent; and between her and him the 
 room was full of bygone things. The furniture was
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 173 
 
 the same, certain lines and tones were the same as 
 years ago. . . . Out of doors, the unsparing night 
 of the clattering rain and raging wind was the same 
 as years ago. Life went on weaving its long woof 
 of years, like so many grey shrouds. They both 
 smiled at it; but their hearts were very sad.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AND the melancholy of bygone things seemed to 
 swell on the loud moaning of the wind during the 
 following days, when the rain poured down; the 
 house these days seemed full of the melancholy of 
 bygone things. They were days of shadow and 
 half-light reflected around the old, doting woman 
 in the conservatory; Adeline, the silent, mournful 
 mother; Emilie, a young woman, but broken . . . 
 like all the greyness exuding from human souls that 
 are always living in the past and in the melancholy 
 of that past; and now that Brauws also saw it as 
 a thing of shadows and twilight round Alex be- 
 cause the boy could never forget the horror of his 
 father's death he also understood within himself 
 that bygone things are never to be cast off and that 
 they perhaps hang closer in clouds of melancholy, 
 around people under grey skies the small people 
 under the great skies than in bright countries of 
 mountains and sunshine and blue sky. And that 
 there were sorrowful things of the soul that slum- 
 bered: did he not see it in Addie's knitted brows, 
 in ailing Marietje's dreamy stare, in Mathilde's 
 glances brooding with envy and secret bitterness and 
 malice? Did he not see it in the sudden melancholy 
 moods of Gerdy, usually so cheerful? And did he 
 not understand that in between their young lives 
 there was weaving a woof of feelings that were 
 most human but exceedingly intense, perhaps so in- 
 tense because the feelings of small souls under big 
 
 174
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 175 
 
 skies can be deeply sorrowful between the brown 
 walls of a house, between the dark curtains of a 
 room, which the grey daylight enters as a tarnish 
 of pain, mingling its tarnish with the reflexion which 
 lingers from former years in dull mirrors, as though 
 all feeling and all life were quiveringly mirrored 
 in the atmosphere amid which life has lived and 
 palpitated? 
 
 Brauws was now living at Zeist and he had col- 
 lected his heap of books around him and lived there 
 quietly, conquered, as he said. But he was with 
 them a great deal and was hardly surprised when, 
 one morning, intending to come for lunch, he heard 
 unknown children's voices in the hall, saw in the 
 hall a young woman whom he did not know at first, 
 heard her say in a very soft voice of melancholy, 
 with a sound in it like a little cracked bell of silvery 
 laughter : 
 
 " Don't you recognize me, Mr. Brauws? " 
 
 She put out her hand to him : 
 
 " Do you mean to say you really don't know me? 
 Aunt Constance, Mr. Brauws doesn't know me; and 
 yet we used to have so many disputes, in the old 
 days ! " 
 
 *' Freule . . . Freule van Naghel . . . Freule 
 Marianne ! " Brauws stammered. 
 
 u Mrs. van Vreeswijk," said Marianne, correcting 
 him, gently. " And here are my children." 
 
 And she showed him a little girl of eight and 
 two boys of seven and six; and he was hardly sur- 
 prised, but he felt the melancholy of the past rising 
 in the big house when Van der Welcke came down 
 the stairs and said: 
 
 " Ah, Marianne ! Is that you and the child- 
 ren?" 
 
 ' Yes, Uncle, we have been to Utrecht to look up 
 Uncle and Aunt van Vreeswijk: they are so fond of
 
 i 7 6 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 the children. . . . Charles may come on this after- 
 noon . . . but he wasn't quite sure." 
 
 And, turning to Brauws, she continued, very 
 easily: 
 
 " We are living near Arnhem. Won't you come 
 and see us in the summer? Vreeswijk would be very 
 glad, I know." 
 
 She spoke quite easily and it was all very prosaic 
 and ordinary when they all sat down round the big 
 table in the dyiing-room and Marianne quietly 
 chatted on: 
 
 " And Marietje Lord, what a lot of Marietjes 
 we have in the family our Marietje is soon coming 
 to introduce her young soldier to you." 
 
 "Is it settled then?" asked Constance. "I 
 thought Uncle van Naghel didn't approve." 
 
 " He's given in," said Marianne, shrugging her 
 shoulders. " But the dear boy hasn't a cent; and 
 we none of us know how they're going to live on 
 his subaltern's pay. And Marietje who always used 
 to swear that she would only marry a rich man ! 
 . . . And we have good news from India : Karel 
 is really doing well. ..." 
 
 How prosaic life was! How prosaically it rolled 
 along its steady drab course, thought Brauws, 
 silently to himself, as he looked on while Guy carved 
 the beef in straight, even slices. . . . And, pro- 
 saically though it rolled, what a very different life 
 it always became from what any man imagined that 
 his life would be, from the future which he had 
 pictured, from the illusion^ high or small, which 
 he had gilded for himself, with his pettily human 
 fancy ever gilding the future according to its pettily 
 human yearning after illusions. . . . Oh, if the 
 illusion had come about which, in the later life 
 reborn out of themselves, he and Constance had 
 conceived, without a word to each other, in a single,
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 177 
 
 brightly glittering moment, oh, if Henri's illusion 
 had come about and that of this young woman, now 
 the little mother of three children, would it all have 
 been better than it now was? Who could tell? 
 Who could tell? . . . And, though the dreamy 
 reflecting upon all this brought back all the melan- 
 choly of the past, yet this melancholy contained an 
 assurance that life, as it went on, knew everything 
 better than the people who pictured the future to 
 themselves. . . . There they all were, sitting so 
 simply round the big table at the simple meal for 
 which Constance apologized, saying that Marianne 
 had taken her unawares; and Brauws was but mildly 
 astonished to find that Marianne was married to 
 Van Vreeswijk: he had not heard of it and it was 
 a surprise to him to see her suddenly surrounded 
 by children; he was but mildly astonished to see her 
 and Hans talking together so simply, as uncle and 
 niece, as though there had never been a shred of 
 tenderness between them; he was but mildly aston- 
 ished when he himself talked to Constance so simply, 
 while he felt depressed about Addie, whose eyes 
 looked so dark and sombre. When Addie was still 
 a child, he had conceived an enthusiasm for him, 
 perceiving in him a certain future which he himself 
 would never achieve. And he had also suffered, 
 because he felt Addie's jealousy for his father's 
 sake, when he, Brauws, used to sit for hours with 
 his mother in the half-dark room, whispering inti- 
 mate words so quickly understood, so sympathetically 
 felt. . . . 
 
 Now the years had passed; sorrow had faded 
 away and sorrow was being born again perhaps, for 
 life cannot exist without sorrow, laid up as an 
 inheritance for one and all; and yet sorrow was so 
 very little and became so small in the measureless 
 life entire. There was nothing for it but to smile,
 
 178 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 later, much later, at all the disappointment, 
 even that of seeking and not finding and not 
 achieving. . . . 
 
 It was very noisy because of the children: the 
 three little Vreeswijks after lunch playing with 
 Jetje and Constant; and, as the girls were staying 
 with the children, Constance, with her arm round 
 Marianne's waist, went upstairs to her own room: 
 
 " Let's sit here quietly for a bit," she said. 
 
 Marianne smiled: 
 ' You've always got your hands full, Auntie." 
 
 " I don't know why, dear. . . . We live so 
 quietly here, at Driebergen . . . and yet . . . 
 yet my hands are always full. I do sometimes crave 
 to be quite alone. . . . But the craving never lasts 
 long . . . and it seems impossible. . . . How- 
 ever, it's all right as it is. ..." 
 
 " What awful weather, Auntie ! . . . I remem- 
 ber how often it used to rain like this when I came 
 to see you in the Kerkhoflaan. . . . How long ago 
 it is, years and years ago! . . . Here, among all 
 your old knicknacks it looks to me suddenly and 
 'strangely as though everything had remained the 
 same . . . and yet changed. Auntie . . . 
 Auntie ..." 
 
 Obeying a sudden impulse, she dropped on her 
 knees beside Constance and seized her hand: 
 
 " Do you remember, do you remember? . . . 
 I used to come and see you in this sort of rain and 
 stay on ... and I could not bear that you should 
 be unhappy with Uncle. ... . And, you know, I 
 talked about it ... I said tactless things ... I 
 asked you to try and be happy with Uncle . . . 
 Do you remember, do you remember? . . . And 
 now, Auntie, it appears to me as if a great deal has 
 been changed, though much has remained the same, 
 and as if things had become much better ... be-
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 179 
 
 tween you and Uncle . . . between you and Uncle 
 Henri. ..." 
 
 " Dear, we have grown older; and everything has 
 become more mellow; and Uncle . . . Uncle is 
 very good." 
 
 * Yes, he is good." 
 
 " He is just simply good." 
 ' You see that now." 
 
 " Yes, I see it now, I admit it." 
 
 " Oh, I am so glad ! . . . Yes, we have grown 
 old." 
 
 " Not you." 
 
 " Yes, I too," she said, laughing softly. " I am 
 young, but I am older than my years. . . . And, 
 Auntie, tell me, do you remember before we went 
 to Baern, you came and called one day we were 
 just busy moving and you sent for me and asked 
 me ... you told me . . . that Charles was 
 fond of me . . . and I refused him ... do 
 you remember, do you remember? " 
 
 " I should think I did remember, darling! . . . 
 And now you've got him after all; and it's all for 
 the best, isn't it?" 
 
 ' Yes, Auntie, we get on very well indeed . . .. 
 and I have my children. . . . Do you remember, 
 do you remember how you came to Baern one day? 
 I was very low-spirited; and you took me in your 
 arms and pressed me to you and told me ... a 
 fairy-tale, about the small souls . . . which passed 
 through vanity ... to ecstasy. Do you remem- 
 ber? . . . And, when the ecstasy died out . . . 
 then the little soul found a grain ... a mere 
 grain . . . which was big enough, however, be- 
 cause the soul itself was so small. Do you remem- 
 ber, Auntie, do you remember?" 
 
 " Yes, dear, I remember. ... It was just a 
 few tiny words to console and cheer you a little . . .
 
 i8o DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 And now the little soul has found the grain, hasn't 
 it?" 
 
 " I think so, Auntie . . . but under . . . 
 under all these small, everyday things ... a great 
 deal of melancholy remains. . . . Perhaps it's 
 wrong; perhaps it oughtn't to be so. ..." 
 
 " But, if there are things in one's past, if we 
 have lived before, dear, then there is always a 
 certain melancholy and we all have our share of it 
 . . . just because we feel deeply, very deeply per- 
 haps, under our dark skies . . . and because our 
 feeling always remains . . . and our melancholy 
 too. ..." 
 
 " Perhaps so, Auntie. . . . And so it goes on 
 and we drift on. . . . You see, there are good 
 things in life. . . . Tell me, doesn't it occur to 
 you that you have found ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " What you came to look for, years ago, in Hol- 
 land . . . after you had been abroad so long, 
 Auntie, and felt so home-sick for your own country 
 and for warmth . . . the warmth of family- 
 affection. . . . Tell me, Auntie, doesn't it occur 
 to you that you have found it now: the country, our 
 grey, dark country . . . and everything that you 
 used to long for? . . . Are we not all round you : 
 even we, though we live some way off? . . . Are 
 we not all, nearly all of us around you? " 
 
 ' Yes, dear." 
 
 " And are you happy now? " 
 
 ' Yes, dear." 
 
 " I hear something in your voice that contradicts 
 your words. Tell me, what is it? " 
 
 " I'm frightened ... I'm frightened." 
 
 " And you have found so much, you have found 
 everything! What . . . what are you frightened 
 of? "
 
 DR. ADRIAAN i'8i 
 
 " I'm frightened . . . I feel so anxious. . . ." 
 
 "What about?" 
 
 " About things . . . that may happen." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " In our house." 
 
 "What can happen?" 
 
 'Things, sad things." 
 
 " Auntie, this is nonsense ! " 
 
 " I can't help it, dear. . . . I'm frightened 
 . . . I'm frightened. ..." 
 
 " Tell me, Auntie, you don't like the house, do 
 you?" 
 
 " It's not that." 
 
 " But the house oppresses you." 
 
 " No, it's not that, child. . . . Uncle and Addie 
 like the house. . . . And I'm getting used to 
 it. . . ." 
 
 " Tell me, Auntie : they say ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "That the house is . . ." 
 
 She looked at Constance meaningly. 
 
 " Darling, darling, it's not that. . . . It's an 
 old house. . . . W T e never talk of that. ..." 
 
 " But it may be just that that depresses you." 
 
 " It did at first . . . but I'm getting used to 
 it. ... Addie is so very calm and communicates 
 all his calmness to us. ... What appears inex- 
 plicable ... is perhaps quite simple. . . . But 
 that's not it. ... I'm frightened . . . fright- 
 ened of . . ." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Of what I fear . . . will happen." 
 
 " And what do you fear? " 
 
 * Things that I can't put into words . . . some 
 great sorrow." 
 
 "Why, Auntie? . . . Why should it happen?
 
 1 82 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 . . . And then, if sorrow comes, won't you be 
 strong? " 
 
 Constance suddenly gave a sob : 
 
 " I shall be weak!" 
 
 " Auntie, Auntie, why are you so overwrought? " 
 
 "I shall be weak!" 
 
 " No, Auntie, you won't. And you mustn't be 
 so frightened. There is nothing but love all around 
 you . . . and they will all of them, all of them 
 help you." 
 
 " I am frightened . . . and I shall be very 
 weak. ..." 
 
 " No, Auntie. . . . Oh, Auntie, do stop crying ! 
 . . . What are you afraid of? And what could 
 happen now? . . . For whom are you afraid? " 
 
 " For Addie . . . for my boy . . . for Ma- 
 thilde." 
 
 " But why, Auntie, why? . . . Oh, don't be so 
 frightened! . . . Everything's all right between 
 them . . . and Addie . . . Addie is so calm, so 
 practical, so simple in his way of acting and 
 thinking. . . ." 
 
 " Perhaps. . . . Oh, if he is only strong! " 
 
 " Isn't he always?" 
 
 " Perhaps he is. ... Oh, my dear child, I am 
 so frightened ! . . . " 
 
 " Hush, Auntie, hush ! . . . Don't cry any more. 
 . . . Lie still, now; lie still in my arms. . . . 
 Even if we have sorrow to go through, even if we 
 have sad things to experience, even then you should 
 remember that everything . . . that everything 
 comes right again ... in the end. . . . If we 
 all have our share, why shouldn't they have theirs? 
 . . . And perhaps who knows? your anxiety is 
 exaggerated, Auntie . . . because you have been a 
 little overwrought . . . lately." 
 
 " It may be that."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 183 
 
 " Is it all . . .a little too much for you some- 
 times?" 
 
 " I am so seldom alone." 
 
 " I dare say you feel tired sometimes." 
 
 " It may be that." 
 
 " You mustn't think about it any more. . . ., 
 Tell me, Auntie: Gerdy isn't very well. ..." 
 
 " What makes you say that? " 
 
 " I thought she looked pale . . . and rather 
 sad." 
 
 Constance passed her hand over her forehead: 
 
 " Oh, Marianne," she said, " I wish that I could 
 talk it all away, think it all away! . . . But I 
 can't. . . . I'm frightened, I keep on being 
 frightened. ..." 
 
 And she sobbed gently on Marianne's shoulder, 
 while the younger woman knelt beside her. 
 
 The rain fell in vertical streaks. The carriage 
 took Marianne and her children to the station 
 through a deluge.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SINCE that first time, Mathilde was pricked with 
 continual jealousy; and in the mornings, when Addie 
 went upstairs to Marietje van Saetzema's room, she 
 always followed him and stole into the wardrobe- 
 closet next door, always with her keys in her hand, 
 so that, if she happened to be caught, she might 
 appear to be looking for some article of dress in one 
 of the presses. She listened at the partition and 
 understood what they were saying sometimes but 
 not always, because Marietje spoke very low and 
 Mathilde could not always hear what she answered. 
 But, as her eyes glanced mechanically along the big 
 flowers that formed the pattern of the wall-paper, 
 she suddenly noticed a broad crevice, where the 
 wood had split and the paper cracked and torn; and, 
 with her hearj leaping to her throat, she peeped 
 and peeped. . . . She had to squeeze between two 
 cupboards, she banged her head against the partition 
 and was terrified lest they had heard; but they 
 heard nothing or else the noise did not strike them, 
 for the sound of their voices went on. . . . 
 Mathilde now put her eye to the crevice and was 
 able, though with difficulty, to see into the room, 
 saw Marietje sitting with -Addie sitting beside her, 
 saw her hand resting in his : 
 
 " Why does he hold her hand so long? " she 
 thought. " Need he feel her pulse as long as that? " 
 
 But he did not let go of Marietje's hand; and 
 Mathilde became impatient, also because she could 
 not catch what they were saying: 
 
 184
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 185 
 
 " How softly they are talking and how confi- 
 dential it all is ! " she thought. 
 
 And, when Marietje lifted her head a little, as 
 with the movement of a lily on its slender stem, 
 Mathilde saw her smiling, saw her eyes gleaming 
 softly, saw the words taking birth as it were smiling 
 on her lips; and it seemed as though those words 
 added a touch of colour to the pale lips and a blush 
 to the pale cheeks. . . . 
 
 " How very much better she looks than when 
 she came ! " thought Mathilde, though she wanted 
 to call out to Addie and tell him to let go Marietje's 
 hand. " They are about the same age," she 
 thought. " I am much younger than she is." 
 
 And yet Marietje, though twenty-six, had a cer- 
 tain youthfulness, as of a very young girl; and 
 Mathilde could not get rid of the thought: 
 
 ' They are very nearly the same age. It's 
 ridiculous: a young doctor like Addie . . . with 
 a young woman, a young girl like her. It's ridicu- 
 lous. . . . Why is he wasting his time on her 
 now?" 
 
 She now saw the smile fade from Marietje's lips, 
 saw the girl, on the contrary, look very serious, tell 
 a long and serious story: 
 
 "What can she be telling him?" thought 
 Mathilde. 
 
 And she saw their faces come nearer to each 
 other: it was as though Addie were reassuring 
 Marietje, explaining things; and now, now he laid 
 his hand on Marietje's head and she . . . she lay 
 back on the sofa. 
 
 " It's absurd," thought Mathilde, " this hypnoti- 
 zing . . . and that they should be alone together 
 for so long." 
 
 Soon the hypnotism took effect. Marietje fell 
 asleep and Addie quietly left the room. Mathilde
 
 1 86 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 waited a few minutes and also stole away, meeting 
 no one on the stairs. . . . 
 
 What she had seen through the slit in the wall- 
 paper was nothing; and yet . . . and yet she could 
 not help constantly brooding over it. ... She 
 now also noticed, at lunch, that Marietje was much 
 more cheerful, that her movements were much less 
 languid, that she laughed with the other girls; and 
 she noticed that, after lunch, she helped Adeletje 
 with the plants in the conservatory, that she was 
 beginning to join in the life of the others, that she 
 no longer went straight back to her room as she 
 used to do at first. . . . And constantly too, down- 
 stairs, in the conservatory, she was struck by an 
 intimacy between Marietje and Addie. . . . Ma- 
 thilde was quite sensible, though she was jealous of 
 her husband; she was jealous of all his patients; she 
 was quite sensible and thought: 
 
 " A certain affection between a young girl and a 
 doctor, a young doctor, who obviously has a good 
 influence upon her, as Addie has, is easy enough to 
 understand." 
 
 And she wanted to go on thinking so sensibly, she, 
 a woman of sound, normal sense, but it was difficult, 
 very difficult. . . . For Addie went out and she 
 at once saw Marietje's smile disappear, saw her 
 happy vivacity sink as it were . . . and Marietje 
 soon went upstairs, until she came down again with 
 Aunt Constance and Adeletje to go for a walk, as 
 they did every afternoon when the weather was not 
 too bad. . . . Mathilde remained upstairs, played 
 the piano, looked out upon the sad, misty road. 
 . . . Oh, she loved her husband, she even loved 
 him passionately and she was living here for his 
 sake; but wasn't it awful, wasn't it awful? In 
 Heaven's name wouldn't it be better just to move to 
 a small house at the Hague . . . and accept the
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 187 
 
 pinch of poverty? . . . She went to the next room, 
 to her children : they had been out and were playing 
 prettily, while the nurse sat at the window sewing; 
 and now she did not know what to do next. . . . 
 What an existence, in the winter, in a village like 
 this, in a big house, a house full of sick people and 
 mad people ! As it happened, through the window 
 she saw Uncle Ernst walking along the road, with 
 his back bent under his long coat, talking to himself 
 as he returned to his rooms in the villa where he 
 was being looked after: what an existence, oh, what 
 an existence . . . for a young and healthy woman 
 like herself! She was never susceptible to melan- 
 choly; but she felt a twilight descending uoon her 
 from the unrelieved sky overhead. She could have 
 wept. . . . And yet she could have stood it all, 
 if only she had possessed Addie entirely. ... If 
 only she could win him entirely, she thought, sud- 
 denly; and suddenly it occurred to her that she did 
 possess him . . . but not entirely, not entirely. 
 . . . He escaped her, so to speak, in >~art. . . . 
 They had love, they had fervour in common; they 
 had the children in common; they had bonds of 
 sympathy, physical sympathy almost. She felt 
 happy in his arms and he in hers; but for the rest 
 he escaped her. Something of his innermost being, 
 something of his soul, the quintessence of his soul, 
 escaped her, whereas she gave herself wholly to him 
 and did not feel within herself those secret things 
 which refused to surrender themselves. . . . She 
 felt it, she understood it now; suddenly, under the 
 grey melancholy of the skies, as though she suddenly 
 saw clearly in that twilight; she understood it: their 
 love was merely physical! Oh, he escaped her; and 
 she did not know how she was ever to win him 
 entirely, so as to have him all to herself, all to her- 
 self! . . . Perhaps if she began to take an interest
 
 1 88 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 in his patients, to share his life in them? But she 
 was jealous of those patients, who took Addie from 
 her for hours and days together; and she was 
 jealous, very jealous of Marietje. . . . But what 
 then? How was she to win him? . . . And in 
 this rich-blooded woman, whose senses bloomed 
 purple and fierce, there shot up as with a riot of 
 red roses the thought of winning him more and yet 
 more with her kisses, with her whole body, with all 
 that she would give him, with all that she would 
 find for him, to wind tendrils round him and bind 
 him to her for ever and for ever. . . . And then, 
 then also to make him jealous of her, as she was 
 jealous of him, by disturbing his unruffled calm, the 
 calm of a young, powerful man, with painful sus- 
 picions, which would yet bring him wholly to her, 
 so that she might win him entirely. . . . 
 
 Oh, wasn't it awful, wasn't it awful? As it was, 
 she sat here the livelong day and possessed her 
 husband only in the evening, only at night, as though 
 she were food for nothing else. It went against 
 the grain; and suddenly, intuitively, she felt her 
 jealousy of Addie's long talks with Marietje more 
 sharply than before. What need had he to talk to 
 her at such length? Oh, he ought not to neglect 
 his wife so, he ought not to think her good only for 
 that: he ought to talk to her also, for hours at a 
 time, earnestly, strangely, gazing into her eyes, as 
 he talked to Marietje ! Why did he not talk to 
 her, his wife, like that? What were these talks? 
 What had those two to talk about? It was not only 
 about being ill and about medicines and not even 
 only about hypnotism: of that she was convinced. 
 There existed between the two of them secret 
 things, about which they talked, things which they 
 two alone knew. . . . Oh, how she felt her hus- 
 band escape her, as though she were stretching out
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 189 
 
 her fingers at him covetously and as though she did 
 indeed grip him in her hot embrace . . . only to 
 lose him again at once ! . . . 
 
 Her days passed in constant monotony. She was 
 a healthy, superficial, rather vain, very young 
 woman, with a few vulgar aspirations; and she 
 suffered in her surroundings because she had an un- 
 doubted need for healthy and superficial affection. 
 She would have been happy leading a simple, very 
 carnal, very material married life, with plenty of 
 money, plenty of enjoyment, with children around 
 her; and then she would have laughed with pride 
 and been good, as far as she was able. As it was, 
 she felt that, except physically, she was hardly the 
 wife of her husband and, despite her children, hardly 
 accepted by his family and hardly suffered in their 
 house. And she peevishly blamed them all, thinking 
 that they were not kind to her, and she failed to 
 perceive that what separated her from them all was 
 a lack of spiritual concord, of harmony, of sym- 
 pathy, because she had nothing that appealed to 
 them and they had nothing that appealed to her, 
 because the emanations from her soul and theirs 
 never reached each other but flowed in two direct- 
 ions, because everything that they understood in one 
 another, even without words, she did not under- 
 stand, even though it were explained to her in words, 
 because she looked upon them as sick, mad, egoistical 
 and nerve-ridden, because they looked upon her as 
 shallow and vulgar. It was an antipathy of blood 
 and of soul: nobody was to blame; and even that 
 she did not understand. The only one to blame, 
 perhaps, was Addie, because, when taking her for 
 his wife, he had not listened to the soul within his 
 soul and had allowed himself to be led only by 
 instinct and by his material philosophy of regenera- 
 tion:
 
 i 9 o DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " She is a healthy, simple woman. I want healthy, 
 simple children. That's how we ought all to be: 
 healthy and simple as she is." 
 
 Were those not the ideas which had made him 
 introduce her into the midst of them all, as an object 
 lesson, without listening to the still, slumbering 
 voices of his soul's soul? . . . And scarcely had 
 those voices awakened before he had been roused 
 out of himself with the thought: 
 
 " After all, I found her. Why should I lose her 
 now? Who am I, this one or the other? And, if 
 I am both those whom I feel within me, how can 
 I unite them and compel them into a single love for 
 my wife, for the woman who gives me healthy, 
 simple children? " 
 
 And, every day that passed, he had known less 
 for himself, whatever he might know for all of 
 them whom he approached and benefited by 
 strange influence, knowing less and less daily, until 
 he saw himself plainly as two and gave up the 
 struggle, let himself go, allowed his soul to drift 
 at the will of the two streams that dragged him 
 along, in weakness and surrender and lack of know- 
 ledge for himself, whereas he sometimes knew so 
 clearly for others. Self-knowledge escaped him. 
 . . . And, if Mathilde had been able to see this, 
 in her husband, she would have shrunk back and 
 been dismayed at what, all incomprehensible to her, 
 existed secretly in the most mystic part of him. She 
 would have been shocked by it as by a never- 
 suspected riddle, she would have turned giddy as 
 at a never-suspected abyss down which she gazed 
 without knowing where it ended, a bottomless depth 
 to her ignorant eyes and quite insusceptible instincts. 
 She would not have understood, she would have 
 refused to understand that there was no blame but 
 only self-insufficiency and inconsistency of soul, in
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 191 
 
 silent antagonism and antipathy, because Addie felt 
 himself to be two. She would have wanted to blame 
 . . . them, all of them, because " they were not 
 nice to her," but not her husband, for she loved him 
 because of his sturdy young manliness, because of 
 his older earnestness and thoroughness, in which she 
 failed to see the soul of his soul. And she now 
 wanted, unhappy as she was, to continue feeling like 
 that, neglected, offended, underrated, by all of them 
 in that large, gloomy house, in which everything, 
 down to the dark oak doorposts, was hostile and 
 antagonistic to her, until she felt frightened of mys- 
 teries in or upon which they hardly ever touched 
 in speaking, mysteries which were even almost wel- 
 come to the others and not too utterly unintelligible 
 in their communism of soul, from which she was 
 irrevocably excluded.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THAT night, Marietje van Saetzema had a dream 
 which was like a nightmare. She was running down 
 a sloping mountain, deep as an abyss; she rushed 
 and rushed and Addie came rushing after her and 
 Mathilde after Addie, rushing with delirious 
 screams. After Mathilde, Johan Erzeele came 
 rushing and, last of all, Gerdy; and before any one 
 of them reached the other, Marietje, who was run- 
 ning in front, plunged into the deep abyss; and they 
 all plunged after her. The echoing fall, in the 
 black depths, made Marietje wake with a start to 
 find the darkness of her bedroom quivering all 
 around her, the strange inner darkness of the night; 
 and she was cold and clammy and sat up wide-eyed, 
 while the wind blew fiercely outside. Her first 
 impulse was to get up and run out of the room for 
 help, to Aunt Constance, to Addie. But, growing 
 calmer, though her head and heart were still throb- 
 bing, she let herself fall back upon her pillows and 
 controlled her fears. She would stay quietly in her 
 room. 
 
 A month ago, she would never have done as much; 
 at the Hague, after this sort of dream, she would 
 utter cries, go running through the house, scream 
 aloud. Now she did not scream, but lay where she 
 was and drove the feverish thoughts in front of 
 her. Yes, feverish she was; but she speedily reco- 
 vered a sense of calmness, as soon as she began to 
 think of Addie. Hadn't he said so himself: 
 
 " Marietje, when you feel overstrung . . . 
 think of me ! " 
 
 192
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 193 
 
 And she thought of him; and things began to 
 smile and to grow very calm around her. . . . She 
 gave a deep sigh. . . . She recalled the words 
 which he used when hypnotizing her: 
 
 " The body is growing heavy. . . . The hand 
 is growing heavy. . . . You can't lift your 
 hand. ..." 
 
 And, though she did not fall asleep, she became 
 very quiet and smiled contentedly. True, she knew 
 that he said the same thing to all the patients whom 
 he hypnotized: 
 
 " Think of me, whenever you feel your nerves 
 give way." 
 
 But she, when she thought of him . . . was she 
 in love with him? Perhaps; she didn't know: per- 
 haps she did love him, deep down within herself, 
 in the chastest recesses of her soul; perhaps she had 
 been in love with him for years, ever since he used 
 to talk to her so kindly he a small boy, she a 
 rather bigger girl, but about the same age when 
 her brothers were so rough to her and Mamma, 
 Floortje and Caroline used to snub her, as they 
 always did. In the noisy, uproarious, vulgar house, 
 she had grown up quietly, like a little pale plant, 
 humble, oppressed, as it were hiding herself, until 
 suddenly some impulse in her blood had made her 
 scream the house down with neurotic cries. They 
 all asked whether she had gone mad; and she had 
 locked herself up since, hidden herself, in her 
 room. . . . And, after these attacks, she would 
 remain behind as in a dream, seeing nothing, 
 hearing nothing around her, just staring. And, when 
 she saw that her condition at last made an 
 impression, she at once became proud of that 
 impression, lifted herself out of the Cinderella 
 humility, became the interesting figure at home, now 
 that she aroused her father's fears, her mother's
 
 i 9 4 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 pity, her sister's annoyance. And she had grown 
 proud of her neuroticism; she let father, mother 
 and sister feel fear, pity and annoyance, with a sort 
 of vindictive satisfaction. Yet she had a vague 
 feeling of deep unhappiness, because her soul was 
 sinking as into an abyss, her hands groping vaguely 
 in the terrible void. . . . She would spend days 
 in tears. Then Aunt Constance had come, so kind, 
 so gentle, so sensible; and she had resisted, because 
 perhaps she was very fond of Addie and always 
 had been, in obedience to some modest dread, did 
 not wish to live where he lived. But Aunt Con- 
 stance had insisted and she had yielded; and Addie, 
 Addie was now curing her: oh, he cured her when 
 he merely pressed his hand softly on her forehead ! 
 And she confessed to him the wicked, arrogant pride 
 in her illness, which at last created an agitation in 
 the paternal house where Marietje had never 
 counted. . . . 
 
 He had listened so earnestly, telling her that this 
 was very wrong, that it was the worst of all and 
 that, with such wicked feelings she would never get 
 well. And, after that, he talked for days, oh, so 
 earnestly! And she listened to him in ecstasy, as 
 though her soul were rocking on his deep, soothing 
 voice. And gradually, gradually, she had discovered 
 in him oh, no affection for her, no ordinary 
 affection or love, for she was plain and thin and 
 without charm, while Mathilde was so handsome : a 
 beautiful woman! but a real harmony between 
 some of his feelings and -views with what she, in 
 her silent life as a lonely, down-trodden little girl, 
 had thought about all sorts of people, animals, 
 things, about everything which had aroused her com- 
 passion in her youthful earnestness and hypersensi- 
 tiveness: about the wind lashing the leaves; about 
 a driver ill-treating a horse; about Aunt Adeline,
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 Granny, Emilie, little Klaasje; about poor people 
 whom she would sometimes go and visit with Aunt 
 Constance and Adeletje. And thus, slowly, out of 
 all these small, simple feelings something had 
 thrilled in unison with his feelings, had roused 
 kindred feelings in him, until they had talked of 
 all sorts of strange presentiments and dreams, of 
 existence before life and after death, of an invisible 
 world and life crossing their threads with the visible 
 world and life. And, when sometimes she had been 
 a little fanciful, Addie had always understood her, 
 but at the same time, with all his restfulness and 
 strength, his seriousness and smiling earnestness, had 
 quieted her in her hypersensitiveness and hyper- 
 imagination, in her dread and surmise, until she now 
 discussed all those questions with him so quietly, 
 in words that quickly understood one another, so 
 that, even in these conversations, which might easily 
 have made her more neurotic, he satisfied her and 
 lulled all the anxious thrills of her sick girlish nerves 
 and soul. There was a mystic force in his voice, 
 in his glance, in the pressure of his hand, so that, 
 even after these conversations, she remained lying 
 in a deep and blissful sleep and, after half an hour, 
 woke from it as though rising refreshed out of a 
 wide, still bath on strangely rarefied air, like coo! 
 water, which gave her an incomprehensible, blissful 
 sense of spiritual well-being. 
 
 And that peaceful life of sympathy was healing to 
 her, whereas it vexed Mathilde. She thought that 
 it would always keep flowing on like this; and she 
 was greatly surprised when she suddenly heard 
 of a ball at Utrecht to which they were all in- 
 vited. 
 
 "Which of you want to go?" asked Constance. 
 " I shall stay at home, but Uncle will chaperon 
 you."
 
 196 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 Mathilde loved the idea, even though Addle did 
 not give it a thought. Of the girls, however, only 
 Gerdy cared about it; but Guy would go with her. 
 
 " So none of you: Adeletje? . . . Mary? . . . 
 Marietje?" 
 
 No, they did not feel inclined, even though Aunt 
 Constance urged them, said that they very seldom 
 had any fun, that they ought really to go, now that 
 the chance offered. But the girls didn't want to; 
 and Aunt Constance said: 
 
 "Well, then, you and Uncle will just make four; 
 so you can go in the carriage." 
 
 But Mathilde preferred to dress at Utrecht, in 
 an hotel, because her dress would get creased in 
 the carriage; and she decided to go in the afternoon, 
 with a box. 
 
 On the evening of the ball, Constance grumbled 
 at Adeletje, Mary and Marietje, because they took 
 no pleasure in dancing, and said that, if this went 
 on, they would move to the Hague, because the girls 
 were growing so dull in the country. Constance' 
 nerves were raw; and she said angry, unreasonable 
 things; her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " But, Auntie," said Marietje, " we're all so 
 happy here together ! Why talk about the Hague ? 
 What do we care about a dance? " 
 
 " That's just it. I think it unnatural." 
 
 " Listen to it blowing! " said Adeletje. 
 
 " And raining! " said Marietje Mary. 
 
 " That's what Uncle and Gerdy and Guy are 
 driving through," said Adeletje. 
 
 "The poor horses! " said Marietje Mary. 
 
 The others laughed. 
 
 " Yes, the horses will get wet, poor things! " said 
 Marietje Mary. 
 
 11 Dirk'll look after them," said Constance. 
 " The horses are taken out so seldom."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 197 
 
 " But when they are . . . they are taken out 
 in the rain! " said Mary, reproachfully. 
 
 Paul was there, playing softly on the piano. 
 Ernst was there; and it was very strange to see the 
 friends which he had silently made with Klaasje. 
 Together they looked in her picture-books: the un- 
 naturally old queer man and the unnaturally young 
 child. 
 
 " I can read now," said the backward girl of 
 thirteen, very proudly. 
 
 ;< Really? " said Uncle Ernst. 
 
 " Yes, Uncle Addie is teaching me to read. Look, 
 in these books, with pretty letters, blue, yellow, red. 
 That's violet. And that, Uncle Addie says, is 
 purple. That's purple : a lovely colour, purple. 
 Uncle Addie teaches me to read." 
 
 And laboriously she spelt out the highly coloured 
 words. 
 
 " So Uncle Addie teaches you to read with 
 coloured letters?" asked Ernst. 
 
 "Yes, I don't like black letters. And look at 
 my books : all with beautiful pictures. That's a king 
 and a queen. It's a fairy-tale, Uncle. This is a 
 fairy. The king and queen are purple . . . pur- 
 ple ; and the fairy look, Uncle, look at the fairy 
 is sky-blue. Uncle Addie says it's a-zure." 
 
 She drew out the word in a long, caressing voice, 
 as though the names of the colours had a peculiar 
 meaning for her, rousing in her strange memories 
 of very early colours, colours seen in gay, faraway 
 countries, down, down yonder. . . . 
 
 " Mr. Brauws won't come," said Emilie. 
 
 " No, it's raining too hard," said Adeline. " He 
 won't come this evening." 
 
 " He's become so much one of the family." 
 
 The evening passed quietly; the old grandmother 
 and Klaasje were taken and put to bed; but, because
 
 i 9 8 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 Aunt Constance was sitting up till the carriage re- 
 turned from Utrecht, they all wanted to sit up. 
 
 ;< What an idea ! " said Constance, with nervous 
 irritability. " Why don't you all go to bed? " 
 
 But they were gathered round her so pleasantly 
 and they stayed up: Addie, Emilie, Adeline, Mari- 
 etje; but Addie sent Adeletje and Mary to bed. 
 
 And they sat waiting downstairs in the night. It 
 was three o'clock when at last they heard the car- 
 riage; and Van der Welcke, Gerdy and Guy 
 entered. 
 
 " Mathilde is spending the night at the hotel," 
 said Van der Welcke. 
 
 " And Uncle made a very sweet chaperon," said 
 Guy, chaffingly. 
 
 But Gerdy did not say much, looked tired, very 
 pale, constrained. They went upstairs, to their 
 rooms, and Gerdy kissed her mother. But, without 
 the others seeing it, she followed Adeline to her 
 room and suddenly, unable to contain herself, burst 
 into a paroxysm of tears. 
 
 u Darling, darling, what is it? " 
 
 And the mother, long since broken, took the girl, 
 now breaking, into her arms and it was as though 
 she suddenly wakened from her apathy and felt her- 
 self very much a mother. . . . Oh, she knew that 
 she could not do much for her children, that she was 
 not capable, never had been since Gerrit's death, 
 that without Van der Welcke, Constance and Addie 
 she could not have made anything of her children ! 
 Nevertheless, they remained her children; and, if 
 she did not know how to guide her sons in their 
 careers, she did know how to sympathize with her 
 poor Gerdy's sobs. 
 
 " Darling, darling, what is it? " 
 
 And, dropping into her chair, while Gerdy knelt 
 before her in the folds of her white-tulle frock, she
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 199 
 
 held the pale little face against her and compelled 
 the child to speak, to speak. . . . 
 
 " It's nothing," said Gerdy, through her sobs. 
 11 1 didn't enjoy myself." 
 
 ' You didn't? Why, what happened? " 
 
 " I hardly danced at all." 
 
 ; ' Why not?" 
 
 " Mamma, it's better to tell you plainly. I'm so 
 unhappy ! It's about Johan ..." 
 
 u Erzeele? Has he proposed to you? " 
 
 Gerdy shook her head : 
 
 "No, but ..." 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " In the winter . . . skating ... I thought 
 he was fond of me. . . . It's my own fault: it 
 was silly of me, it was silly. ... It wasn't any- 
 thing. . . . He was just the same to me as to 
 other girls; and I thought, I thought . . . It's 
 nothing, Mamma, it's my own fault, but I thought 
 . . . Mamma, I oughtn't to take it so much to 
 heart . . . but it makes me very unhappy. . . . 
 He danced with me, once. . . . But he danced 
 with Mathilde the whole time. . . . He was al- 
 ways with her. . . . People were talking about it. 
 ... It was just as if she was mad, as if she didn't 
 think . . . that she oughtn't to behave like that 
 . . . with Johan. ... It struck Uncle Henri 
 too : I could see it by his face. They were together 
 the whole evening and . . . you understand. . . . 
 He paid her attentions . . . shamelessly . . . 
 the way he does to married women. . . . With 
 girls he's different. ... I hated him for a mo- 
 ment. But then he came and asked me, for that one 
 dance . . . and then I thought ... I oughtn't 
 to have thought it. It's my own fault. I'm very 
 unhappy, Mamma. . . . Uncle Henri was very 
 angry too . . . with Mathilde . . . because she
 
 200 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 wouldn't come back with us to Driebergen. . . . 
 He gave way and let her stay, to avoid unpleasant- 
 ness. . . . But it was ridiculous of her: the car- 
 riage is big enough and she would not have been 
 so badly creased. . . . Oh, she looked lovely, she 
 looked lovely! . . . She is quite lovely, dressed 
 like that, at a ball. . . . Addie ought to have come 
 with us. ... She was really beautiful, but not 
 it's wrong of me to say it, I know not like us" 
 
 " How do you mean, dear? " 
 
 " Not like Aunt Constance and Emilie and 
 you. . . . She didn't . . . she didn't look well- 
 bred. . . . She looked beautiful, but she looked 
 coarse. ... If Addie had come, perhaps she 
 would have restrained herself, not worn her dress 
 so low. She was the only one in such a very low 
 frock. . . . You see, there was something about 
 her . . . that repelled me even more than usual: 
 I can't say what and it's very wrong of me, because 
 after all she's Addie's wife and we must be fond of 
 her; but really, she didn't look a lady; and I could 
 see it in people's faces : they thought her very hand- 
 some . . . but not . . . not well-bred. . . . 
 And . . . after that . . . when she did no- 
 thing but dance with Johan . . . then . . . oh, 
 Mamma, then she looked at me . . . and looked 
 at me with a sneer . . . as if she were looking 
 down on me ! . . . I knew that I was not at my 
 best, that I looked pale and thin; my shoulders are 
 not good; and Johan behaved so oddly to me, in 
 such a queer, mocking way: oh, Mamma, he was 
 almost cruel ! . . . I do believe, oh, Mamma, I 
 do believe, that I ... that I'm in love with him ! 
 But I oughtn't to tell you and I oughtn't to be like 
 this ... I oughtn't to cry so; but I couldn't help 
 it, I couldn't .help it! . . .1 did my best, Mamma, 
 not to show it before Uncle Henri and before Guy,
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 201 
 
 but, oh, Mamma, the whole dance . . . the whole 
 dance was a torture ! " 
 
 Adeline mingled her sobs with Gerdy's: 
 
 14 My darling, my poor, poor darling! " 
 
 " Mamma ! Oh, Mamma ! " 
 
 14 What is it, my poor dear? " 
 
 " Listen, Mamma ! " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 44 Don't you hear? The sound . . . upstairs!" 
 
 "Hush! . . . Hush! ... The sound . . ." 
 
 " Is dragging itself ..." 
 
 44 Downstairs. It's like a footstep. It's always 
 like that." 
 
 " Oh, Mamma, I'm frightened! " 
 
 44 It's nothing, dear: the wind, a draught, a board 
 creaking ..." 
 
 "Oh, but I'm frightened!" 
 
 " It's nothing. ... I opened the door once 
 ... to look." 
 
 'You dared to?" 
 
 4 Yes. It was nothing." 
 
 ' There was nothing to see ? . . . " 
 
 " No. It was only very draughty." 
 
 44 And everything's closed ! " 
 
 " It's nothing, it's nothing, dear." 
 
 " Now it's dragging itself away . . . down be- 
 low. ..." 
 
 44 It's the draught. . . . Oh, my poor, poor 
 darling!" 
 
 44 Oh, Mamma, I'm unhappy . . . and I'm 
 frightened, I'm frightened, I'm frightened! ..."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 WHEN Mathilde returned next morning, she seemed 
 to perceive a certain displeasure, a coldness in her 
 husband, in her mother-in-law and in all of them; 
 but she decided that perhaps she was mistaken : she 
 was tired, she was unstrung; and, after she had been 
 to see the children, she kept to her own room, where 
 she knew that no one would disturb her, now that 
 Addie had gone out to his patients. And it was not 
 the surmised displeasure, the unwonted fatigue after 
 the ball that made her nervous, as though she was 
 infected by a nervous thrill from all who surrounded 
 her: it was particularly because of Johan Erzeele 
 that she was now walking restlessly round her room, 
 sitting down at the window, getting up again, going 
 in to the children, coming back again, sitting down 
 to the piano, looking over her ball-programme and 
 suddenly tearing it up. . . . Now, suddenly, she 
 reproached herself with all sorts of things that had 
 happened the night before: for dancing with Johan 
 so often, even though she had known him all her 
 life as a young girl at the Hague, where he was a 
 subaltern in the grenadiers, while his people lived 
 at Utrecht; for flirting with him in so marked a 
 way at supper; for allowing him to speak like that, 
 with his brazen, sensual fashion of making love to 
 her; for knowing and deliberately encouraging his 
 brazenness; lastly, for scarcely preventing him from 
 escorting her on foot because it was so near to 
 the hotel, where she had reserved a room. 
 
 She had lost her temper, refused, asked for a 
 carriage, and ridden alone to the hotel where she 
 
 202
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 203 
 
 had spent the night; but his offer and the words in 
 which he had couched it had shocked her, had 
 frightened her all through that night, that short 
 night, so that she had not had a moment's sleep. 
 And now she was angry with herself for not sum- 
 moning up her usual sound sense, so that he had 
 seen how frightened and shocked she was and had 
 laughed at it, with the caressing laugh of his well- 
 shaped mouth. And, because she was angry with 
 herself, all sorts of nervous excuses went whirling 
 through, all her grievances, great and small, came 
 surging up, as though to defend her against herself, 
 against her own self-reproach. Why couldn't Addie 
 have gone too ? Why must he leave her to her own 
 devices like that? Why was she only good for the 
 one thing? Why did he hold such long conversa- 
 tions, full of strange intensity, with that ailing 
 Marietje? Why did she sometimes, through his 
 kisses, feel a strange chill come out of him and 
 freeze her, so that the spontaneous word grew still 
 and lifeless on her lips and she no longer knew what 
 to say : she only knew that she was losing him, again 
 and again and again, while all the others, down 
 below, were winning him, winning him for them- 
 selves ! Oh, how the grievances whirled up, fighting 
 against her self-reproach, until at last she burst into 
 tears, sheer nervous tears, such as she had never 
 shed before ! And, as though the grievances were 
 winning, she suddenly laid the blame on Addie, on 
 all of them, on her husband's whole family, on 
 Driebergen, on the house full of lunatics and in- 
 valids, on the eerie, haunted house where she could 
 not breathe, while they all, down below, found living 
 there so delightful. She blamed them all, blamed 
 the whole house for it, that she was losing her sound 
 sense and had allowed Johan to say all sorts of 
 things to her which otherwise she would never have
 
 204 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 allowed. And, in her tears, while still blaming him 
 because she did not see that there was no blame, 
 that no one was to blame for anything, while she 
 was casting about to whom to impute the blame she 
 longed for her husband, felt that she was still very 
 much in love with him, that she would have liked to 
 embrace him, to clasp him close to her, to weep out 
 her sorrows on his heart, to hear his deep, young, 
 earnest voice, to look into his deep, young earnest 
 eyes, so that she might grow calm again and happy, 
 far away, with him and her children! Now she 
 longed for him to come back; now she looked out 
 down the road; and, when she saw him the bell 
 was ringing for lunch, because Truitje downstairs 
 had also seen him coming up the road she ran 
 down and was just in time to kiss him in the morning- 
 room and to whisper : 
 
 " Addie, Addie, you do love me? " 
 
 "Why, of course, darling!" he answered, 
 gravely and, she thought, almost sadly. 
 
 And now, sitting silent at table, feeling all sorts 
 of reproaches around her, she asked herself, was 
 it not his fault, was it not his fault? What she 
 really imagined to be his fault she did not clearly 
 see, for it was all whirling through her mind; she 
 kept on thinking of Johan Erzeele, kept on feeling 
 her self-reproach; and the grievances surged up, like 
 lances, more numerous than before, to defend her 
 against that self-reproach. 
 
 Gerdy had not come down to lunch : she was tired, 
 Adeline said. The tone of the conversation was 
 forced; and Mathilde reflected that it was always so 
 when she was there, when they would look at one 
 another askance, in a silent understanding against 
 her, against her. . . . 
 
 Lunch finished, the children, Jetje and Constant, 
 went out, after Addie had first played with them.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 205 
 
 Yes, he was fond of the children, but was he fond 
 of her, of his wife? . . . 
 
 " Addie, Addie, you do love me, don't you? " 
 
 She had found another opportunity of asking 
 him; and he answered: 
 ' Why, of course, dear." 
 
 " Stay with me to-day." 
 
 " Very well. What would you like to do? Shall 
 we go for a walk? It's fine." 
 
 " Yes, Addie, I'd like to." 
 
 And they went out together and roamed along 
 deserted paths ; she took his arm : 
 
 " I am so glad to be with you. . . . You ought 
 to have come yesterday. ..." 
 
 " I don't care for dancing . . . but, if you had 
 asked me . . . " 
 
 " You would have refused." 
 Perhaps not." 
 
 " Yes, you would. ... I sha'n't go again, with- 
 out you. I want to dance with you, with you." 
 
 " I like skating better." 
 
 ' There, you see, you're refusing already! " 
 
 " No, I won't refuse : I shall come with you, next 
 time." 
 
 " I'm happy when I'm with you. . . . Addie, 
 couldn't we go and live alone, with our children?" 
 
 " Whenever you like, darling." 
 
 " Yes, but you're attached to the house." 
 * Yes, I'm attached to it." 
 
 " It would be a sacrifice for you." 
 
 He made a vague gesture: 
 
 " Only you'd have to be economical at the 
 Hague." 
 
 ' You would soon have a fine practice there." 
 
 " But I'm not aiming at ... a fine practice." 
 
 "Ah, that's just it!" 
 
 He yielded to a slight sense of impatience :
 
 206 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " It's a pity, Tilly, that you find it so difficult to 
 adapt yourself here. . . . Very well, we'll go to 
 the Hague." 
 
 " But, if you're obstinate . . . and refuse to 
 earn an income," she said, impetuously. 
 
 " We shall have enough." 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 He made a brief calculation: 
 
 " Say, five thousand guilders, no more." 
 
 " But I can't live on that . . . with two child- 
 ren." 
 
 " It ought to be enough, Tilly." 
 
 " But it's nonsense, trying to live at the Hague 
 on five thousand guilders a year . . . with two 
 children." 
 
 * Then what do you want? " he asked, bluntly. 
 
 " I want you to get a practice. . . . You have 
 only to wish it: you would become the fashion at 
 once." 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 :< Why don't you answer? " 
 
 " Because we don't understand each other, Tilly," 
 he said, sadly. " I can't give up the practice which 
 I have in order to become a fashionable doctor." 
 'Why not, if it pays?" 
 
 " Because it conflicts with all ... with every- 
 thing inside me." 
 
 I don't understand." 
 
 " I know you don't." 
 
 u Then explain it to me." 
 
 " It can't be explained, Tilly. It can only be 
 felt." 
 
 " So I have no feeling? " 
 
 " Not for that ... no fellow-feeling . . . 
 with me. ..." 
 
 1 Why did you marry me ? " she asked, curtly. 
 
 " Because I love you."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 207 
 
 " Because you love me ! " she echoed, curtly. 
 " Because I'm good enough . . . for that!" 
 
 Her eyes flashed. 
 
 "Tilly! "he implored. 
 
 It was as though a sudden terror blinded him, as 
 though a spectre of guilt suddenly loomed up out of 
 all the black self-insufficiency of the last few years, 
 his years of married life. 
 
 " Because I'm good enough ... to bear you 
 children. Because you want to have children by 
 me, healthy children, children different from your 
 family, your mother's family." 
 
 "Tilly!" 
 
 " Addie ! " she entreated. " Love me ! Love 
 me!" 
 
 " I do love you, Tilly ! " he cried, in despair. 
 
 " Love me altogether! " 
 
 " I do love you altogether ! " he lied, in anguish 
 for her sake. 
 
 " No, you love me ... half! " 
 
 'That's not so!" 
 
 " Yes, it is, you know it is ! . . .1 want to be 
 loved by you altogether and not only ..." 
 
 " Hush, Tilly," he entreated, in dismay. " Tilly, 
 don't let us spoil our happiness ! " 
 
 " Our happiness ! " she laughed, scornfully. 
 
 " Aren't we happy then? " 
 
 And he tried to force her to say yes, but she was 
 suffering too much and exclaimed: 
 
 " No, I am not happy ! When I embrace 
 you ..." she clutched her fingers. "When I 
 have embraced you," she went on, " it's over, it's 
 over, it's over at once ; I feel that you are far away 
 from me again; that you don't love me." 
 
 " I do love you, I do love you ! " 
 
 " Then talk to me." 
 
 " I do."
 
 2 o8 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " No, talk to me as you talk to Mary." 
 
 " But, Tilly, I talk to her ... to calm her." 
 
 "That's a lie!" 
 
 "Tilly!" 
 
 " It's a lie ! . . . You talk to her ... you 
 talk to her because you're in love with her ! " 
 
 'Tilly, stop that!" 
 
 " Not as you are with me ... but differ- 
 ently. ..." 
 
 Suddenly he grasped her wrist. She knew his 
 sudden bursts of anger. They were very rare; but 
 she knew them. And, because he was dazzled by 
 the sudden light that shone from her, because from 
 all the gloom of his self-insufficiency a consciousness 
 of guilt came looming up to frighten him : 
 
 " And now, silence ! " he cried, shaking her arm. 
 " Silence I I command it ! " 
 
 He no longer knew things. Life whirled dizzily 
 before him, deep as a black abyss. 
 
 He stood in front of her on the lonely road; and 
 it was as though his grey eyes flashed lightning, 
 shooting blue spark after blue spark of rage and 
 pain. His whole face quivered, his body quivered, 
 his voice quivered with rage and pain. She felt a 
 furious resistance rise within her . . . together 
 with black despair. She felt an impulse to rush into 
 his arms, to sob out her sorrow on his heart. But 
 she did not want his caresses : she wanted the thing 
 that escaped her. It was escaping her now; and, 
 when she said it, when she said it straight out, he 
 commanded her to be silent, not to say it. Wasn't 
 it his fault, wasn't it his fault? Wasn't she 
 right? 
 
 She released her hand: 
 
 4 You don't love me," she said, curtly. 
 
 " No. When you speak to me like that, I don't. 
 I'm not in love with Marietje. I'm sorry for her."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 209 
 
 His voice was very calm and full of feeling; and 
 she, also grown calmer, answered : 
 
 11 You feel for her." 
 
 " I do." 
 
 ; ' Well, then ..." 
 
 " But you have no right to bring that up against 
 me. I don't grant you that right . . . because, 
 Tilly ..." 
 
 "Right, right? What rights have I? I have 
 no rights! . . I live in your house on suf- 
 ferance. ..." 
 
 "Tilly, be careful!" 
 
 "Why should I?" 
 
 " You're destroying our happiness." 
 
 " It doesn't exist." 
 
 "Yes, it does . . . if . . ." 
 
 He passed his hand over his head. There was a 
 cold wind blowing; and the beads of perspiration 
 stood on his forehead. 
 
 " If you would be reasonable." 
 
 "And share you?" 
 
 " Share me? . . . With whom?" he roared. 
 
 " Not with her, perhaps," she resumed, fright- 
 ened, " but with . . . with ..." 
 
 "With whom?" 
 
 " With them all." 
 
 "All whom?" 
 
 " Your family ... all of them . . . whom 
 you love more than me." 
 
 " I don't love them more." 
 
 " No, but you feel with them . .. . and not with 
 me." 
 
 " Then feel with me ! " he implored, as though to 
 save both her and himself. " Feel, Tilly, that I 
 can't be a fashionable doctor, but that I have a large 
 practice, a number of patients to whom I am of 
 
 use."
 
 210 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " They don't pay you." 
 
 His mouth involuntarily gave a twist of contempt. 
 
 " They don't pay you," she repeated. " You are 
 wearing yourself out . . . for nothing." 
 
 " Try and feel, Tilly, that I am not wearing 
 myself out for nothing . . . just because I am not 
 making money." 
 
 " Then teach me to feel it." 
 
 He looked at her in despair. 
 
 " Teach me ! " she entreated. " For your sake, 
 because I love you, I will try to learn, try to 
 feel ... I love you, I love you, Addie I " 
 
 " Dear," he said, gently, " I'll do my best . . . 
 to teach you to feel it. Come with me." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " There ... to those little cottages." 
 
 'Who lives in them?" 
 
 " Poor people . . . sick people . . . whom I 
 attend." 
 
 " Addie ... no, no ... no ! ..." 
 
 4 Why not?" 
 
 " I'm not prepared for it. ... You know I 
 can't stand that. ..." 
 
 " You're a healthy woman ; your nerves are 
 strong: come with me." 
 
 She went with him, not daring to refuse. 
 
 " Tilly," he said, gently, as they walked on and 
 approached the cottages, " I will try to have under- 
 standing for both of us. ... If you are to be 
 happy in yourself . . . with me ... happy the 
 two of us . . . then . : . " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Then you must learn to understand me ... 
 to understand me very deep down, as I am. Then 
 you must try to understand ... all of us; to love 
 us all: my father, my mother. . . . Tilly, Tilly, 
 can you ? . . . "
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 211 
 
 She did not answer, trembling, frightened, look- 
 ing deeper into things, after all that he had said. 
 Her fine eyes gazed at him despairingly, like those 
 of a wounded animal in its pain. She could have 
 embraced him now, just ordinarily, clasping him 
 warmly and firmly to herself. But he led her on as 
 he might lead a child. He knocked, opened the 
 little door and led her in. A sultry heat of mean 
 poverty struck her in the face like a blow; and it 
 was nothing but misery, wherever he took her. It 
 seemed to her as if she herself carried that misery 
 with her, in her soul, which had never yet thrilled 
 as it did now.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 OH, he was to blame, he was to blame, he was to 
 blame ! He saw suddenly, in a sort of despair, that 
 the only answer to the question which he sometimes 
 had to ask in vague, black self-insufficiency was the 
 absenting yes, yes, yes! . . . Because he had not 
 known it for himself, entirely for himself, for the 
 two personalities which he so clearly felt himself 
 to be, he was to blame, because he loved his wife 
 with only half of himself. Was she to blame in 
 any way? Was she not what she always had been? 
 No, she had changed, she had refined herself, as if 
 her soul, despite the antipathy of her environment, 
 had yet become transformed and grown more like 
 the people and things that surrounded her! And 
 it was his fault: he had brought her into this 
 environment, in which no sympathy was created and 
 which had given her nothing beyond a refinement of 
 soul, senses and nerves, so that she now suffered 
 through that which he had always thought that she 
 would never perceive. With what sudden clearness, 
 in her simplicity, she had seen it all, almost uncon- 
 sciously, and was now flinging it at his feet! He 
 wrung his hands and felt desperate at the thought 
 of it all. Of an evening now, alone in his study, 
 in the soft light of his rea'ding-lamp the table with 
 Guy's books and maps standing in one corner he 
 would walk up and down, up and down, wringing 
 his hands, glancing deep into that despair, while the 
 self-insufficiency was no longer vague, but soul- 
 torturing in self-dissatisfaction, because he saw him- 
 self at fault in that great action of his life, which 
 
 212
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 213 
 
 was still so very young, his marriage: at fault 
 towards himself, at fault towards his wife. To let 
 her marry him, because she was healthy and simply 
 normal, with that idea of setting an example see, 
 that is what we ought all to be : normal, simple and 
 healthy oh, to love her, yes, but to love with only 
 the half of himself, without ever giving her any- 
 thing of the deep things of the soul, things which 
 he gave to all with whom he felt a soul-relationship, 
 without counting, in a lavish prodigality: how could 
 he have done it, he who knew things for others! 
 More clearly than ever he perceived that he had 
 never known them for himself; and he clearly per- 
 ceived that others, his father, his mother, had 
 suspected that he did not know for himself, that he 
 had not known when he brought Mathilde to them 
 as his wife: into their midst, into their house. And 
 now, in his emotion, in this lonely silent contempla- 
 tion, there awakened within him the energy to 
 redress, oh, to redress if possible : to redress every- 
 thing, everything for her ! . . . 
 
 Now, suddenly, he went to her room, where she 
 was spending a moment after dinner, before tea was 
 brought in, where he often found her when he 
 wished to be alone with her for a minute; and he 
 found her npw. She was sitting listlessly in a chair; 
 and the room was dark: the children were already 
 asleep next door. He lit the gas and looked at her 
 with all the energy that leapt up within him like 
 springs, the energy to redress, to redress. And, 
 without any preamble, he said: 
 
 ' Tilly . . . we'll go to the Hague." 
 
 ' What do you mean? " she asked, in surprise. 
 
 ' We shall go and live at the Hague. I shall do 
 what you suggest: I shall look for a practice at the 
 Hague." 
 
 She had him to herself now, for the first time
 
 214 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 after their talk that afternoon, and suddenly, sob- 
 bing, she threw her arms around him, pressed him 
 to her: 
 
 " Love me ! " she implored. 
 
 " I do love you. ... It won't do for us to stay 
 here. . . . It's better that you should be quite by 
 yourself, in your own house, your own mis- 
 tress. ..." 
 
 li We've talked about it so often! " she sobbed. 
 
 " There will be money enough, Tilly ; I shall make 
 money." 
 
 ' You said five thousand guilders." 
 
 " No, there will be more. Don't be afraid, have 
 no care, there will be enough . . . and you can 
 do as you please. I promise, I promise." 
 
 " But it's a sacrifice for you ..." 
 
 " To leave the house? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I'm fond of the house . . . but it's better 
 that we should go to the Hague." 
 
 * Your parents . . . they will all miss you." 
 
 " Now don't make difficulties, Tilly." 
 
 'No, Addie, no . . ." 
 
 u How do you mean, no? " 
 
 " I won't go to the Hague." 
 
 'Why not?" 
 
 " It's too late. ... It wouldn't alter a thing. 
 . . . It's too late." 
 
 "What's too late?" 
 
 She sobbed and embrace.d him. She clutched him 
 to her, she covered his lips with glowing kisses. 
 
 " Oh, let it be! " she said, in between her kisses; 
 and her voice sounded utterly discouraged. 
 
 " Why, Tilly? Why? I want to see you happy. 
 . . . It's decided now: we're going to the Hague. 
 I'll look out for a house." 
 
 She shook her head.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 215 
 
 ' Tell me, Tilly : why do you refuse ? " 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders : 
 
 " I don't know," she said. 
 
 ' You love me, surely? " 
 
 " I love you, I dote on you, I'm mad on you ! 
 . . . Let us stay here and . . . and . . . love 
 me a little." 
 
 " But, Tilly, I do love you. You know I love 
 you!" 
 
 He kissed her, very tenderly; and she accepted 
 his kisses, with her eyes closed, and lay limply, as 
 though tired, in his arms. Suddenly she thrust him 
 away: 
 
 " Let me be," she said, rising to her feet. 
 
 'Tilly. ..." 
 
 " Let me be . . . stop kissing me." 
 
 " Why mayn't I kiss you ? . . . " 
 
 " I don't want you to." 
 
 " And you say you love me ! " 
 
 * Yes, but . . . don't kiss me any more." 
 
 He looked at her in perplexity; and she said: 
 
 " It's not only kissing. ..." 
 
 ' Tilly ! " he said, stretching out his arms. 
 " Whatever it is, we shall find it for each other 
 ,. . . with each other. ..." 
 
 " Ye* " 
 
 i Ca. ... 
 
 "You think so, don't you?" 
 
 ' Yes." 
 
 'You believe it? When we are at the Hague 
 ,. . . alone ... in our own home ? " 
 
 '* Yes, yes, I believe it." 
 
 " And will you then be happy? " 
 
 " Yes . . . when we have found it." 
 
 " And we shall find it." 
 
 ' Yes." 
 
 " Come and sit with me, in my study. ... I 
 have work to do: come and sit with me. I shaVt
 
 216 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 go downstairs for tea. I have some reading to do : 
 come with me . . . and stay with me this evening: 
 will you ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 14 Then it will be as if we were already at home 
 ... in our own home ... at the Hague. ..." 
 
 She went with him, pale, tired, listless, with his 
 arm round her waist.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 EASTER was at hand; spring brought a new balmi- 
 ness to the wind, a new softness to the rain, a new 
 warmth to the air, which hung low in a heavy grey 
 canopy; and much had changed during the past few 
 weeks. The big house, full though it was with all 
 of them, seemed very quiet now that Addie and 
 Mathilde had moved to the Hague, though their 
 rooms were always kept ready for them because Van 
 der Welcke had said that Addie must always have 
 his rooms ready for him whenever he chose to come 
 home, though it were only for a day. And so the 
 bedrooms and the nursery always remained in mute 
 expectation, with silent furniture and closed doors; 
 and only in Addie's big study, one of the best rooms 
 of the house, formerly the old man's library, Guy 
 now sat and worked at the window. And it was as 
 though, in spite of the restfulness induced by 
 Mathilde's absence, they were all gloomy because 
 Addie was gone, as if they had all lost him. True, 
 he came regularly, twice a week in fact, especially 
 because of Marietje Mary; but even then he had 
 so much to do outside that they scarcely saw him 
 except at meals. And it was as if they could all 
 have put up with Mathilde, rather than lose Addie. 
 Klaasje no longer pushed her chair away, Gerdy 
 no longer spilt the milk, at evening tea those small, 
 almost ridiculous vexations with which Constance 
 had had to put up so often as soon as Mathilde 
 entered ; but, now that all vexation was gone, Addie 
 also was gone and seemed lost for all time. And 
 they lived on in a sort of grey harmony, still and 
 
 217
 
 218 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 peaceful but now, regularly, without many words, 
 in a dull resignation which mourned in all their 
 eyes and voices, while Gerdy now silently, silently 
 pined and pined; and it was only Guy and Van der 
 VVelcke who, once in a way, indulged in loud and 
 forced merriment. Paul also had his melancholy 
 days: sometimes he would not put in an appearance 
 for a week, said that he was ill, remained in his 
 rooms, lying on a sofa with a book in his hands, 
 not thinking it worth while to talk brilliantly or to 
 play the piano. But they looked him up, Constance, 
 Brauws, the girls; they drove him out of his rooms 
 and out of his mood of depression; and he returned, 
 like a victim, grumbled that Gerdy's piano was 
 always dirty, asked for a duster, scrubbed the keys 
 and submissively played Grieg, the melodies dripping 
 slackly from his fingers. And, though everything 
 was grey, in the somewhat sultry spring air, still it 
 was strangely happy with a harmony felt in silence, 
 a family concord, which sometimes brought the tears 
 to Constance' eyes when she sat talking to Brauws in 
 the twilight upstairs in her own sitting-room, in 
 whispered interchange of quick half-words, which 
 at once understood one another. Then, when Addie 
 arrived, he brought with him a certain gleam, a 
 light, a sudden glory; and yet his eyes too were full 
 of sombre greyness, but they were all so glad to 
 see him that they saw only glory in them. He was 
 happy at the Hague, he said. He had a good 
 practice, everything was going well. Mathilde was 
 very cheerful; the children were well. He asked 
 them all to come down sometime, for, though they 
 had all been once, to see the house, they did not 
 come again, withdrawing themselves from him as it 
 were . . . He saw it and was hurt by it; his eyes 
 seemed to roam through the dear brown rooms, as 
 if this big house remained his house; and, when
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 219 
 
 Constance embraced him, she felt in her son's heart 
 a difficult struggle and a swelling of great sorrow. 
 He never spoke of it; he hypnotized Marietje; he 
 regularly kept up Klaasje's reading-lessons and the 
 books with the coloured letters gleamed into the 
 child's awakening imagination; he talked, on Sat- 
 urdays, at great length with Alex or sat with old 
 Grandmamma and always thought of something to 
 say to her that made her nod her head with soft, 
 smiling satisfaction; he found a moment for his 
 father, for his mother, for all of them : also for the 
 poor sick people on the silent country roads; once 
 he interested himself in an old sick horse which 
 caused Marietje Mary great sorrow, when she 
 saw it tortured, and bought it for her and let it run 
 about, for her sake, in a meadow belonging to a 
 farmer whom they knew. And his regular visits 
 were what they all looked forward to, once a week, 
 as to a delightful day; and the other days dragged 
 on, in grey harmony, amid the quiet family life, in 
 which they all recognized the same loss in one 
 another. 
 
 Easter arrived; and the three, Constant, Jan and 
 Piet, came home for the holidays. And it was one 
 great emotion, not only for Adeline, but also for 
 Constance and also for Addie, when he came down, 
 an emotion which bound them still more closely to- 
 gether, an emotion aroused by the future of all 
 those boys, an emotion felt over the examinations 
 which they had passed or were about to pass. Con- 
 stant, now seventeen, was to be transferred this year 
 from the Secondary School at the Hague to the 
 School of Agriculture at Wageningen; Jan, now 
 fifteen, was still at a boarding-school at Barneveld, 
 preparing to go up for his naval examination next 
 year; Piet, now fourteen, was at the Hague, at the 
 Secondary School, with a view to the Polytechnic.
 
 220 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 At the Hague, Constant and Piet lived with a tutor; 
 and Addie was almost glad that he himself was now 
 living at the Hague and seeing more of the boys, 
 for the tutor was not satisfied: the boys did their 
 lessons badly, not because they were unwilling, but 
 because they had no head for books, for working, 
 for studying, any more than Alex, any more than 
 Guy. The three yellow-haired younger ones were 
 even worse feather-heads than their two elders: 
 Constant was something of a dreamer, Jan the most 
 solid, Piet the cleverest of the three, but none of 
 them workers. They all displayed the same in- 
 capacity for perseverance, with the different shades 
 of their different characters: Alex, true, doing his 
 best for Addie's sake at the Merchants' School at 
 Amsterdam, but full of a secret dread of life, struck 
 as a child with that dread since, staring through 
 open doors, he had seen his father's dead body, in 
 that single moment of horror and blood; Guy, 
 kindly, genial, merry and light-hearted; Constant, 
 inwardly sombre, morose, with a strange deep look 
 of suspicion in his eyes; Jan, a boy for games; and 
 Piet the youngest except Klaasje no doubt the 
 most enlightened intellectually, but delicate, shy, 
 girlish and reminding Constance most of the flaxen 
 dolls of the old days : the merry, careless children, 
 romping round the dining-room in the Bankastraat, 
 while Gerrit, in his uniform and riding-boots, stood 
 tall and wide-legged in the midst of their fun. And 
 now, now the boys were no longer careless: it was 
 their reports, it was their -careers opening yonder 
 in the future that as it were compelled them to 
 think of serious things; and it was as though they 
 none of them developed with the blossoming of 
 their years, as though they, Alex, Guy, Constant and 
 Jan, remained feeble, light-hearted, sombre and 
 rough and Piet so shy and delicate, while cruel life
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 221 
 
 opened out before them, society, in which they had 
 to conquer a place for themselves, when none of 
 them could persevere in the youthful studies which 
 prepared their future. It was a great source of 
 anxiety for Addie ; and, if the boys had not all been 
 so fond of him, the anxiety would have been greater 
 than he could cope with. Was it not he who had 
 really chosen their career for them, because they 
 did not know, because they had no preference, all of 
 them perhaps shuddering with dread of having to 
 take their place in human society, such as Alex felt 
 it most deeply in the melancholy of his dejection, 
 as though their father's suicide, of which they all 
 knew, had cast a shadow over all of them, a twilight 
 over their childish souls? And Addie, like an elder 
 brother, like a young father, had had, in consulting 
 them, to choose for them, had had to discuss the 
 matter with them at length. The Indian Civil 
 Service appealed to none of them; Addie thought 
 that not any of them had the brains for college; 
 and so it was decided: Alex, army training-college, 
 but that had not been a success and he was doing 
 better now at the Commercial School ; Guy, the Post 
 Office; Constant, Wageningen; Jan, the Navy; and 
 Piet, in whom Addie saw the brightest intelligence 
 of all, he had stimulated to enter for the Poly- 
 technic. But it was not only Alex: Guy also was 
 a source of trouble to him, plodding with gloomy 
 resignation at his maps and books; Constant, sombre 
 and morose, was doing his best; but the competitive 
 examinations for Willemsoord might prove very dif- 
 ficult, Addie thought, for Jan later ; while Piet . . . 
 But the boy was still a child, clinging so dependently 
 to Addie, with his rather girlish affection, with his 
 shyness, which placed confidence in Addie only. 
 . . . Yes, thought Constance, now that she saw 
 them all together, they would long be a great trouble,
 
 222 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 they would still be a great burden to Addie; and 
 Adeline, poor Adeline could never unaided have 
 made men of her boys. 
 
 It was Easter; and it was strange how much at 
 home they all were in the big house at Driebergen, 
 which they regarded as their paternal house, re- 
 garding Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance next to 
 their mother as parents also, regarding Addie as an 
 elder brother, as their youngest father, on whom 
 everything really depended. No one ever opposed 
 this view; and in everything, down to the least thing, 
 it was quite natural for them to say: 
 
 " I'll ask Addie." ^ 
 
 They thought their cousin much older in spirit 
 than in years and all looked up to him naturally 
 and with unquestioning confidence, as though he 
 must know things, as though he would be sure to 
 make life smooth for them, that future of career 
 beside career which opened before them like a 
 battlefield. However much they might differ in 
 character, in this they felt alike, quite naturally, as 
 though they could not do otherwise; and, when a 
 stranger sometimes expressed surprise that Addie 
 fathered them so, their eyes would glance up in 
 astonishment, as though to ask: 
 
 ; ' What do you expect? Of course, Addie does 
 everything for us! " 
 
 And they were very grateful, almost uncon- 
 sciously, to Uncle Henri, who paid the bills, to Aunt 
 Constance, who took care of them in so many ways, 
 to Addie, who would make life smooth for them; 
 but still they thought it very natural, because it had 
 always been like that, for the girls too: Marietje, 
 Adeletje, Gerdy and Klaasje. There it was : Uncle, 
 Aunt and Addie looked after them, because Mamma 
 was so sad and not very capable and devoid of 
 energy. They had been used to it ever since they
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 223 
 
 were very young and small; and it was like that; 
 and it could never have been different. 
 
 Now, when he came down from the Hague, Addie 
 talked to all of them seriously; and they listened 
 with serious faces, looking up at him, accepting what 
 he said, promising to work better in future, to show 
 better reports next time, to give him more reason 
 for content in all respects. . . . Then he would 
 shake hands with them; and that handshake con- 
 veyed a promise which they would be glad to keep, 
 to please Addie, because Addie, after all, was 
 bearing the entire responsibility for their lives and 
 their futures. They left it all to him, but they 
 began to see more and more clearly that they must 
 make it easier for him. He spoke to Piet in par- 
 ticular : 
 
 " Mr. Veghel's not satisfied, Piet." 
 
 This was the tutor with whom Constant and Piet 
 boarded. 
 
 The boy blushed, with a quick flow of colour to his 
 round, girlish cheeks ; his eyes glanced up shyly and 
 timidly. 
 
 " You must work harder, Piet : you can when you 
 like; and therefore, if you don't, you can't possibly 
 go to Delft. . . . And you're cut out for a civil 
 engineer. That's what you want to be, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 ' Yes, Addie." 
 
 " Well, see that you get your remove before the 
 summer holidays. You won't get your remove, Piet, 
 if you go on like this." 
 
 11 I'll do my best, Addie." 
 
 Then the boy became very restless, because 
 Addie was not satisfied; and inwardly he wished 
 that Addie did not see him so clearly, so clever and 
 capable if only he liked; and Piet thought the 
 Polytechnic a very difficult affair :
 
 224 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " It'll never come off," he thought, in his secret 
 heart. 
 
 But he did not say so, because, in spite of himself, 
 he hoped that it would, if only because Addie 
 wanted it to and because it was such a long way 
 off, the Polytechnic, and because Addie lately had 
 worn such a wrinkle in his forehead, as though he 
 were disappointed . . . possibly in him. 
 
 " We're a great trouble to you, Addie, what? " 
 
 " If only you work hard, Piet . . . then it 
 won't be such a trouble and things will look after 
 themselves." 
 
 But Piet was not the only one to see it: they all 
 saw it, the boys and girls alike, and wondered if it 
 was because of them only or because of something 
 quite different himself, or Mathilde that his fore- 
 head wrinkled so and his grey eyes grew so 
 sombre. .
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 AT the Hague, Mathilde felt a certain gratification, 
 a satisfaction; and the bustle of the early weeks 
 gave her a pleasant feeling of excitement and made 
 her forget the despairing thoughts of the last few 
 weeks spent at Driebergen. They had an attractive 
 little new house in a side-street off the Bezuidenhout 
 itself. It was freshly painted, bright in colouring; 
 and she found it delightful to be able to furnish the 
 house, now that summer was approaching, with 
 light, modern furniture which looked and suggested 
 a doll's house, with the small rooms and the 
 abundance of light-coloured muslin in the drawing- 
 room and conservatory, which she thought looked 
 nice and cheerful. The first spring light entered 
 hard and shrill; and the new colours of the wall- 
 papers showed up in ,the first sunny days, crying out 
 at Addie when he returned from his visits in his 
 smart little brougham. And she displayed a certain 
 solicitude that above all he should be nicely dressed, 
 that he should look very well-groomed : she insisted 
 on his ordering a couple of new suits. He had not 
 a large practice yet, but that was sure to come : she 
 was full of hope. In the afternoons, she would go 
 out, rejoicing in the shopping-streets, in all the 
 errands which she had to do, in the old acquaintances 
 whom she met, people whom she had known in her 
 parents' house they were both dead now and oc- 
 cupying a somewhat lower social scale than her own 
 at present. And she loved especially to show herself 
 to her relations a few uncles and aunts and cousins 
 in her elaborate new dresses: Baroness van der 
 
 225
 
 226 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 Welcke. . . . And, in her gratification, in her 
 satisfaction, in her new environment, created by 
 herself in sympathy with her commonplace illusions, 
 it was as though she had suddenly wiped all Drie- 
 bergen out of her life, as though they had never 
 existed, the nearly three crowded early years of her 
 marriage yonder, in the melancholy, rainy village, 
 in the sombre house, the haunted house full of 
 lunatics and invalids. A newness, fresh and com- 
 monplace as the paint of her house, reigned all 
 around her; she inhaled newness and was grateful 
 to Addie ; but that which, despite herself, had begun 
 to grow refined in her, through her intercourse with 
 antagonistic but yet finer natures than her own, now 
 became blunted at once ; and the days of real misery 
 which she had undergone now, in her superficial 
 thoughts, seemed very far away, as though they 
 had been never lived but only dreamed, as read 
 in a book, but never felt. The feeling had not 
 burst forth from her, like a plant that buds, but had 
 moved slowly around her, like a wind that blows 
 or a drifting cloud. It had moved her, but had 
 not metamorphosed her. Now, in her own at- 
 mosphere, she was blossoming up, fully, like a 
 flower transplanted to the earth which it needed in 
 order to blossom entirely. 
 
 And yet, though she recovered herself, she was 
 not quite herself again. Even though she no longer 
 craved to know and to receive that which escaped 
 her in Addie, yet she continued to know that some- 
 thing in him did escape her; and, however eagerly, 
 in her simple entreaty, she had begged that he would 
 love her, now, even though she uttered the same 
 request, almost with a childish plaint " Addie, you 
 do love me, don't you ? " she had to admit to 
 herself that she now saw him really very far above 
 herself, not only in that which escaped her, but also
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 227 
 
 in that which she understood: the daily sacrifice 
 which he was making by living at the Hague, by 
 acting as she had asked, seeking to establish a prac- 
 tice as she wished, by shifting the tenor of his life, 
 as with a strong grip of the hand, in the direction 
 which would make her happy, her, the woman who 
 no longer loved him as she had done ... as she 
 had done when she felt him akin to herself, in the 
 healthy normal life of physical natures. . . . He 
 was that still, but he was also different; and that 
 different thing was not akin to her, nor was the 
 superiority with which he sacrificed himself. The 
 superiority, the sacrifice oppressed her. . . . She 
 soon forgot; and, when she was out of doors, going 
 along the shops, meeting acquaintances who ad- 
 mired her, she was happy. When she came home, 
 waiting with her two children for Addie's return, 
 she suddenly felt oppressed : 
 
 " I grew melancholy at Driebergen," she would 
 think. 
 
 But now she was in her new, freshly-painted 
 house; and she was oppressed and felt unattractive; 
 she dragged with her something that she could not 
 shake off. She often wept, sobbed, as at Drie- 
 bergen, but there, she knew, it was only about 
 Marietje van Saetzema, whereas here she did not 
 know what she was sobbing for. ... At meals, 
 sitting with him alone, she was silent, or else spoke 
 harshly, without intending to. She did not sit with 
 him when he was working, though he asked her to. 
 When he wanted to kiss her, she drew back. At 
 night she often locked herself in, pretended to be 
 asleep. . . . Only in the children did she feel in 
 harmony with him, did she agree with him, with his 
 system of feeding them, of sending them out every 
 day in all weathers. The children united them, now 
 and then, for a few moments. . . When the
 
 228 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 children were in bed, their life together became 
 strangely unreal, as though both were asking them- 
 selves why, why? And it grew worse daily. He 
 was now living exactly as she wished; and it seemed 
 to him as if he had no life of his own. The 
 keeping up of his reading, in the evenings, became 
 mechanical; and mechanically he went once, some- 
 times twice, a week to Driebergen, remaining there 
 for half the day. They saw him looking strange, 
 unsettled, old, with wrinkles in his forehead and a 
 gloom of despair in his eyes. 
 
 " My dear old chap," Van der Welcke said, one 
 day, " I can see that things are not going well with 
 you. Do you remember how your father, not so 
 very long ago, with the only bit of wisdom that ever 
 fell to his share, advised you to seek your own life 
 for yourself? . . . You're seeking it less and less 
 . . . for yourself. Things are not well with you 
 down there ... at the Hague." 
 
 " Father, I have so little right to seek my own 
 life for myself." 
 
 " And yet we all do it." 
 
 " There was a time, once, when you didn't. You 
 then gave up your life for me." 
 
 " I did that quite naturally. I don't know what's 
 happening inside you . . . but it looks to me as if 
 you were forcing yourself. Here you're at home, 
 here you feel a man : you love this house, you love 
 the work you used to do here ..." 
 
 " I don't belong to myself any more." 
 
 ' You never did belong to yourself. As a child, 
 you belonged to your silly parents . . . who got 
 the better of you entirely; and now you belong to 
 your wife. I expect it's your fate." 
 
 11 If it has to be . . ." 
 
 " I should so much like to see you happy, Addie. 
 Bless my soul, old chap, we should all like to see
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 229 
 
 it. We're all suffering on your account. Your poor 
 mother's suffering." 
 
 " Does she talk about it to you? " 
 
 " No, we never talk much together, as you know, 
 but still ..." 
 
 " Do you understand each other better? " 
 
 " No, but that's not the question. The question 
 at this moment is your happiness. ..." 
 
 " Father, I am not unhappy. Things are really 
 all right with me." 
 
 " You've got that cold, distant voice, my boy, 
 which I know so well in you, which you put on when 
 you're hiding yourself and not facing things. I never 
 mistake it." 
 
 Van der Welcke got up, walked restlessly across 
 the room, all blue with smoke, walked back again 
 and suddenly stopped in front of Addie and took his 
 son's head in his two hands : 
 
 " My boy, why was it necessary that your fate 
 should be the same as your father's, an unhappy 
 marriage? " 
 
 "Father . 
 
 "Don't deny it. Why should you? Aren't we 
 two friends who have always known all about each 
 other? As a child, you were my friend. We were 
 always like brothers. Why must your fate be the 
 same as your father's, an unhappy marriage? 
 You, who are so clever where others are con- 
 cerned. . . ." 
 
 Addie suddenly clutched hold of his father. Van 
 der Welcke continued: 
 
 ' Why must you always know so little that will 
 help yourself? ... At the time, I raised no ob- 
 jection. You were fond of the woman; you always 
 knew your mind with such certainty; I thought that 
 you knew things for yourself; I let you have your 
 way. I was jealous because you were getting mar-
 
 2 3 o DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 ried; so was your mother; we should have been 
 jealous of any woman. We didn't like the girl you 
 brought us; we thought, ' It's our jealousy that makes 
 us not like her. She's Addie's wife; she's taking 
 our boy from us.' We had no right to think like 
 that. We tried to stifle our jealousy. We received 
 Mathilde, hoping, almost knowing for certain, that 
 you were finding your own happiness in her, because 
 you always knew your mind. . . . You didn't 
 know it in your own case. . . . You knew every- 
 thing so positively in ours. . . . You also knew 
 so positively, so plainly, that the profession which 
 I tried to urge upon you was not the thing for you : 
 you found your own vocation. You were a small 
 boy; and you know it all so clearly and positively. 
 . . . When you grew up and became a man, you 
 no longer knew things. Isn't that so? . . . Why 
 should your fate be the same as your father's? I 
 was a ne'er-do-well, when I made my mistake; you 
 were a calm, serious man. ..." 
 
 It was as if his father were depriving Addie of 
 all his strength, but he merely said, in his almost 
 cool, even, restrained tones : 
 
 " Dear Father, really . . . things are all right 
 between Mathilde and me. Even Mamma under- 
 stood, in the end, that she did not feel happy here, 
 at home; and Mamma agreed that she would feel 
 more at home and happier in her own house, how- 
 ever small. ..." 
 
 " But I'm not speaking of Mathilde's happiness, 
 I'm speaking of yours. ..." 
 
 " That goes with it, that must go with it, 
 Father. . >t 
 
 And so it always remained : he spoke out no more 
 than that, gave no more of himself than that and 
 was outwardly almost cold with chill shuddering and 
 repellant when spoken to about himself. That he
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 231 
 
 had made a mistake, that he had not known things 
 for himself he clearly perceived; but all his efforts 
 were directed towards the attempt to repair what 
 he had managed, through his ignorance where him- 
 self was concerned, to spoil or destroy in his wife's 
 life. 
 
 Because he knew that she soon forgot things, he 
 thought that he would succeed, if he devoted himself 
 to her entirely, if he lived with a view to her hap- 
 piness and ceased to live with a view to his own 
 higher instincts, his own sympathies, his own voca- 
 tion and activities. And, even if she did not forget 
 everything at once, he would hope that, if he per- 
 sisted, she would end by forgetting entirely. 
 
 On days when she was bright and cheerful, he 
 was satisfied, in silence and with a certain inward 
 sombreness, because things were going as he was 
 compelling them to go. On days when she was 
 snappish and locked herself into her room and was 
 evidently unhappy and no longer knew how to ex- 
 plain her melancholy, he suddenly saw his young 
 life before him as a dismal ruin, as a desolate block 
 of masonry in a dark night, as a desperate climbing 
 and climbing in the dusk, with no goal of light 
 ahead. Then he would look at his young, crowing 
 children and wonder whether one day and that 
 perhaps soon they would comfort him and her, 
 their parents, even as he had comforted his. He 
 did his work listlessly, visited his patients listlessly, 
 even though no one ever noticed anything in him. 
 He would ride through the streets of the Hague in 
 his smart little brougham; and his eyes looked dully 
 before them and he longed for his bicycle and the 
 Driebergen roads, the silent, gloomy roads, sodden 
 with rain and weighed down under by the heavy 
 skies where his sick poor awaited him in their mean 
 little dwellings, in vain, seeing him only for a single
 
 232 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 moment once a week. He was filled with bitterness : 
 with a listless sneer at himself he reflected that he 
 might just as well have satisfied his parents' wishes 
 and Grandmamma's wishes, in the old days, and 
 become a diplomatist. It would have been nearly 
 the same as what he was doing now : putting himself 
 forward as a young fashionable doctor who prac- 
 tised hypnotism and who was sought after, especially 
 by the ladies, because he was good-looking and a 
 baron. 
 
 He sank into deeper and deeper dejection and 
 felt roused only for a moment when treating a 
 serious patient.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 AND Mathilde's healthy mental balance was dis- 
 turbed. This young and healthy woman, with 
 her rather vulgar aspirations, had fallen in 
 love with him because her nature expected to 
 achieve a sympathetic satisfaction through his 
 both in body and soul; her love had faltered 
 when she gradually perceived that she was 
 sharing him with so many who seemed to under- 
 stand him better, when she suddenly saw, in 
 a refinement of her inner perception, that he was 
 really escaping her. She had enough common-sense 
 to understand and to appreciate that he wanted her 
 happiness above all things, that he was now devoting 
 himself to her entirely, that he had forced their 
 present life at the Hague into a direction which was 
 hers, not his. Because of this, she was filled with 
 a surprised gratitude; and yet this gratitude de- 
 pressed her. The years spent at Driebergen amidst 
 her husband's family had subdued her to a mere 
 nervous susceptibility; and now she sought and wept 
 again and did not know what she sought nor why 
 she wept. Fits of temper followed on fits of weak- 
 ness and fits of discouragement. In the question 
 which she no longer put to Addie, but which never- 
 theless constantly arose in her heart the question 
 whether he really loved her lay hidden a second 
 question, whether she really loved him. At such 
 times she thought that, even though her love was 
 diminished, they would still be happy, now, at the 
 Hague, and make her life a simple life, the after- 
 math of physical love. But she saw him grow 
 
 233
 
 234 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 moodier despite himself, despite all his efforts. She 
 passed through hours of despair; and, if she had 
 not had her children, she would have gone away 
 somewhere, she knew not where. 
 
 Her healthy mental balance was disturbed. She 
 now thought that it would be a good thing to tell 
 Addie that she did not wish to stay at the Hague 
 like this, because he was not happy there, that she 
 wanted to go back to Driebergen. And the idea 
 of giving back to him what he was giving her, of 
 sacrificing herself as he was sacrificing himself, gave 
 her an internal glow of exhilaration, as though she 
 had found a solution; a solution in the near future, 
 in a week or two, a month or two. Yes, let her 
 tell him that it would be better, after all, to go back 
 to Driebergen. The rooms there were always ready 
 for them. They would all be glad to see him back 
 again. She would give him back to his family. But 
 she . . . 
 
 She pictured herself once more in the repellant 
 life which she had led there. And she would not, 
 she could not suggest it to him. Then days would 
 follow when she avoided him, when she hardly saw 
 him at meals. Sometimes, for a few moments, they 
 would play with the children, for there was some- 
 thing really attractive about the fair-haired little 
 mites, pretty children both, Constant and Jetje, 
 healthy children, such as Addie had wanted. When 
 they were put to bed, she would go out in the 
 evening by herself, to take tea with relations or 
 friends. She did not ask him to go with her: he 
 had his work to do ; and she came back in a cab. 
 
 There was a void in her life; and she tried to 
 argue sensibly with herself, and to make light of 
 things. Come, there were hundreds of women in 
 her position, not so very happy with their husbands: 
 really, happy marriages were rare; and people still
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 235 
 
 managed to get on all right . . . There were the 
 children; and she was very fond of them. . . . 
 Perhaps later, when they were a little older, things 
 would be better: Addie might become reconciled to 
 his position as one of the most fashionable doctors 
 of the day; she also might recover her calmness, her 
 balance. . . . Life was so insipid: getting up, 
 dressing, ordering meals, paying visits, shopping. 
 Only the children, still so small, imparted a little 
 gaiety to it. For the rest, it was insipid; and it was 
 the same for one and all. Nearly everybody had 
 to pass through some sort of crisis, after a few 
 years' marriage. She would settle down, Addie 
 would settle down: they would go on living side by 
 side. . . . 
 
 But days of tears would follow, days of despair; 
 and she felt much too young, much too full of 
 vitality, just to drag on her life like that. . . ...
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 IT was spring; and Marietje van Saetzema was to 
 go to the Hague for the day, to see her father and 
 mother. Constance went with her. 
 
 "How well Marietje was looking!" cried 
 Adolphine, with delight. 
 
 Marietje certainly looked well. She would al- 
 ways remain a little pallid, frail and thin, with 
 narrow shoulders; but her cheeks had filled out, her 
 eyes showed a dewy calmness and her lips, pale 
 though they were, blossomed into a kindly smile. 
 She was, as usual, a little subdued, but she joined 
 in the conversation and her attitude was more na- 
 tural, less painful and forced. 
 
 " But you must leave her with us for the summer 
 as well," said Constance, " for the poor girl hasn't 
 had much out of the country air during the winter. 
 It is beginning to look lovely now where we are. 
 She'll spend a summer with us first, Adolphine, won't 
 she, before you take her back? " 
 
 ' Very well," said Adolphine, gratefully. 
 
 But presently, when she was alone with her sister, 
 she found an opportunity to say : 
 
 " At least ... if there are no objections." 
 
 " What objection could there be? " 
 
 " Because of Addie." 
 
 ' What do you mean? " 
 
 " People are so spiteful sometimes, you know. 
 They say ..." 
 
 "What do they say?" 
 
 " They say that Addie is in love with Marietje 
 and that Marietje does her best to attract him." 
 
 a-,6
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 237 
 
 " I should let them talk, Phine." 
 
 " What do you believe, Constance? " 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it. Addie is in love 
 with his wife." 
 
 ' That's just it. People say ... " 
 
 "What do they say now?" 
 ' That things are not going so very well between 
 Mathilde and Addie." 
 
 " Every young couple has a difficult time now and 
 again. A little difference of opinion ... I assure 
 you they are happy together." 
 
 "Is that so?" d 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " It was Mathilde's wish to come and live here? " 
 
 " It was better that she should be on her own, 
 in her own house." 
 
 " Oh, she didn't have a scene with you then? 
 That's what people say." 
 
 " I never had a single word with Mathilde." 
 
 " I see her once in a way. She does not talk 
 nicely of you. She says that she was sacrificed to 
 Gerrit's children, that she did not count at home. 
 When she talks like that, I defend you, for I know 
 how nice you and Van der Welcke are to every- 
 body." 
 
 " She may have had a bitter moment that made 
 her speak like that." 
 
 " She goes out a lot," said Adolphine. 
 ' When? Whom does she go to? " 
 
 " In the evening. Friends. She is hardly ever 
 at home of an evening. She oughtn't to do that 
 . . . without Addie, you know. It's so undo- 
 mesticated." 
 
 " I know she goes out now and then of an evening 
 to have tea . . . with friends." 
 
 " Yes, exactly. . . . She's always out. . . . 
 But how well Marietje is looking, Constance ! She
 
 238 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 does Addie great credit. He's making a great repu- 
 tation . . . with his hypnotism. Everyone wants 
 to be hypnotized by him. I'm always hearing him 
 praised." 
 
 " I'm so glad, Adolphine." 
 
 She went away, arranging to fetch Marietje in 
 the afternoon and take her back to Driebergen. 
 She had an open fly waiting: it was beautiful, mild 
 weather; and the spring was weaving verdure in 
 between the trees. But a heavy load lay on Con- 
 stance' breast and she could have cried . . . be- 
 cause of her boy, because of Addie. She was going 
 to ride to him now, at the other end of the town, 
 the Emmastraat. She meant to lunch there and, 
 when she had seen the grandchildren, to come back 
 to Adolphine's. It was eleven o'clock. And she 
 felt so much weighed down with sorrow for Addie, 
 who came home to them looking more and more 
 gloomy every week, that she could not, could not 
 go to him yet . . . after all that Adolphine had 
 said. . . . Oh, how she always loved saying things 
 that jarred upon your nerves, things that hurt, 
 things that grated against your soul! Did she do 
 it purposely? Was she insincere? Or was it be- 
 cause she couldn't help it, because she was tactless 
 ... or, very likely, took an unconscious pleasure 
 in hurting other people? . . . Oh, perhaps she 
 did not know how much pain she gave! . . . But 
 to go straight to Addie now, to Mathilde, was im- 
 possible. . . . 
 
 " Cabman, drive a little way through the Woods 
 first." 
 
 The driver turned down the Javastraat, went 
 along the Scheveningen Road and let his horse roam 
 at will in the rides of the Woods. . . . Oh, the 
 Hague was charming; she loved the Woods! Even 
 as Addie loved Driebergen, with an innate inherited
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 239 
 
 love for the house and household and the fact of 
 living there he was indeed his grandparents' grand- 
 child so she loved the Hague greatly. She loved 
 those green villa-lined roads, she loved the briny 
 fragrance of the sea. . . . She was now riding 
 along the Ornamental Water, now, suddenly, along 
 the spot where she remembered meeting Brauws 
 years ago he sitting on that bench yonder when, 
 after she had turned round with a start, he caught 
 her up; and her confession, that she had suggested 
 a divorce to Henri. . . . Oh, those days, those 
 days of life and suffering and illusion, so far, so far 
 away in the distant past ! . . . And now, now the 
 man drove with his jog-trot, the jog-trot of a 
 victoria hired by the hour, along the Kerkhoflaan; 
 now she was riding past the old house. . . . Oh, 
 that old house! It was as though the past, the 
 illusion, the suffering and the life, the later, later 
 life, were still hanging around it like a low-drifting 
 cloud! It was the trees of yore and the skies of 
 yore and the green spring life of yore. The house, 
 the house : there was the window at which she had 
 so often sat musing, gazing at the great skies over- 
 head, while her soul travelled along a path of light. 
 Up above were Addie's little turret-room and her 
 own bedroom : oh, that night of illusion at the open 
 window, with the noiseless flashes of hope over the 
 sea, the distant sea yonder! . . . She felt almost 
 inclined to stop, to alight, to ask leave to go over 
 the house; but something in the curtains, in the 
 outline of a woman sketching at the window of her 
 former boudoir prevented her; and she rode on. 
 Oh, how she loved her Hague; and yet . . . yet 
 she had suffered there, with what antipathy she had 
 been surrounded! . . . Did that antipathy of 
 small souls for small souls go on for ever? Must 
 her poor boy now suffer through it, even though he
 
 2 4 o DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 made his name as a doctor? . . . Oh, what a 
 heavy depression she felt upon her heart, as if her 
 fur cloak were much too warm for the balmy 
 weather with its breath of spring! . . . Now they 
 were going down the Bankastraat, past poor Gerrit's 
 old house; and suddenly that terrible night of snow 
 stood white-hideous before her mind, stained dark 
 with her brother's blood. . . . Here was Dorine's 
 boarding-house; and Constance got out and rang, 
 but Dorine was not in. ... The driver jogged on 
 wearily. She recognized acquaintances here and 
 there, grown older now that her memories were 
 harking back to past years; and the cabman, doubt- 
 less to spin out the drive, instead of following the 
 Kanaal, turned up the Alexanderstraat. Oh, the 
 house, the old family house, so full of recollections, 
 so full of the past! And . . . she saw that it 
 was empty, that it was to let. With a quick 
 glance at the uncurtained windows above, she even 
 recognized the plasterwork of the ceilings; and it 
 was as though the past still brooded there, still 
 stared out at her, through the white, streaked win- 
 dows. . . . Wearily the horse now jogged along 
 the Bezuidenhout; and she saw poor Bertha's house, 
 with its tightly-drawn veil of chill panes stiff and 
 repelling a swift penetrating glance. . . . Yes, the 
 Hague was like a grave to her; and yet even as 
 a grave the Hague was dear to her. A grave ? And 
 Addie lived down there, at the end of the street! 
 . . . Would she still care to live in the Hague? 
 She did not know, she did not know: perhaps she 
 was becoming used to Driebergen, becoming used 
 to the big, sombre house there, because there was so 
 much love around her, even though she continued 
 to feel a stranger there. . . . And a stranger: 
 that was how her boy felt here ! 
 
 The carriage now pulled up outside her boy's
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 241 
 
 house. Strange, the front-door was open: perhaps 
 the maid was out on an errand and had left the 
 door open for a minute to save herself trouble. 
 Constance, telling the driver to come back at half- 
 past two, went inside. Addie could hardly be home 
 yet from visiting his patients. She knocked at the 
 door of the drawing-room and received no answer. 
 Mathilde was no doubt busy with the children or 
 with her housekeeping. Constance opened the door 
 and walked in, to look for her. 
 
 She gave a start. Through the drawing-room 
 and the dining-room she saw Mathilde sitting in 
 the conservatory, with Johan Erzeele beside her. 
 He sat bending towards her; and he was holding 
 her hand in his two. Mathilde's eyes were staring 
 into the distance; and a feeble hesitation seemed to 
 take away something of the usual strength of her 
 fine, healthy, rather full lines. Constance saw it for 
 one moment, as a strange vision in that bright, un- 
 softened conservatory-light, which was made the 
 harder with many-coloured muslin curtains and 
 coarsely vivid with the gold and motley of ugly 
 Japanese fans. It gave Constance a fright; and in 
 that inexorable light the fright and the vision were 
 both inexorable. 
 
 It did not last longer than a second. Her shadow 
 in the drawing-room made Mathilde and Johan start 
 up; and they rose to their feet: 
 
 "Mamma!" 
 
 " Mrs. van der Welcke ! " 
 
 It sounded like a greeting; but their voices were 
 unsteady, because they understood that Constance 
 had seen. Constance' voice trembled, but she merely 
 said : 
 
 " Good-morning, dear. How do you do, Mr. 
 Erzeele?" She kissed Mathilde, shook hands with 
 Erzeele. "I came over with Marietje; I left her
 
 242 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 with her father and mother and came to look you 
 up ... intending to lunch with you . . . if it 
 suits you." 
 
 She strove to make her words and her voice sound 
 quite unaffected and she succeeded; and, because she 
 succeeded, she suddenly felt that what she had seen 
 was nothing: a moment of familiar intimacy. Were 
 they not old friends? Had Mathilde not, as a girl, 
 when he was still a cadet, danced with him often at 
 their dancing-club? There was nothing, there was 
 nothing; she was reassured by the tranquillity of her 
 own voice. 
 
 " So you will stay to lunch," said Mathilde. 
 
 " If it suits you." 
 
 "Of course it does. . . . Addie is not in yet." 
 
 " Are the children upstairs? " 
 
 " Yes, I'll send for them." ^ 
 
 Erzeele said good-bye, said that he must go, 
 reminded Mathilde easily of her appointment to 
 meet him the next day at the tennis-club. Constance 
 glanced at him quickly: in his uniform, he was 
 young, broad and short; his complexion fair but 
 bronzed with the sun; above his powerful shoulders 
 and thick neck his face stood fresh and strong, smart 
 military, with a pair of glad, childlike grey eyes; 
 a long fair moustache shaded his lips, which were 
 laughing glad and warmly sensual; and, when he 
 laughed, his small sharp ivory teeth flashed. . . . 
 His thick fair hair curled slightly at the tips. . 
 It was very strange, but i.t struck her suddenly that 
 Erzeele's way of looking at Mathilde resembled 
 that of her own husband, Van der Welcke, when 
 . . . when he was young, when she met him in 
 Rome. Something in the fresh vigour of his glance 
 and of his rather sensual laugh, something about his 
 figure, about his teeth reminded her of Henri as a 
 young man.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 243 
 
 " You've known him a long time, haven't you? " 
 asked Constance, when he was gone. 
 
 " Oh dear, yes ! " said Mathilde, vaguely. 
 
 The nurse brought down Jetje and Constant for 
 Grandmamma to see: after that, the children were 
 to go out for a little longer. 
 
 ' They look well," said Constance, huskily. 
 
 She felt a heavy pressure of inexplicable melan- 
 choly on her heart, a pressure so heavy that she could 
 have cried, so heavy that she felt her eyes grow 
 moist in spite of herself. 
 
 "Yes," said Mathilde, "they're very healthy. 
 It's quite a system that Addie and I are practising 
 with that special diet and the regular time each day 
 in the open air. The other day it was blowing a 
 gale . . . and Addie absolutely insisted that they 
 should go out all the same. And I must say I agree 
 with him." 
 
 Suddenly, while Jetje was sitting on her lap and 
 Constant tugging at her skirts, Constance took 
 Mathilde's hand: 
 
 'Then things are all right between you?" she 
 whispered, almost imploringly. 
 
 u How do you mean? " 
 
 ' You are happy now, Mathilde . . . here at 
 the Hague?" 
 
 " Certainly, Mamma. . . . You yourself under- 
 stood, didn't you, that I longed for a house of my 
 own." 
 
 " Yes, dear, I understood." 
 
 "Only ..." 
 
 'What?" 
 
 " I am sorry to have robbed you of Addie." 
 
 " But, my dear, a son does not belong to his 
 parents." 
 
 " Still, I reproach myself. . . . But I could not 
 stay with you any longer. You understood that it
 
 244 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 was not because . . . because you were not kind 
 to me. You were very kind . . . you tried to be 
 . . . though I do not believe that Papa likes me, 
 that Emilie, Aunt Adeline or any of the others like 
 me. ... I bear them no malice : I don't like them 
 either." 
 
 Constance was silent. 
 
 " I am so different from the boy and girl cousins 
 . . . and Papa was always jealous." 
 
 " My dear!" 
 
 "And you too; but you fought against it." 
 
 " Mathilde, I always wished you to feel at home 
 with us; I always hoped that some part of you 
 would blend with us." 
 
 "Exactly; and that was impossible: I was too 
 different from all of you; and at Driebergen . . . 
 in the end. ... I should have become as full of 
 nerves ... as Mary." 
 
 There was a tint of hatred in her voice. 
 
 " No, dear," said Constance, harking back, " you 
 were not happy with us. But because I hope that 
 you are happy now ..." 
 
 She had risen nervously; the nurse had entered 
 and was taking the children with her: they were to 
 have one more turn in the street before lunch. 
 
 "Tell me, Mathilde, are you really happy? Do 
 you really and truly love Addie again? " 
 
 " I have always loved him. What do you mean? " 
 
 ' Then it's all right, then it's all right, dear." 
 
 'Why are you so sad? There are tears in your 
 eyes." 
 
 " The Hague always makes me sad. The cabman 
 took me for a little drive and I passed all the houses 
 of the old days . . . when we all used to live 
 here." 
 
 " Did you feel a longing to come back to the 
 Hague?"
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 245 
 
 " No, no ... I don't want to come back 
 again." 
 
 " Will you always remain at Driebergen? " 
 
 " Yes, I think so." 
 
 " You have found happiness there, I did not. I 
 remained a stranger." 
 
 " Tilly . . . one day, perhaps . . . you will 
 live there as we do now . . . when we are no 
 longer there. ..." 
 
 " No, never." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " I dislike the house and everything in it . . . 
 down to the very doorposts. And I can't get used 
 to an eerie house ... as you all do." 
 
 "ButAddie ..." 
 
 " Exactly: he will never forget the house. What 
 can it be to him? He was not born there! " 
 
 " He feels at home there." 
 
 " Just so. And I do not. . . . Oh, I ought 
 never to have married him! " 
 
 " Tilly, Tilly, what are you saying? " 
 
 " I ought never, never to have married him ! " 
 
 " And you love him, you love him ! " 
 
 " I have loved him, oh, very dearly. But he is 
 far above me ! I do not reach his level ! He sacri- 
 fices himself for me. And it breaks my heart to 
 accept his sacrifice. It oppresses me ! Oh, Mamma, 
 find something, find something for us! Let him go 
 back to you all ... and let me stay here with 
 the children. ... I shall live simply . . . in a 
 small upper part . . . and practise economy. It 
 is all my fault, not his. He is good and kind and 
 magnanimous . . . but all that oppresses me. I 
 thought at first that we were how shall I put it? 
 akin to each other, kindred natures. When we got 
 married, I used not to think about such things . . . 
 but I thought in myself, with an unconscious cer-
 
 246 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 tainty, that we were akin. He was so nice, so 
 straight-forward and so manly; and that rather 
 elderly something appealed to me : I used to look 
 up to it, without being oppressed by it. ... 
 Gradually, gradually I began to feel that he was 
 far above me. Things I like leave him indifferent: 
 little luxuries, fashion, gaiety, society. That hyp- 
 notism of his: at first, I used to think, 'This is 
 something new, a new method; ' now, I don't know: 
 I am becoming afraid of it! I am becoming afraid 
 of him ! There is something in him that frightens 
 me. . . . Oh, I know, it is only because he is so 
 good and so big and because I feel very small and 
 ordinary, because I don't understand those fine, 
 lofty ideals . . . about doing good and about 
 poor people and about self-sacrifice ! . . . To him 
 it all comes natural. He is sacrificing himself now 
 for me : he does not care for the Hague or for his 
 practice here, whereas I could never live at Drie- 
 bergen again. . . . And, even if I could feel more 
 or less at home among you all ... even then, 
 even then Addie would oppress me ! . . . Do you 
 understand? Oh, you are crying! Of course you 
 are angry with me: you see your son above every- 
 thing. That is easily understood; and I ... I 
 still have enough love left for Addie to understand 
 it, to understand it all. . . . But, you see, the love 
 I still have for him . . . is an anxious love, it's a 
 sort of self-reproach that I am as I am and not 
 different, a sort of remorse caused by all kinds of 
 things I don't understand and can't express, things 
 that make me cry when I am by myself and oppress 
 me . . . oppress me, until I sometimes feel as if 
 I were suffocating! " 
 
 "Hush, dear: here he is!" 
 
 They both ceased and listened. They heard 
 Addie's voice : coming home, he had met the children
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 247 
 
 outside the house; Constance and Mathilde heard 
 his deep voice sound kindly, playfully, in the hall. 
 He now opened the door, with Jetje on one arm 
 and little Constant toddling by his side with his hand 
 in his father's. 
 
 " Mamma ! " he exclaimed, in surprise. " I had 
 no idea that you were here ! " 
 
 " No, my boy, I came up unexpectedly. I brought 
 Marietje with me and left her with her father and 
 mother." 
 
 " You'll stay to lunch, of course? " 
 
 " I should like to." 
 
 "Why, what's the matter with you, Mamma?" 
 'The matter?" 
 
 " And with you, Mathilde? " 
 
 "With me? . . . Nothing." 
 
 He saw that they had been talking together. He 
 said nothing more, however, but played with the 
 children for a while and then released himself and 
 gave them over to the nurse, who had come in. 
 
 " The youngsters are looking first-rate, aren't 
 they?" 
 
 " We shall have lunch in a minute, Mamma," 
 said Mathilde, tonelessly. 
 
 Addie sat down beside his mother, took her hand, 
 smiled. Mathilde left the room with her keys. 
 
 " Don't fret, Mamma," he said. 
 
 " My boy . . ." 
 
 u You're fretting. You look so sad." 
 
 " My dear, my dear . . . I . . . " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 She gave a sob and laid her hand on his shoulder. 
 She was so frightened, so frightened, that it was as 
 though her great dread stifled her and prevented her 
 from breathing. She trembled in his embrace. 
 
 " You won't fret, you won't fret, will you, dear? " 
 
 " No."
 
 248 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 The maid came to lay the table in the dining- 
 room. Constance controlled herself. 
 
 " Mamma," he said, jestingly, now that Mathilde 
 also returned, " you're losing all your vanity ! 
 That's a nice old blouse to come and see your son 
 in ! Look, it's wearing out at the elbows. Do you 
 know you haven't looked at all smart lately? " 
 
 "Oh, my dear boy. This blouse is quite good 
 still!" 
 
 " Well, I think it's seen its best days. What do 
 you say, Tilly? " 
 
 " Why should I get myself up, an old woman like 
 me?" said Constance. 
 
 " You'll never be old, Mummie, and a well- 
 turned-out woman must always remain well-turned- 
 out. . . . Do you remember the old days? " 
 
 'Yes, when ..." 
 
 " You brought home that fine photograph from 
 Nice?" 
 
 She smiled through her tears : 
 
 " My boy, that is so long ago ! . . . You 
 thought me a bundle of vanity then." 
 
 " The photograph never leaves my writing-table. 
 . . . Mamma, you mustn't let yourself go like 
 that." 
 
 ;< Very well, I don't wear this blouse any more. 
 . . . But it costs so much to dress nicely . . . 
 and we have so many expenses." 
 
 " You were not rich in the old days," said 
 Mathilde, piqued at something that she did not 
 understand. 
 
 " And yet Mamma wore dresses that cost six 
 hundred francs," said Addie, chaffingly. 
 
 ' Yes; and now that you are well off . . ." 
 
 " Now I never dream of doing such a thing," said 
 Constance, gently. 
 
 The luncheon was quiet, a little melancholy, a
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 249 
 
 little constrained. Afterwards, things went a little 
 more merrily because Jetje and Constant came 
 downstairs again with their nurse, suddenly, in a 
 very youthful vision of golden hair seen through 
 the open door. Their little voices chirped like those 
 of young birds; and Constance could not refrain 
 from saying how much they all missed them at 
 Driebergen. For there also they were always 
 coming down the stairs, looking so young and so 
 golden, like a vision of the future, to go walking 
 out of doors. Even in the winter they brought a 
 hint of sunshine and of spring, something refresh- 
 ing of youth and beginning, a promise of future in 
 the old house which was so gloomily full of things 
 of the past, things that hovered about the rooms, 
 gleamed out of the mirrors, trailed, like strange 
 draughts, along the lightly creaking stairs. . . . 
 
 Mathilde did not say much; she was silent and 
 sat with her lips closed and her whole face her 
 eyes half-shut closed, after that sudden irresistible 
 betrayal of her feelings to her mother-in-law to 
 whom nevertheless she was attracted by no sort of 
 sympathy. 
 
 A little while later, Constance' carriage came to 
 fetch her and Addie offered to go to the Van 
 Saetzema's with her and see how Marietje 
 was. 
 
 "And what are you doing, Mathilde?" asked 
 Constance, gently. 
 
 " I don't know. ... I expect I shall go out. 
 . . . Or I may stay at home. ..." 
 
 Addie went upstairs to get ready; and Constance 
 suddenly took Mathilde in her arms. 
 
 "My dear ..." 
 
 "Mamma . . ." 
 
 ' You did well to speak out to me just now. . . . 
 However sad it made me feel, you did right."
 
 250 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " Oh, why did I do it? I should have done better 
 to hold my tongue." 
 
 " No, no. Speak, oh, do speak to Addie too! " 
 
 " I have spoken to him so often ! " 
 
 "Not lately?" 
 
 Mathilde shrugged her shoulders : 
 
 " No, not so often lately. What's the use? It's 
 not his fault . . . it's six of one and half a dozen 
 of the other . . . and it can't be helped." 
 
 "Very likely. Only ..." 
 
 " Only what, Mamma? " 
 
 " Be careful, Mathilde, I implore you ! Oh, do 
 be careful! Everything, everything can come right 
 again. . . . You are sure to come together again 
 later . . . but be careful, be careful. Don't spoil 
 your life." 
 
 They looked deep down into each other's 
 eyes. 
 
 " Mathilde, I may speak openly to you, mayn't I? 
 Just because it's I, dear, your mother . . . who 
 suffered so very much . . . because she spoilt her 
 life so ... spoilt it so ... when she was 
 young . . . until life became a torture. ... I 
 was a young woman, as you are, Mathilde, and 
 . . . and I wasn't happy . . . any more than 
 you are, my poor child, at the moment . . . 
 and . . ." 
 
 " I know, Mamma," Mathilde replied, shortly. 
 ' Yes, you know . . . you know all about it. 
 '. ' ., . Of course you know, dear, though I have not 
 mentioned it to you. . . . But just . . . just be- 
 cause of all that, I may tell you, may I not, to be 
 careful? Oh, do be careful! " 
 
 ' You are afraid of things that don't exist." 
 
 " No, dear, there is nothing. ... I know 
 there's nothing . . . only ..." 
 
 "What?"
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 251 
 
 " You see . . . when I arrived this morn- 
 ing v . ." 
 
 " Erzeele was with me." 
 " Yes." 
 
 " He's an old friend." 
 
 " I know." 
 
 " He came to make an appointment ... to 
 play tennis to-morrow." 
 
 " Yes, I heard him." 
 
 ' There was nothing else." 
 
 " He was holding your hand." 
 
 " He's an old friend whom I knew as a girl, al- 
 most as a child." 
 
 4 Yes, dear, I know . . . but . . . " 
 
 14 What do you mean? " 
 
 44 It is dangerous." 
 
 " What is?" 
 
 4 To talk to him too much . . . while you're in 
 your present frame of mind. If you're feeling un- 
 happy, dear, about one thing or another . . . 
 speak to Addie." 
 
 " I've spoken to him so often." 
 
 " Confide in him." 
 
 " I have." 
 
 44 And not . . . not in Johan Erzeele." 
 
 Mathilde's eyes blazed: 
 
 " Mamma . . . you haven't the right! " 
 
 4 Yes, dear, I have! I not only have the right 
 to tell you this as Addie's mother, but above all 
 I have the right because I understand you, because 
 I am able to understand you, because I remember 
 my own wretchedly unhappy years of despair, as a 
 young married woman, unsatisfied, unhappy, des- 
 perate, though for other reasons, alas, than those 
 between you and Addie ! . . . Because I remem- 
 ber all this, Mathilde, because I can never forget, 
 just because I remember, because I now remember
 
 252 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 how I used to talk ... to Papa while I was 
 married to my poor old husband . . . how I used 
 to talk to Papa . . . and try to find consolation 
 in those talks . . . and how we worked ourselves 
 up with those talks until ... oh, Mathilde, oh, 
 Mathilde, let me tell you all about it ! . . . Let me 
 tell you all about it, quite simply, even though you 
 know, so that I may have the right to speak to you. 
 I used to talk to Papa . . . and we fell in love 
 with each other ... we thought we loved each 
 other. ..." 
 
 " And, if you thought so, why didn't you? " 
 
 " Because it wasn't true, dear, because it wasn't 
 a burning fire of feeling, because it was an unreal 
 feeling, arising from unreal words between a young 
 woman and a young man until . . . until all those 
 talks drove them into each other's arms . . . and 
 the awful thing became irrevocable." 
 
 " Mamma 1 " 
 
 "I am telling you everything, dear ..." 
 
 u I know everything, Mamma. But you say you 
 used to have unreal talks with Papa." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I talk simply to Johan." 
 
 " My dear, my dear, it's not that. I, I myself 
 was unreal ... in those days ... in my feel- 
 ings, which came out of books which I had read. 
 Papa used to answer . . . out of those same 
 books. You . . . you are different: you are sim- 
 ple; Erzeele, a friend of your childhood, is simple, 
 a simple-minded fellow; your talks are bound to be 
 different." 
 
 " Our talks are simple." 
 
 " But, when I came in, I saw that you were talk- 
 ing confidentially, intimately, intimately and eagerly 
 . . . and that he was holding your hand, holding 
 your two hands."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 253 
 
 " Yes, you saw that: he was consoling me." 
 
 " That's exactly what he mustn't do. That's ex- 
 actly what he mustn't be allowed to do. Oh, Ma- 
 thilde, I am an old woman and I am your mother, 
 especially now that you have no mother of your own, 
 and I am Addie's mother . . . and I understand, 
 I understand everything . . . because I myself 
 have suffered so much. ..." 
 
 " Addie's coming downstairs, Mamma." 
 
 " Promise me, dear . . . to be careful." 
 
 "I ... I will be careful." 
 
 " And forgive me, forgive me for everything 
 that I have dared to say. Kiss me. Oh, I long 
 so intensely . . . for you and Addie to be happy 
 again! " 
 
 She took Mathilde in her arms, passionately, and 
 kissed her twice, three times. 
 
 Addie entered. 
 
 " I'm ready, Mamma. The carriage is waiting." 
 
 *' I'm coming, I'm coming, my boy."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 SUMMER came suddenly: fine, sunny days followed 
 one after the other, all the windows in the big house 
 were opened and the summer seemed to enter and 
 drive everything of winter out of the open windows. 
 The spreading garden became closely leaved with a 
 green and gold triumph of dense foliage which, 
 lightly stirred by the wind, cast shadows over the 
 pond, with a play of alternating flecks of light and 
 shade. Van der Welcke, strolling along the paths, 
 found pleasure in watching Klaasje, the big girl of 
 thirteen, tearing round the water, pursued by Jack, 
 the new terrier, who barked and barked incessantly 
 with his sharp, throaty bark. 
 
 " She is still just like a child," thought Van der 
 Welcke, " and she is developing like a little woman. 
 It is strange, the influence which Addie has over 
 her . . . and the way the child is perking up now 
 that the fine days have come. But it is not only 
 the fine days, it is Addie above all that gives her 
 this balance: what's it through, I wonder? Purely 
 through his influence, through a sort of healing 
 magic that flows from him. ... It is very 
 strange. The other day, I had a terrible headache; 
 and, when he came and just gave me a little massage, 
 it was gone, quite. . . . And the way the fellow 
 has succeeded in developing the child's mind, with 
 those picture-books, with those coloured things: it's 
 as though he wanted to affect her by means of 
 colours and glitterings and I don't know what. In 
 any case, it came off; she is really learning her lessons 
 very well; and everything she says is more reason- 
 
 254
 
 DR, ADRIAAN 255 
 
 able and sensible. It's as though she were catching 
 herself up. . . . Yes, amuse yourself, child. 
 . . . Look, how wildly excited she is with that 
 dog, like a real child; she's enjoying the fine weather; 
 she's just like a child of nature; and she looks well 
 too: she'll grow into a pretty girl, though she's a 
 trifle heavily built. . . . She no longer has that 
 stupid look in her eyes; and there's something kind 
 and genuine about her ... in her behaviour to- 
 wards old Mamma and Ernst, something motherly 
 and understanding combined, as if she felt she had 
 something in common with their clouded minds. 
 . . . It's jolly to look at the child, to see her 
 sprouting and blossoming, exactly like a plant that 
 is now receiving just the right light and just the right 
 amount of water . . . and yet she owes it all to 
 Addle and will very likely never know that she owes 
 it to him. . . . Yes, the fellow wields a wonderful 
 influence. . . . Alex is keeping his end up now in 
 Amsterdam and seems to be losing some of his 
 melancholia since Addie has been talking to him 
 so regularly: poor chap, he was ten years old when 
 he saw his father lying dead in all that blood; and 
 it affected him for all time ! . . . We were right 
 to take all those children to live with us: that sort 
 of thing gives a man an object in life, even me, 
 though I myself do nothing, though it's Constance 
 and Addie who act. I feel a certain satisfaction, 
 even though I just let them do as they please. . . . 
 Who would ever have thought that it would become 
 like this, the big, lonely house, where Father and 
 Mother lived so very long and sadly by themselves, 
 now so full, as a refuge for Constance' family? 
 It turned out so strangely, so very strangely. . . . 
 Oh, if my boy were only happier! . . . Who 
 would have thought that he, he who has everything 
 in his favour, should go falling in love with a woman
 
 256 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 who cannot make him happy? I am always thinking 
 about it. I get up with it, I go to bed with it; I 
 see the two of them in the smoke of my cigarette; 
 and I am beginning to worry and worry about it: 
 a proof that I'm getting old. . . . And I can see 
 that Constance also worries about it, that the thought 
 of Addie . . . and that woman is always, always 
 with her . . . oh, everything might have turned 
 out so happily! . . . But it was not to be, it was 
 not to be. . . .A lovely summer morning like this 
 almost makes a fellow melancholy. . . . Yes, it 
 makes you melancholy because you know for certain 
 that it won't long remain so, that calmness in the 
 air, that beautiful clear sky, that green and gold of 
 the trees, and that it will soon become different, soon 
 become different, full of sadness and of gloomy 
 things." 
 
 He suddenly spread out his arms, for Klaasje, 
 pursued by the dog, came rushing down the path 
 in his direction without seeing him, as it were 
 blinded by the game which she was playing. 
 
 " Uncle Henri, Uncle Henri, let me go ! Jack 
 will catch me ! " 
 
 " Mind and don't tumble into the water," Van der 
 Welcke warned her; but she had already released 
 herself from his arms and was running on, with 
 the dog after her. 
 
 " She's gone wild," he thought, " wild with the 
 joy of life. She is beginning to wake up, physically 
 and mentally. It is as though a twilight were with- 
 drawing from her, a twilight which is beginning to 
 steal over me. What is the matter with me ? What 
 do I feel? Oh, I long to go bicycling, to go for a 
 long spin . . . but Addie's not here; and, even 
 when he is, he. has no time, and Guy's working! 
 Suppose I asked Gerdy : she's fond of a little 
 
 run."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 257 
 
 He went in, through the conservatory: the old 
 woman was sitting there, staring quietly out of the 
 window; Adeletje was busy with the plants. 
 
 " Well, Mummie, how are you ? What do you 
 say to this fine weather? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " What do you say, Mum, to this fine 
 weather? " 
 
 The old lady nodded her head contentedly: 
 
 " Lovely, lovely," she said. " The wet mon- 
 soon is over. But tell Gertrude . . . to be care- 
 ful ... of. the river . . . behind the Palace." 
 
 Her voice sounded like a voice from the past and 
 spoke of things of the past. 
 
 "Where is Gerdy?" Van der Welcke asked 
 Adeletje. 
 
 " In the drawing-room. Uncle Paul's in there, 
 playing." 
 
 He heard the piano : Paul was improvising. Van 
 der Welcke found Gerdy leaning over the back of 
 her chair, very pale. 
 
 " I say, dear, come for a ride with me. It'll 
 freshen you up." 
 
 She looked at him dejectedly, shook her head: 
 
 " I have a headache." 
 
 " That's just why you ought to come, dear. Come 
 along, do ... to please me." 
 
 He stroked her hair. She took his hand and put 
 it to her lips. 
 
 " Come." 
 
 " Really, Uncle, my head's too bad." 
 
 ' Then, why don't you go and sit in the garden? 
 It's so hot in here." 
 
 " Aunt Constance is taking me for a drive pre- 
 sently; and Mary's coming with us." 
 
 " Paul, can't you ride a bicycle ? There's one of 
 Addie's which you could have."
 
 258 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " No, my dear chap, it makes you so hot. And 
 all that perspiring is such a dirty business." 
 
 " Well, in that case," thought Van der Welcke, 
 " I'll go on my own, but it's not particularly cheer- 
 ful. If only Guy weren't working! I can't very 
 well take him from his work ... to come cycling ! 
 So I'll go on my own. . . . Lord, Lord, how 
 boring! . . . How boring everything and every- 
 body is ... without my boy! How that poor 
 Gerdy is moping! . . . No. I can't endure it, I 
 can't do it, I can't go bicycling by myself. . . . 
 I'll ask Guy to come. It'll do him good: the boy 
 is too healthy to be always sitting with a pile of 
 books round him." 
 
 Van der Welcke went upstairs, reflecting that 
 Addie would not approve at all if he knew that his 
 own father was taking Guy from his work . . . 
 to go bicycling, as he had often taken Addie himself 
 in the past. 
 
 " But Addie has so much method, he used to 
 divide his time so splendidly between his work, his 
 mother . . . and me," thought Van der Welcke. 
 " Still, to-day, I simply can not go bicycling on my 
 own . . . and so I'll just play the part of the 
 tempter." 
 
 He had reached the first storey; and here too the 
 windows on the passage were wide open and the 
 summer, fragrant and radiant, entered the gloomy 
 old house, whose brown shadows vanished in patches 
 of sunlight. The sunlight glided along the dark 
 walls, the oak doors, the worn stairs, along the faded 
 carpets and curtains and through the open doors; 
 and it was strange, but all this new summer, however 
 much Van der Welcke had longed for it throughout 
 the long, dreary winter, the winter of wind and 
 rain, now failed to cheer him, on the contrary, de- 
 pressed him with inexplicable sadness.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 259 
 
 He now opened the door of Addie's study. Since 
 Addie and Mathilde had moved to the Hague, the 
 room had remained the same as regards furniture, 
 but somehow dead ; only in the morning Guy usually 
 sat working at his table by the window and Van 
 der Welcke was sure to find him there. But he was 
 not there; and the books and maps had obviously 
 not been opened or looked at. 
 
 "Where can the boy be?" thought Van der 
 Welcke. " He can't still be in bed." 
 
 The room did not look as if anyone had been 
 there that morning. There were a couple of letters 
 on Addie's writing-table, where the maids always 
 left any that arrived for him at the old address, so 
 that he might find them when he came down, once 
 or twice a week, for the brief visit to which every 
 one at home looked forward. 
 
 Van der Welcke moodily closed the door : 
 
 " I'd better see if he is still upstairs," he thought, 
 going up the second flight. 
 
 Since Guy had given up his bedroom to Marietje 
 van Saetzema, he slept in a little dressing-room. 
 The door was open; the bed was made. 
 
 ' The fellow must have gone out already," 
 thought Van der Welcke. " It's a dirty trick not to 
 let me know. Well, I shall go by myself: I need 
 some air." 
 
 Angrily he went downstairs, through the hall, to 
 the outhouse where the bicycles were kept. Guy's 
 was not there. 
 
 'There, I said so: he's gone out and never even 
 let me know. Oh, it's always like that : those child- 
 ren are always selfish. We do everything for them, 
 when they've got no claim on us; and what sort of 
 thanks do we receive? . . . The boy knows that 
 I'm fond of him, that I like cycling with him when 
 Addie's not here, but he doesn't so much as think
 
 260 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 of looking for me and asking me to go with him. 
 . . . It's all egoism, it's always thinking of your 
 own self. ... If there's any paying to be done, 
 that's all right, that's what Uncle Henri's there 
 for; but the least little thought for me ... not 
 a bit of it ! . . . That's the way it goes. I've lost 
 Addie . . . and tried to find him again in another 
 and it's simply impossible and ridiculous." 
 
 Still young and active, he slung himself on his 
 bicycle and for a minute or two enjoyed the motion 
 of the handsome, glittering machine, as it glided 
 down the summer lanes; but very soon he began to 
 think, gloomily: 
 
 " A motor-car I should have liked to have. I'm 
 not buying one because of those everlasting boys: 
 life is expensive enough as it is. ... And instead 
 of Guy's thinking of me now and again. . . . Ah, 
 well, if you want to do good to others, you must 
 just do it because it is good; for to expect the least 
 bit of gratitude is all rot! " 
 
 No, cycling alone did not console him; his hand- 
 some, glittering, nickel-plated machine glided list- 
 lessly down the summer lanes and he suddenly turned 
 round : 
 
 " That's enough for me ... all by myself, 
 without anybody or anything. ..." 
 
 And he rode back home slowly, put the machine 
 away and looked at the empty stand where Guy 
 usually kept his machine. 
 
 "Have you seen Guy?" asked Constance, meet- 
 ing her husband in the hail. 
 
 " He's out," said Van der Welcke, curtly and 
 angrily. 
 
 " He hasn't been working," she added. " I al- 
 ways look into Addie's study to see if Guy is at 
 work: Addie asked me to." 
 
 " No, he has not been working; he's ..."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 261 
 
 "Out?" 
 
 ' Yes, with his bicycle." 
 
 " They why didn't he ask you to go with him? " 
 
 " I'm sure / don't know," said Van der Welcke, 
 angrily, shrugging his shoulders. 
 
 Constance too did not think it friendly of 
 Guy: 
 
 " What does it mean? " she wondered to herself. 
 " He ought to have been working, but, if he wanted 
 to go cycling, he might really have let his uncle 
 know." 
 
 And her soul too became filled with melancholy, 
 because young people were inevitably so ungrateful. 
 But she said nothing to Van der Welcke; and they 
 never knew that they often thought and felt alike, 
 as in an imperceptible harmony of approaching old 
 age that found only a negative expression: they so 
 seldom quarrelled nowadays, at most exchanged a 
 single irritable word, even though no deep sympathy 
 had ever come to them. . . . 
 
 Constance went to her room to put on a hat; the 
 carriage was ordered; she was going for a drive 
 with the girls. She felt worried about poor Gerdy, 
 who no longer took pleasure in anything : 
 
 " It will pass," she thought. " We have all of 
 us, in our time, been through a phase of melan- 
 choly. . . . Adeline told me that Gerdy was in 
 love with Erzeele . . . but he doesn't appear to 
 think about her. . . . Oh, how I worry and worry 
 about it all : about my poor boy, about Mathilde ! 
 . . . Erzeele is bound ... is bound to be at- 
 tracted by her. . . . Come, I need air, in this fine 
 weather; and yet this warm air oppresses me: the 
 summer is always oppressive in our country. The 
 weather in our country is always becoming some- 
 thing : it never has become anything, like the weather 
 in the south; it is becoming, always becoming some-
 
 262 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 thing. . . . It's sultry now, the sun is scorching; 
 we are sure to have a storm this evening." 
 
 She now left her room, ready, and thought: 
 
 " Addie is coming to lunch to-day; it's his day: 
 oh, how I always long for that day! . . . Last 
 time, he had to answer some letters and ran for ink 
 for his writing-table. I'll just see if everything is 
 in order now." 
 
 She entered the room that used to be Addie's 
 study: 
 
 " Yes, the ink's there," she told herself, with a 
 glance at the writing-table. " How uncosy, how 
 cold the room looks, with nothing but the old 
 furniture, the old man's furniture ! . . . There are 
 letters for Addie again : the poor boy never has any 
 rest. ..." 
 
 Casually she took a step towards the table and 
 was struck by the appearance of the letters: 
 
 " What is that? " she thought. 
 
 The letters there were three of them were 
 without stamps or postmarks: it was this that had 
 struck her. 
 
 " Bills? " she wondered for a moment. 
 
 Then she shivered and began to tremble so vio- 
 lently that she dropped into Addie's chair. She had 
 recognized Guy's hand. 
 
 There were three letters. One was addressed to 
 herself and her husband: to " Uncle Henri and Aunt 
 Constance. ..." The second: to " Addie. . . ." 
 The third: to "Mamma. ..." 
 
 She sat distraught, staring at the three letters 
 vacantly, without putting out her hand. A cloud 
 of white squares seemed to whirl about her: it was 
 as if the envelopes were flying round in a circle 
 before her eyes. And she felt suddenly faint. 
 
 "What is it? What does it mean?" she asked 
 herself, aloud.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 263 
 
 She looked at Guy's work-table: the books were 
 there, neatly arranged on the big atlases. She got 
 up and trembled so violently that she felt herself 
 sinking away, into an abyss. She rang the bell. 
 The door was open. She heard the maid on the 
 stairs : 
 
 "Truitje"!" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am?" 
 1 Truitje, I'm here ... in Mr. Addie's study." 
 
 "What is it, ma'am?" 
 
 " Call your master ... at once." 
 
 " But how pale you look, ma'am ! What is it, 
 ma'am? " 
 
 " Nothing, Truitje. Call the master at once." 
 
 "Aren't you well?" 
 ' Yes, yes, only call the master." 
 
 The maid went away in dismay; the stairs creaked 
 under her hurried tread. . . . Constance had sunk 
 back into the chair again and sat waiting. Down- 
 stairs the piano sounded, under Paul's fingers, and 
 she followed the tune, Siegmund's Love-song: 
 
 " He plays well, he plays well," she thought. 
 
 She was half-fainting; the white squares still sur- 
 rounded her, because of the three letters, there, on 
 the table. 
 
 She now heard a footstep on the stairs; she fol- 
 lowed the creaking as it came nearer. It was her 
 husband, at last. 
 
 " What's the matter, Constance? " 
 
 Her throat would not allow a word to pass; she 
 merely pointed to the table. 
 
 " Well, what is it? Letters? For Addie? " 
 
 She continued to point. He looked, recognized 
 Guy's hand. He glanced at her; she said nothing. 
 He now opened the letter to " Uncle Henri and 
 Aunt Constance" : 
 
 " Has the boy gone mad? "
 
 264 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 Constance looked up with a question in her eyes. 
 Every kind of thought raced through her, so 
 rapidly that she could not follow them. And yet 
 she seemed to see one thought flash across them 
 slantwise : had three letters from Alex been lying 
 there, from Alex who was always so much obsessed 
 by the vision of terror and blood that had shocked 
 his young imagination, she would have feared the 
 worst. 
 
 Van der Welcke handed her the letter without a 
 word; she read it greedily. Guy wrote briefly, wrote 
 difficult, sincere words of gratitude. Oh, it was not 
 want of gratitude to Uncle Henri and Aunt Con- 
 stance that had made him go without taking leave 
 of all who were dear to him ! He was not ungrate- 
 ful to Addie ! But it was just because under all his 
 cheerfulness he had felt himself quietly growing 
 sad under all their kindness . . . while he found 
 it impossible to go on working. And of course he 
 knew that, if he had said to Addie, " I can't work 
 at books; what I want, very vaguely and I don't 
 know how, is to make my own way," Addie would 
 have let him go, because Addie understood every- 
 body and everything so well. But it was just this, 
 the conversations, the leave-takings, that he feared, 
 because within him there was so much inert weak- 
 ness, because he could never have gone, if he had 
 had to speak, if he had had to take leave; and that 
 was why he was going away like this, with his 
 bicycle and his bit of pocket-money. 
 
 "But the boy's mad!" cried Van der Welcke. 
 " To clear out like this at his age, with no money 
 and just his bicycle ! The boy's mad ! I must tele- 
 graph to Addie at once." 
 
 "He will be out . . . and on his way to us: 
 this is his day for coming down." 
 
 " Which train does he come by? "
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 265 
 
 " The half-past eleven as a rule." 
 
 The girls, Gerdy and Mary, came in, with their 
 hats on: 
 
 " Are you coming, Aunt? The carriage is there." 
 
 ' The carriage? " 
 
 " When we've been for our drive, we can fetch 
 Addie from the station," said Mary. 
 
 Constance burst into sobs. 
 
 " Auntie, Auntie, what's the matter? " 
 
 Van der Welcke left the room, taking the letter 
 for Addie with him: 
 
 " How are we to tell her? " he thought to himself. 
 
 Constance, upstairs, had an attack of nerves. 
 She sobbed as violently, felt as miserable in the 
 depths of her being as if it had been her own child 
 that had left the paternal house . . . for good.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 IN the midst of the sunshine on that summer day a 
 spirit of melancholy descended upon the whole of 
 the big house and set the nerves of all the inmates 
 tingling. Addie had been, had read Guy's letter, 
 had left at once . . . for Rotterdam. Down- 
 stairs, in the morning-room, Adeline sobbed without 
 ceasing; and from the sunlit conservatory the old 
 grandmother stared at her through the vista of the 
 rooms, because she did not understand. . . . Ade- 
 line lay sobbing in Emilie's arms; Marie and Paul 
 were with her too; upstairs, Adeletje and Mary 
 remained with Constance. Brauws appeared at the 
 door: 
 
 "What has happened?" he asked, in a whisper. 
 
 Van der Welcke seized him by the arm, took him 
 into the garden. Klaasje lay half-asleep against the 
 thick trunk of a beech, with Jack nestling in her 
 little skirts, both tired with playing. The child was 
 humming a tune, looking up at the sky, dreaming 
 away amid all the gold that rained down upon her 
 from between the leaves like glittering coins. 
 
 " What has happened? " Brauws asked again. 
 
 But Van der Welcke could not speak; his throat 
 refused to let the words through. 
 
 "Good-morning, Uncle Brauws!" cried Klaasje, 
 dreamily. " Look, Uncle Brauws, I'm very rich. 
 It's raining golden sovereigns over me ... out of 
 the beech-tree, out of the beech-tree ! . . . Out of 
 the beech-tree golden sovereigns are raining over 
 Klaasje ! " she hummed rhythmically. 
 
 266
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 267 
 
 " Hans," asked Brauws, " what's the matter, old 
 fellow?" 
 
 " It's that idiot of a Guy! " said Van der Welcke, 
 at last, hoarsely. " I was looking for him this 
 morning, couldn't find him anywhere. His bicycle 
 was gone. . . . He has cleared out. Fie left three 
 letters behind him: for his mother, for Addie and 
 for us. He writes that he can't work at books, that 
 he wants to try his own way. . . . I've read all 
 the letters. ... He tells Addie . . . that he 
 feels that he must stand alone . . . that he must 
 stand alone if he's to do any good . . . that 
 ... in this house. ..." 
 
 Van der Welcke gave a sob. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " He feels himself growing flabby . . . because 
 there's too much affection, too much leniency for 
 him. . . . That's the sort of thing he writes. . . . 
 Who would have thought the boy was so silly? 
 . . . He writes that he won't do any good . . . 
 if he stays here. . . . That he wants to go and 
 face the world. ... A boy of his age ! . . . 
 The most ridiculous idea I've ever heard of ! . . . 
 1 The boy may be right," said Brauws, very 
 gently. 
 
 But Van der Welcke was not listening: 
 
 " I shall miss him," he confessed. " I miss him 
 now. He was my favourite . . . among them all. 
 He consoled me for the loss of Addie. ... I 
 loved him as my own son; so ... so did Con- 
 stance." 
 
 Brauws was silent. 
 
 " Life is a damned, rotten encumbrance ! " said 
 Van der Welcke, explosively. " We do everything 
 for those children, we do everything for that boy; 
 and, all of a sudden, he goes away . . . instead 
 of ... instead of staying with us, causes us sor-
 
 268 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 row, breaks his poor mother's heart. . . . He 
 writes about America. . . . Addie went straight 
 to the station to make enquiries. He was going on 
 to Rotterdam. Addie . . . Addie never has a 
 moment's peace. . . . He was looking tired as it 
 was, tired and sad; and, instead of having a day's 
 rest . . . with us ... with all of us . . .1 
 wanted to go with him . . . but he said he pre- 
 ferred to go alone. . . . Why not have told 
 Addie . . . that he would rather do something 
 else . . . than go into the Post Office? . . . 
 God, we'd have been glad enough to help him! 
 . . . He Addie does everything . . . does 
 every blessed thing for the children. . . . Oh, 
 Brauws, it's as if a son of my own had run away 
 . . . run away in a fit of madness ! . . . Addie 
 has gone to Rotterdam. It was Addie's idea, Rot- 
 terdam. But Guy can just as well have gone to 
 Antwerp, to Le Havre, to God knows where ! . . . 
 He hadn't much money with him. . . . What will 
 he do, what were his plans? ..." 
 
 The sunny summer day passed gloomily: just a 
 telegram from Addie, " Coming to-morrow," with- 
 out any further explanation. Constance had found 
 the strength to go to Adeline in her room; the girls 
 were overcome with a silent stupefaction, at the 
 thought that Guy, their cheerful Guy, kept so much 
 hidden under his light-heartedness : a deeper dissatis- 
 faction with life, vague and unclear to all of them, 
 who were so happy to be with Uncle Henri and 
 Aunt Constance in what had so long been their 
 family house, since they had been quite small child- 
 ren; and, when Alex arrived in the evening from 
 Amsterdam, he too could not understand why Guy 
 had felt a need so suddenly to go away from all of 
 them, without taking leave, with that queer idea of 
 making his way in the world alone. . . . On the
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 269 
 
 contrary, he Alex valued in the highest degree 
 all that Uncle, Aunt and Addie did for him : without 
 them, he would never have made any headway in 
 the world and he was making headway at last, he 
 thought. He was now working methodically at 
 Amsterdam and almost methodically making his 
 melancholy yield ground: it was as though Addie 
 inspired him with the love of work and the love of 
 life, wooing to life in him the strength to become 
 a normal member of society, oh, he felt it so clearly ! 
 After every talk with Addie he felt it once more, 
 felt strength enough to stay one week in Amster- 
 dam, to work, to live, to see the dreaded life 
 which his father had escaped by suicide come daily 
 closer and closer, nearer and nearer, like a ghostly 
 vista, at first viewed anxiously and darkly, but later 
 entered, walked into, inevitably, until all the ghostli- 
 ness of it was close around him. . . . And, when 
 he thought of his father and always saw him lying, 
 in a pool of blood, with his mother's body flung 
 across the corpse in all the terror of despair, then 
 at the same time he would think of Addie and 
 reflect that life, no doubt, would not be gay but 
 that nevertheless it need not always hark back out 
 of black spectral dread to his youth . . . because 
 Addie spoke of being strong and becoming a man 
 gradually. . . . And Guy had gone, had evaded 
 just that beneficial, strengthening influence of Addie ! 
 . . . No, Alex also could not understand it; and 
 that evening he remained sitting gloomily between 
 his sisters, not knowing what he could say to com- 
 fort his mother. . . . The next day was Sunday; 
 and, if he did not see Addie on Sunday, he knew 
 that the following week would not be a good one 
 for him in Amsterdam, would be a bad, black 
 v/eek. . . . 
 
 And it was only Grandmamma and Ernst and
 
 2 7 o DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 Klaasje who did not feel oppressed by the sombre, 
 sudden, incomprehensible and unexpected event 
 which the others were all trying to understand and 
 explain: to them the summer day had been all sun- 
 light and the gloom had passed unperceived by them. 
 
 Next morning Addie returned. Constance, who 
 was quite unstrung, had been twice and three times 
 to the station in vain. At last she saw him: 
 
 "You didn't find him?" she asked, with con- 
 viction. 
 
 ' Yes, I did." 
 
 "What? You found him? How? How was it 
 possible? " 
 
 " I had an idea that he couldn't go farther than 
 Rotterdam : he hadn't much money on him. I hunted 
 and hunted until I found him." 
 
 " And you haven't brought him back with you ! " 
 
 " No, I let him go." 
 
 'You let him go?" 
 
 "I think it's best: he was very anxious to go. 
 He was angry at my finding him. I talked to him 
 for a long time. He said that he wished to be 
 under no more obligations, fond though he was of 
 us, grateful though he felt. ..." 
 
 Constance, trembling, had taken Addie's arm; 
 they went home on foot; the road lay in a bath of 
 summer under the trees. 
 
 " He spoke sensibly. He had a vague idea of 
 working his passage on a steamer as a sailor or 
 stoker. I took a ticket for him. He will write to 
 us regularly. I told him 'that Mr. Brauws, if he 
 liked, could certainly give him some introductions 
 in New York. He said he would see. He showed 
 a certain decision, as if he were doing violence to 
 something in his own character. It was rather 
 strange. ... I thought that I ought not to compel 
 him to come back. He told me that he was certain
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 271 
 
 of not passing his examination and that this was 
 what got on his mind and upset him, that he 
 couldn't concentrate on his books, that he would now 
 look after himself. . . . There was a boat going 
 to London; I gave him some money. . . . It's 
 better this way, Mamma. Let him stand on his 
 own legs. Here, the way things were going, he 
 might have gone drudging on. ..." 
 
 She wept distractedly : 
 
 " We shall miss him so. ... He was the life 
 of the house. . . . Papa r Papa will miss him 
 badly. . . . Oh, it's terrible! . . . Poor, poor 
 Adeline ! " 
 
 They reached home. 
 
 " Let me speak to Aunt Adeline first." 
 
 " My dear, my dear, make everything right 
 . . . Oh, put it so that Aunt thinks it right and 
 accepts it: you can do everything, dear! " 
 
 " No, Mamma, I can't do everything." 
 
 " You can do everything, you can. What should 
 we have done without you? Now that you have 
 found him and talked to him and made things 
 smooth for him, perhaps everything will be all 
 right for him. If you hadn't found him . . . ! 
 How did you know that he had gone to Rotter- 
 dam?" 
 
 " I felt almost sure of it, Mummie. But I didn't 
 know anything for certain. I might have been mis- 
 taken." 
 
 ' You look so tired." 
 
 " I have had a tiring day." 
 
 " Addie, to people outside, to the family we will 
 say . . ." 
 
 " That he has gone to America ... a sudden 
 idea . . . with introductions from Mr. Brauws." 
 
 " My dear, how can you talk of it so calmly? " 
 
 u Mummie, perhaps it's better as it is . . . for
 
 272 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 him. He was doing no good here. He wasn't 
 working. And he was getting enervated in the 
 midst of all his relations. He has developed a 
 sudden energy; it would be a pity to stifle it. I 
 ... I simply could not bring myself to do that." 
 
 " My boy, do you tell your aunt. Tell Papa, too, 
 tell all of them, tell his sisters and Alex. I ... I 
 can't tell them. I should only cry. I'm going up- 
 stairs, to my room. You'll tell them, won't you? 
 You'll make it appear as if it's all right, as if it's 
 quite natural, as if it's all for the best." 
 
 " Yes, Mummie dear, you go upstairs. I . . ., 
 I'll tell it them, I'll tell all of them. . .. .."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE oppressive, sultry, rainless summer days fol- 
 lowed one after the other; and the night also waited 
 in oppressive expectation of oppressive things, which 
 were to happen and never happened, as though what 
 we expected to happen immediately withdrew and 
 withdrew farther and only hung over houses and 
 people with heavy stormy skies: skies of blazing 
 morning blue, until great grey-white clouds blew up 
 from a mysterious cloudland and drifted past on 
 high; only on the more distant horizons was there 
 any lightning; and that came soundlessly, later in 
 the day; the threat of a thunderstorm drove past; 
 the foliage became scorched in the dust of advancing 
 summer and faded with the approach of decay; and 
 there was, almost, a sort of longing for autumn and 
 for purple death in autumnal storms : a nature, tired 
 with heavy, trailing summer life, that had never 
 finally become anything and was always becoming 
 something, never flashing forth in a bright achieve- 
 ment of summer but dragging her incompleteness 
 from heavy day to heavy day, under the heavy im- 
 mensity of skies, towards the later bursting delights 
 of autumn : heavy wind, heavy rain, followed by the 
 heavy death-struggle and unwillingness to die of 
 that which had never been the glory of the sun and 
 yet left no golden memory behind. . . . 
 
 Often in those oppressive nights Marietje van 
 Saetzema could not get to sleep, or else woke up 
 with a sudden start. She had been dreaming that 
 she was falling down an abyss, or gliding down a 
 staircase, or bumping her head against the ceiling, 
 
 273
 
 274 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 like a giant bluebottle. Then she would get up, 
 draw the curtains and look out at the heavy night 
 of trees, grey with darkness melting into darkness: 
 the road beyond the house was grey, like an ashen 
 path; the oak and beeches showed grey, their leafy 
 tops unruffled by the wind; in the front garden the 
 dust-covered standard roses stood erect as pikes and 
 the roses drooped from them, grey and with the 
 tired, pining attitude of heavy flowers hanging from 
 limp stalks. All was grey and silent: only, in the 
 very far distance, a dog barked. And the bedroom, 
 still dark with the night the nightlight had gone 
 out began to stifle Marietje so much that she softly 
 opened the door and went through the attic, though 
 Addie had forbidden her to wander about like this 
 at night. She went carefully in noiseless slippers, 
 pale in her night-dress, staring wide-eyed into the 
 grey indoor twilight. She passed the doors of the 
 maids' bedrooms and down the first flight of stairs, 
 stepping very lightly, so that the stairs did not 
 creak. Once on the staircase she breathed more 
 freely, with relief at feeling something more spacious 
 than the air of her room, the relief of unfettered 
 movement, although the grey silence wove such 
 strange great cobwebs all around her, through which 
 she walked down the endless passages. She now 
 went past Uncle's door, Aunt's door, Mamma's 
 door, the girls' doors, past Addie's and Mathilde's 
 empty rooms . . . and she felt that she was very 
 much in love with Addie, silently and without desire, 
 and was always thinking' of him, even though she 
 did not always do as he told her, because she simply 
 could not remain in her room and longed even for 
 the out-of-door air, to feel it blowing through the 
 filmy tissues that covered her young body. And, 
 however much without desire, because Addie re- 
 mained to her the utterly unattainable, yet there
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 275 
 
 blossomed up in her a nervous passion like some 
 strange flower or orchid or lily, seen in a waking 
 dream, a blameless girl's dream of love, of soft, 
 wistful lying in each other's arms and feeling the 
 pressure of breast against breast or mouth against 
 mouth and ecstatic thrills through all one's body. 
 . . . Then Marietje would long for Addie, so that 
 he might lay his hand upon her head : no more, that 
 was enough for her, because she was also very fond 
 of him, of his voice and his glance and his speech, 
 of his care, of his sympathy, of everything abstract 
 that came from him to her; she knew that, on his 
 side, it was no more than gentle interest, but it was 
 enough for her : she lived upon little like a bloodless 
 lily, her body and soul needing no excess. She well 
 knew at the moment that she was doing what she 
 should not, wandering like that through the house, 
 half awake, half asleep, because it was so fresh and 
 cool to walk about like that half-naked. The night 
 grew grey with dusk and there were deeper shadows 
 in the corners, but she was not afraid, after she had 
 once talked to Addie about the house and he had 
 explained to her that, if there was anything of the 
 past hovering about it, it could not be malign or 
 angry, but rather well-disposed and on the alert, in 
 case it could be of use. . . . He spoke to nobody 
 but her like this; she knew that and it gave her a 
 deep love for him, especially because he had said 
 it so very simply and without any sort of exaggera- 
 tion, as though it were the very simplest thing that 
 he could have wished to say. . . . Nor did he 
 speak like that often; once or twice at most he had 
 spoken so; but it had reassured her greatly, ever 
 since she had been frightened into fainting on the 
 little staircase, all because of a sudden shadow which 
 she thought that she saw and yet did not know if 
 she really saw. . . .
 
 276 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 She was now going down by that same little back 
 staircase, almost longing to see a shadow and always 
 thinking of Addie; but she saw nothing. White and 
 as though walking in her sleep, she felt her way 
 down the narrow little stairs. They creaked 
 slightly. She next opened a door, leading into the 
 long hall, which was like that of an old castle, so 
 fine with its old wainscoting. The long Deventer 
 carpet was paled by many years' traffic of feet; the 
 front door seemed to vanish in the grey vista; on 
 the oak cabinet the Delft jars gleamed dimly. . . . 
 She walked in a waking dream on her noiseless 
 slippers and now opened the door of the morning- 
 room, all dark, with the blinds down she was very 
 white now in the darkness and could see her own 
 whiteness and she looked through the drawing- 
 room into the conservatory, where Grannie was al- 
 ways accustomed to sit. The conservatory-windows 
 showed faintly like transparent greynesses; and be- 
 hind them, in the dawning light of very early 
 morning, something of the dusk of the garden 
 melted away : in the very early light it was all ash, 
 the conservatory full of fading ash and the garden 
 full of ash. Not an outline was visible as yet; and 
 she gazed and gazed . . . and thought it so 
 strange and yet perhaps not so very strange that 
 such outlines as did stand out in the conservatory 
 against the grey windows were motionless as the 
 outlines of two dark shadows sitting each at a 
 window, as it were an old man and an old woman, 
 looking out at the birth of morning, which very far 
 in the distance gave just a reflexion of paler twi- 
 light. . . . 
 
 Marietje now closed her eyes for an instant, then 
 raised her lids again and stared at the conservatory; 
 and it was always that: the outline of the dark, 
 brooding shadows, so very similar to uncon-
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 277 
 
 sciousness, as if she were looking through atmo- 
 sphere within atmosphere, invisible at other hours 
 than those of the greyness of the ending night and 
 the beginning of the morning melancholy. . . . 
 The two irrealities remained grey against grey; and 
 suddenly Marietje felt very cold and shivered, half 
 naked as she was; and, in her shivering, it seemed 
 to her that, very quickly, the shadows themselves 
 shivered, as with a start of surprise, and disap- 
 peared, because she had dared to stare at them. 
 Nothing was outlined any more against the con- 
 servatory-windows; only the morning between the 
 trees grew paler: there was even a streak of 
 white. . . . 
 
 Marietje was cold. She left the room, forgot to 
 shut the door after her and, going down the passage, 
 made for the little back staircase and here also 
 forgot to shut the door. Up, up she crept, shivering, 
 with the noiseless tread of the soft slippers; across 
 the attic now; and she stole into bed, quite cooled, 
 and, after just thinking about what she had seen 
 dimly outlined perhaps against the grey con- 
 servatory-windows, she fell asleep, peacefully, and 
 dozed until late in the morning, peacefully and like 
 a cold virgin now, with the bedclothes drawn up to 
 her chin.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 ADDIE was out in the afternoon when Mathilde 
 opened Constance' telegram: 
 
 " Please come see Emilie." 
 
 " There's always something," Mathilde grumbled 
 to herself. " Addie is physician-in-ordinary to his 
 relations. When it's not Klaasje, it's Adeletje, or 
 Mary, or Emilie. There's always something. . . . 
 What can be the matter with her now? He's only 
 just been home. Oh, of course, she's always ill in 
 the summer! I expect it's the same as last 
 year. ..." 
 
 She had an angry impulse to tear up the telegram 
 and say nothing to Addie, to tell him later that it 
 must have gone astray. She did not destroy it, 
 however, but laid it on the table where he would 
 see it and then went out to the tennis-club. As a 
 rule, she took the steam-tram l and alighted at the 
 Witte Brug. This time, she ran against Erzeele, 
 with his racket in his hand, in the Bezuidenhout. 
 
 " I was waiting for you," he said. 
 
 " How nice of you ! . . . Let's take the steam- 
 tram." 
 
 "Why not walk?" 
 
 They stepped out, along the Hertenkamp. 
 
 " Is anything the matter? " he asked. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " You look so preoccupied." 
 
 "Oh, it's nothing!" 
 
 1 Running from the Hague to Scheveningen through the 
 Dunes, as opposed to the electric tram running through the 
 Scheveningen Woods. 
 
 278
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 279 
 
 " You're out of humour." 
 
 " Need I say they want Addie again at home ? " 
 
 "Who's ill this time?" 
 
 11 Emilie." 
 
 " Mrs. van Raven? " 
 
 " Yes, she calls herself Mrs. van Naghel now." 
 
 " I know. She's the one who ran away with her 
 brother, years ago." 
 
 " There was rather a scandal about that, wasn't 
 there?" 
 
 " People didn't exactly know. ..." 
 
 " I don't like her. She's ill every summer. Then 
 she becomes funny. And then she has to see my 
 husband of course. Hence the telegram from 
 Mamma." 
 
 " The other day . . . Mrs. van der Welcke 
 saw . . . " 
 
 " Saw what?" 
 
 " That I was holding your hand." 
 
 " What about it? You're a friend. We've known 
 each other for years, since we were quite young. 
 . . . Do you know, Mamma warned me against 
 you . . ." 
 
 "Against me?" 
 
 " She was afraid that ..." 
 
 ; 'What?" 
 
 " You would fall in love with me." 
 
 " I am in love with you." 
 
 " Now, Johan, you're not to say that." 
 
 ' You know I always have been." 
 
 ' You were in love with Gerdy." 
 
 " For a minute only. . . . With you I have al- 
 ways been in love. Long ago. At our Cinderella 
 dances. ... In love? I've always loved you." 
 
 " You must not talk like that. I ... I love 
 my husband."
 
 2 8o DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " Yes, I know you do. But he doesn't make you 
 happy." 
 
 She was silent. She did not wish to go on and 
 say that she felt Addie so far above her, unattained 
 and incomprehensible, that everything was coming 
 to escape her, that her love was escaping her, that 
 she felt herself sinking slowly, slowly, in a vague 
 abyss, that it was only the children who made her 
 find Addie again, every day, for a moment. She 
 was silent. But there were tears in her eyes. Her 
 healthy temperament, now slightly unnerved, had a 
 need of much happiness for itself, even as a healthy 
 plant needs much air and much water and does not 
 know what it means to pine. The melancholy that 
 sometimes overcame her was not native to her. 
 
 " Let's take the tram," she said. " I feel tired." 
 
 " It's better for you to walk," he said. 
 
 His voice was authoritative; and she allowed her- 
 self to be coerced: it was a hot afternoon and she 
 dragged herself along mechanically beside him, both 
 carrying their own rackets. 
 
 " Mamma's quite right, Johan," she said, 
 abruptly. " It won't do for us to see each other so 
 often, for me to talk to you so ... intimately." 
 
 " And why not, if you feel unhappy, if you want 
 to unburden yourself to me? " 
 
 " No, no, it doesn't do. . . . Come, let's take 
 the tram: we shall be too late for our tennis." 
 
 He looked out mechanically for the tram. They 
 were at the corner of the Waalsdorp road; and he 
 said: 
 
 " Look here, walk a little way with me. I don't 
 feel like tennis. Do you? " 
 
 She let herself be dragged along and turned down 
 the lonely, green road. She seemed to surrender 
 feebly to his wishes; and she became aware that she 
 was in a profound state of melancholy, a hesitation
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 281 
 
 of not knowing things, of wavering, of feeling un- 
 happy. 
 
 " Everything could have been so different," she 
 said, almost crying. 
 
 " What do you mean ? When ? " 
 
 "If Addie ..." 
 
 "If he what?" 
 
 " I don't know," she said. " I'm tired of thinking 
 about it. It is not his fault." 
 
 " No, it's your fault." 
 
 " My fault?" 
 
 " Yes ! Nothing would keep you from marrying 
 him. . . . And I loved you." 
 
 'You? But you never asked me! " 
 
 " But you knew that I loved you. Yes, everything 
 could have been different, oh, everything could have 
 been so very different! " 
 
 She suddenly began to cry. 
 
 "Tilly!" 
 
 " Oh," she said, sobbing, " don't let us talk like 
 this! Let's go to the tennis-club." 
 
 " No, no, I don't want to." 
 
 She turned. 
 
 "Tilly ..." 
 
 i " No, I won't go any farther. I'm going to the 
 club. It'll distract me ... to play tennis." 
 
 She turned back; he followed her. 
 ' Tilly, you're so unstrung. If you were a little 
 calmer, I should tell you ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 ' That I can't bear to see you unhappy. Oh, I 
 love you, I love you ! Let us go away ... to- 
 gether." 
 
 "Go away? Where?" 
 
 " With each other. I love you, I love you, I have 
 always loved you." 
 
 She stopped with a start:
 
 282 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 "You're mad!" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 u To suggest such a thing," she said, with a scorn- 
 ful laugh. " You're mad. You think that I . . ." 
 
 ' Want to be unhappy all your life? " 
 
 44 That I should consent to run away with you. 
 I love my husband . . . and my children . . . 
 and you imagine ..." 
 
 4 Yes," he said, " it was mad of me to suggest it. 
 You love your husband, not me. You never allow 
 me anything, not anything." 
 
 "Nothing ... at all?" she asked, scornfully. 
 
 " Nothing . . . that counts," he retorted, 
 hoarsely, roughly. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders : 
 
 " You men always want . . . that. Our happi- 
 ness does not always consist ... of that." 
 
 " No, but ... if you loved me ... en- 
 tirely ..." 
 
 " Johan ! " she cried. 
 
 They crossed the bridge and entered the Woods. 
 
 44 If you ever dare speak to me like that 
 again. ..." 
 
 ' Very well, I won't." 
 
 " But you're always doing it. ... We'd better 
 not see each other at all." 
 
 " Not see each other? " 
 
 44 No." 
 
 " I won't have that," he said. " I won't have that 
 either." 
 
 44 And if I insist?" 
 
 44 Even so." 
 
 44 You don't make me any happier by talking like 
 that; you make me even unhappier than I am." 
 
 " Oh, Tilly, I can't bear to see you unhappy ! 
 .. . . What are we to do, what are we to do?" 
 
 " I don't know," she said, in a dead voice.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 283 
 
 " You don't care for me." 
 
 " Not in that way. Why shouldn't we be 
 friends?" 
 
 " That's nonsense. Friendship between a man 
 and a woman? That's one of those notions which 
 you picked up, I dare say, at Driebergen, among 
 neurotic people. Between a man and a woman 
 there's only . . . yearning. I want you and I am 
 in hell because I haven't got you." 
 
 "Yes, it's always . . . that," she said; and she 
 thought of Addie. 
 
 " Oh, if you would only go with me . . . out of 
 this." 
 
 ' Would that make me happy? " 
 
 " I should live for you entirely. I have a little 
 money ..." 
 
 "That would make me happy, would it? To 
 leave my husband, to leave my children? " 
 
 " Your husband, your children? But I should be 
 there ! " 
 
 'Yes, but ..." 
 
 " You don't care for me." 
 
 " Not like that." 
 
 " All the same, you would become happy. . . . 
 You never found happiness in your husband you 
 say so yourself because you don't understand him. 
 You would understand me." 
 
 She began to cry again : 
 
 " Oh," she said, " don't go on talking like that! " 
 
 " Do you care for me, Tilly, do you care for 
 me?" 
 
 " Yes, Johan, I do care for you." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 She stood still: 
 
 " Listen," she said, looking him straight in the 
 eyes. " I care for you." Her voice sounded loving 
 in spite of herself. " I care for you . . . very
 
 284 E>R. ADRIAAN 
 
 much indeed. At this moment, perhaps even more 
 than for Addie . . . I'm not quite sure. A time 
 may come . . . may come, when I shall care for 
 you even more . . . certainly more than for 
 Addie." 
 
 "Oh," he cried, " but then ..." 
 
 " Don't speak," she said. " Listen to me. What 
 you're asking of me ... I refuse." 
 
 'Why?" 
 
 " Because I am an honest woman. . . . Because 
 I am naturally an honest woman. . . . Because I 
 always mean to be an honest woman. ... I could 
 never do what you ask me to. . . . Because, ,even 
 if I had to say good-bye to my husband, I should 
 never, never be willing to say good-bye to my 
 children." 
 
 ' You love your children better? " 
 
 "Better? I love them in a way which a man 
 like you simply cannot understand." 
 
 'Tilly! Tilly!" 
 
 "Be quiet! . . . There are people coming. 
 ... Be quiet!" 
 
 "Oh, Tilly, what then?" 
 
 " I don't know," she said, dully. " Oh, come 
 along to the club; we'll play some tennis! " 
 
 She quickened her pace ; he followed her, lurching 
 like a drunken man.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 WHEN Addie found the telegram he at once took 
 the train to Driebergen. It was evening when he 
 arrived. 
 
 "What's the matter with Emilie?" he asked his 
 mother. 
 
 " She's crying all day long," said Constance. 
 " It's just like last year." 
 
 He went straight upstairs to Emilie's room and 
 found her sobbing, sobbing in Adeline's arms. 
 
 " I'm at my wits' ends what to do with her," said 
 Adeline. 
 
 " Leave me alone with her for a moment, Aunt," 
 whispered Addie. " Here," feeling in his pocket, 
 " here's a letter from Guy, posted in New York. 
 You'll see that he has found work, thanks to Mr. 
 Brauws' introduction." 
 
 Adeline left the room; Emilie went on sobbing. 
 She flung herself on the floor, with her face against 
 a chair and her hair dishevelled, her thin hands 
 grasping the chair. 
 
 " Addie !" she cried. "Addie! Is that you?" 
 
 ;' Yes, Emilie." 
 
 " Oh, it's suffocating me, it's suffocating me ! 
 . . . Let me tell you about it! . . ." 
 
 He sat down and she came to him with the move- 
 ment of an animal creeping towards him. She stam- 
 mered incoherent words, but he understood them: 
 he knew the words of old; he knew what she was 
 saying: it had been the same thing last year and 
 the year before. At the beginning of each summer 
 there was some fit of madness which mastered her, 
 
 285
 
 286 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 a fit in which she lived all over again through things 
 that had happened in the years long ago. Oh, it 
 was a terrible secret which she always carried about 
 with her, which no one knew, which no one had ever 
 known! In the dark room, with the closed sun- 
 blinds, the secret stifled her and had to be told, 
 because it stifled her in her heart and throat. 
 
 " I must tell it you, Addie. ... It was during 
 those last days, those terrible days in Paris. Eduard, 
 my- husband, was in Paris and . . . and he had 
 been threatening me. . . . You remember, you 
 must remember : I told you as much as that, didn't 
 I? ... He had come to look for me in Paris. 
 He hated me ... and he hated, oh, how he hated 
 Henri ! . . . Henri, my poor brother, my brother ! 
 . . . Addie, Addie, let me tell you everything! 
 . . . Whatever people may have thought, what- 
 ever people may have said, none of it's true, it's all 
 false! He was my brother, my own brother; and 
 I loved him as a brother, though perhaps too much; 
 and he loved me as a sister, though perhaps too 
 much. . . . Oh, people are so wicked, so utterly 
 wicked! They thought, they said ... As for 
 me, I would never speak. Oh, Addie, your parents 
 and you, your kindest and dearest of parents, never 
 asked me a question, but took me to live with them 
 in their house, which has become my sanctuary, where 
 I can lead my cloistered life ! Oh, Addie, I shall 
 be grateful for ever and ever to your dear parents 
 . . . and to you ! They never asked me anything, 
 they have been like father and mother to me ; I have 
 been able to live under their roof, though my life 
 has been nothing but remorse and pain. . . . Oh, 
 Addie, let me tell you everything! . . . Henri 
 was a clown in a circus you know about that 
 and I, I made money by painting. We lived . . . 
 we lived together; we were both of us happy; then
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 287 
 
 Eduard came. . . . Oh, he was like an evil spirit! 
 Oh, when I dream of him now, I dream of a devil ! 
 Addie, Eduard came ! . . . And it was he ... 
 it was he . . ." 
 
 " I know, Emilie, I know." 
 
 The words burst from her in a scream : 
 
 " It was he ... he ... he ... who mur- 
 dered Henri 1 " 
 
 " Hush, Emilie." 
 
 " Oh, I can't keep silent, I can't keep silent for 
 ever; it chokes me, it chokes me, here! " 
 
 She uttered loud, hysterical cries, twisting her- 
 self against the chair; her eyes stared distractedly 
 out of her face; her hair hung loose about her 
 cheeks; her features were pale and distorted. 
 
 " It was after an evening when he had been play- 
 ing in the circus . . . and Eduard . . . Ed- 
 uard ..." 
 
 " I know, I know. . . . Hush, Emilie ! " 
 
 " He waited for him ... in the passage in 
 front of the house where we lived . . . and . . . 
 and he called him names . . . they quarrelled. 
 . . . Then . . . then he stabbed him . . . 
 with a knife !" 
 
 " Hush, Emilie, hush ! " 
 
 But she screamed it out: her screeches rang 
 through the room. She wriggled like a madwoman 
 against his knees; he stroked her dishevelled hair, 
 to quiet her. 
 
 " Oh, your parents, your dear parents, Addie : 
 they never asked me anything! . . . They came 
 and fetched me : oh, Addie, that journey home, with 
 his coffin between us, oh, those formalities at the 
 frontiers! . . . Oh, Addie, your dear parents: 
 they saved me : I was mad, I was mad, I was mad at 
 that time! Now it's all coming back to me; I can't 
 keep it to myself any longer! . . . You see, he
 
 288 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 waited for him, they began quarrelling about me 
 and . . . suddenly they were like two wild ani- 
 mals ! Henri rushed at him . . . and then 
 Eduard stabbed him with his knife !' The villain, 
 the villain! He has been missing since then; I have 
 never seen him again; only at night, at night I see 
 him iuith his knife! Oh, Addie, Addie, help me ! " 
 
 He gripped her by the arms with all his might 
 and sought to control her; but she resisted. She 
 was like a madwoman; in the sultry summer heat she 
 was overmastered by the day-long vision that loomed 
 up regularly with the first balmy warmth of spring. 
 She was like a madwoman; she saw everything before 
 her eyes; she lived the past over again. 
 
 " Nobody has ever known, Addie, except you, 
 except you ! " 
 
 " Hush, Emilie, hush ! " 
 
 He tried to look into her eyes, but they avoided 
 his. She twisted and turned as though she were in 
 the grasp of a ravisher; she dragged herself along 
 the floor, while his hand held her arms. Suddenly 
 his eyes met hers and he held and pierced them 
 deeply with his grey-blue glance. She fell back help- 
 lessly against a chair; her features, now relaxed, 
 hung slackly, like an old woman's; her lips drooped. 
 She lay huddled and moaning, with a monotonous 
 moan of pain. Then she began to shake her head, 
 up and down, up and down, grating the back of her 
 head against the chair. 
 
 " Get up, Emilie." 
 
 She obeyed, let him help her up, hung like a rag 
 in his hands. She fell back on her bed, with her 
 eyes closed; and he rang the bell. It was Constance 
 who entered. 
 
 "We will undress her now, Mamma; she's much 
 quieter. I'll ring for Aunt Adeline to help you." 
 
 He rang again and asked Truitje to go for Mrs.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 289 
 
 van Lowe. But, as soon as Emilie felt the touch of 
 Constance' fingers, she began to moan anew and 
 opened her eyes : 
 
 " Oh, Auntie, Auntie, you're a dear, you're a 
 dear ! You never, never asked me ! " 
 
 " Perhaps it will be better to leave her now, 
 Mamma," whispered Addie. 
 
 Constance left the room, promising to remain 
 within call with Adeline. 
 
 Emilie lay on the bed, her eyes staring straight 
 before her, as though she still beheld all the horror 
 of the past; and she went on moaning in fear and 
 pain: 
 
 " Addie, Addie, it was Eduard ... it was 
 Eduard who murdered Henri. . . . Oh, nobody 
 knows, nobody knows! . . . Uncle and Aunt 
 never asked me. . . . People at the Hague say 
 that it was I who made Eduard unhappy, that that 
 is why he has gone away, disappeared. . . . Per- 
 haps I did, perhaps I did make him unhappy. . . . 
 I don't know, I don't know. . . . You see, I didn't 
 know what I was doing when I married Eduard. I 
 thought ... I thought it would be all right, I 
 thought I cared for him . . . Ssh, Addie, don't 
 tell anybody, but I cared for Henri, for my brother, 
 only. I swear, it was all quite beautiful what he 
 and I felt for each other; there was never anything 
 between us, never anything to be ashamed of ! . . . 
 But my life, Addie, my poor life, oh, my poor little 
 life was quite wrecked, because I did not know, 
 because I felt so strangely, because I fought against 
 the common things of life, against my marriage, 
 against my husband, and because all that was 
 stronger than what I tried to do, what I my- 
 self did not really know, nor Henri, nor Henri 
 either! ..." 
 
 The heart-broken lamentation over her life
 
 290 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 moaned away in plaintive words and it was as 
 though, after uttering herself, she sank into a dull 
 vacancy, with her eyes wide open, staring through 
 the room, as if she still saw all the things of the 
 past but as if they were now vanishing after she had 
 uttered herself. And it was the same every year: 
 each time spring came round, the same strange, 
 mysterious force compelled her to tell it, to tell it 
 right out, to tell all the sad secret of her piteous 
 wreck and failure of a woman's life, she a very 
 small soul, crushed under too great a tragedy, under 
 too great an affliction, something too strange, which 
 had crushed her and yet not crushed her to death. 
 She lived on, she had lived on for years, living her 
 life devoid of all interest and yet still young; bonds 
 seemed still to bind her body and soul to life; and 
 there was nothing left for her except the pity of 
 those who surrounded her and a dull resignation, 
 which only once, in each year, as though roused by 
 the warm torrents of spring or summer, burst forth 
 into a thunder of storm. ... It gathered, it gath- 
 ered, she felt it threatening days beforehand, as 
 though it were bursting within her brain; during 
 those sleepless nights she lay with her head clasped 
 in her hands; and it gathered, it gathered: a fit of 
 nerves, a violent attack of nerves; and she called for 
 Addie, the only one who knew; and she told him, 
 she told it him again; and, after she had told it 
 and had fallen asleep under his eyes, she woke a 
 little calmer. Then, after days, after long, slow 
 days, her quivering nerves became restful; she sur- 
 rendered herself; and that dull resignation wove 
 itself round her again, the summer beat hot and 
 sultry upon her, the slow course of the monotonous 
 days dragged her on and on. Nobody talked of it 
 all; and then, one evening, in the garden, she found 
 herself recovered, feeling strange and resigned, limp
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 291 
 
 her hands, limp her arms, with poor Aunt Adeline 
 beside her, quite cheered and receiving a short letter 
 from Guy, while the girls and Aunt Constance put 
 Grannie to bed and then Klaasje, that great big girl, 
 who still always insisted on being taken to bed . . . 
 and while Uncle Ernst wandered round the pond, 
 talking to himself . . . and while Paul had not 
 shown himself for three days, locking himself in his 
 room, in the villa over there, lower down. . . . 
 
 That was how she recovered, as if waking from 
 a hideous dream; that was how she came to herself, 
 in the evening, sitting in the garden with Aunt 
 Adeline, reading and rereading Guy's letter, beside 
 her. And a little further away sat Mr. Brauws and 
 Uncle Henri : Uncle Henri who could not get used 
 to Guy's absence . . . and who fretted over it 
 sometimes, with the tears standing wet in his eyes.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 ADDIE returned to the Hague that evening; and 
 seldom had he felt so heavy and listless, as if he 
 knew nothing for himself. No, he knew nothing, 
 nothing more for his poor self, as if he, as he grew 
 older, daily lost more and more of the knowledge 
 that is sacredly imparted for a man's own soul, like 
 a far-lighting lamp casts its rays over the paths of 
 his own destiny that lie dimly in the future. . . . 
 Though he knew for others so often and so surely, 
 for himself he knew nothing nowadays, nothing. 
 Once he had known himself to be a dual personality; 
 to-day he no longer knew which of the two he was. 
 He felt like a prematurely old and decrepit young 
 man, prematurely old and decrepit because life had 
 become serious for him too early and opened out to 
 him too early, so that he had fathomed it through 
 and through: prematurely old and decrepit because 
 his own life later had not trembled in the pure 
 balance of his own twin forces of soul. He had felt 
 fettered to the one; and it drew him down, while 
 the other had not the power to lift him up to the 
 height of pure self-realization. . . . 
 
 He walked home from the station, late in the 
 evening. He dragged himself along, his step was 
 heavy and slow; over the' dark masses of the Wood 
 hung a sultry, pearl-grey summer night; the houses 
 in the Bezuidenhout faded away white in the evening 
 silence. Light rain-clouds dreamed in the sky: it 
 would doubtless rain to-morrow; and far behind 
 them lurked the threatening summer storm. For 
 the present the evening sombreness drifted on as 
 
 292
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 293 
 
 though in hushed expectation. Everything was still : 
 the trees, the houses, the clouds. There was hardly 
 anyone about; a last tram came rumbling out of 
 the distance, from Scheveningen ; and its bell seemed 
 to ring through the space of the evening, very far 
 behind him. 
 
 He walked on, dragged himself along past the 
 houses. He was tired out, as he was every time 
 that he practised hypnotism; in addition to this, it 
 always broke his heart to leave Driebergen. How 
 united he was with everybody and everything there ! 
 The house was his father's and his; the family was 
 his mother's and his. As the child of his two parents, 
 he felt at home there, in that great sombre house. 
 But he no longer lived there, no longer worked 
 there. In the crudely-bright, small, motley-painted 
 house towards which he was wending, his wife 
 awaited him; and he would find his children. 
 
 Healthy children, a healthy wife : he had all that. 
 What he had longed for, in his anxiety at what he 
 saw in his mother's family, he now possessed: a 
 healthy wife and healthy children. How they both 
 of them loved the children; how united they were, 
 where the children were concerned! All their dif- 
 ference arose from a spiritual misunderstanding, be- 
 cause at first they had not known. . . . Know? 
 Did he know now? Did he know that he ought 
 never to have taken a wife like Mathilde? Did he 
 not know that it was his fault? 
 
 There was nothing else for him to do than to 
 continue the sacrifice, all his life long; but the 
 sacrifice was very heavy: living and working in con- 
 tradiction to his impulses, in a sphere that was not 
 his. It was this that made him ill and prematurely 
 old. He saw no future before him. The sacrifice 
 was killing something deep down in himself. 
 
 He felt a sudden rebellion: it was not a man's
 
 294 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 business to sacrifice himself like that. What was 
 done was done. Mathilde must accommodate her- 
 self somehow. He would tell her that it wouldn't 
 do, that the Hague was killing him, that he must 
 go back to the house out there, to the village, to the 
 district where he was of use and able to work. She 
 would have to go with him. 
 
 But he saw her, as a sacrificial victim, offered up 
 for a faith which she did not share, because of his 
 mistake in life. No, no, he could never do it, could 
 never tell her that the Hague was killing him, that 
 she must accommodate herself and make the best of 
 things. It was for him, for him to make the best 
 of things: if he wished to remain in any sense just, 
 he must continue to sacrifice himself, though it wore 
 him to death. 
 
 How sombre and joyless it all was! How grey 
 it all was, far and wide around him, like the very 
 night that hung pearl-white close by and, farther 
 away, dug itself into abysses of threatening dark- 
 ness! 
 
 As he drew nearer home, his feet lagged more 
 heavily. And suddenly, before turning down the 
 street in which he lived, he dropped on to a bench 
 and remained sitting as though paralyzed, with his 
 head in his hand. 
 
 How hard and heavy it was for him, to have to go 
 back like that to his own house ! Oh, to remain 
 sitting, just sitting like that until he had attained 
 certain knowledge ! He closed his eyes. 
 
 He felt himself conquered, overcome. . . . Sud- 
 denly, as in a dream, voices struck upon his ear; 
 and he seemed to recognize the voices. He rose 
 mechanically and, past the houses, along the silent 
 pavement, saw approaching the dark figures of two 
 people walking slowly, a man and a woman. Their 
 voices sounded clearly, though he could not catch
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 295 
 
 the words; he recognized the leisurely forms. It 
 was Johan Erzeele and Mathilde. 
 
 They did not see him. They walked on very 
 slowly and Addie followed behind them. Johan 
 seemed to be persistently pleading, Mathilde seemed 
 to be refusing something. Addie's heart beat fear- 
 fully as he followed after them; and a jealousy sud- 
 denly flared up amid his dull dejection. Was she 
 not his wife, was she not his wife ? And why, lately, 
 was she always looking for Johan and he for her? 
 Was it not always so: always these tennis-parties 
 together, always meeting at friends' houses where 
 he, Addie, never went? . . . Where were they 
 coming from now? Where had they been? Was he 
 bringing her home? How intimate their conversa- 
 tion sounded, how sad almost! Had they grown 
 fond of each other, in a dangerous increasing friend- 
 ship? 
 
 He followed them unobserved, almost glad to 
 have surprised them, suspicious in his jealous grief. 
 Did not he still love his wife, notwithstanding their 
 deep-seated differences? . . . He slackened his 
 pace and followed very slowly. . . . After his first 
 access of jealousy, he seemed rather to feel a certain 
 curiosity to observe in silence, to make a diagnosis. 
 His nature got the upper hand of him, the nature 
 of one who is born to heal and who, before healing, 
 diagnoses the disease. Yes, jealousy still smouldered 
 within him; but he felt even more distinctly the 
 craving for knowledge. Did he not still love Ma- 
 thilde? . . . Ah, but was she indispensable to his 
 life? 
 
 That suddenly became clear to him : indispensable 
 to his life she was not. . . . His children, yes: 
 they belonged to all of them, to all of them yonder, 
 in the old house, the old family-house. She, his 
 wife, did not. His children were indispensable to
 
 296 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 his life: he felt that clearly. Mathilde, Mathilde 
 was not. For Mathilde, as he now walked behind 
 her and Johan, he felt only the curiosity to analyze 
 and classify the nature of the disease, nothing but 
 that. Even the jealousy died away in him, the child 
 of his jealous parents. . . . He continued to 
 follow them. He saw Erzeele put his arm through 
 Mathilde's. 
 
 He now quickened his pace slightly. His heels 
 rang on the pavement through the night air, regu- 
 larly, faster than before. The two in front looked 
 round. They gave a start. He caught them up : 
 
 "I seemed to recognize you ... in the dis- 
 tance," he said, calmly and naturally, while they 
 were unable to speak and Erzeele withdrew his arm. 
 " I have come from the station." 
 
 " I didn't expect you till to-morrow," said Ma- 
 thilde, faintly, in spite of herself. 
 
 " I finished earlier. Emilie is much more peace- 
 ful. . . . How are the children? " 
 
 " All right." 
 
 ' Where have you been this evening? " 
 
 " I went and had tea at Johan's sister's. . . . 
 Johan was seeing me home." 
 
 " But now that Van der Welcke's here ... to 
 see you home ..." said Erzeele. 
 
 " Not at all," replied Addie. " Come a little way 
 farther." 
 
 They walked on, Mathilde between the two men. 
 Addie talked conventionally. They hardly an- 
 swered. Meanwhile he observed them. His curi- 
 osity roused him, gave him a sudden new interest, 
 as though he was treating a case of serious illness. 
 
 " I'll say good-bye here," said Erzeele, as they 
 turned down the side-street. 
 
 They both shook hands with him and walked 
 home more silently, suddenly dragging their feet.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 297 
 
 Addie felt in his pocket for the key: 
 
 " It's late," he said, mechanically. 
 
 " Getting on for twelve," replied Mathilde, dully. 
 
 He saw that her eyes were red with weeping. 
 He said nothing. They went upstairs without 
 speaking. On reaching the nursery, they both crept 
 in for a moment on tip-toe and looked into the little 
 cots. The nurse was sleeping in the next room, with 
 the door open between. They exchanged a smile, 
 because the babies were sleeping so prettily. Then 
 they went to Mathilde's bedroom. Once they had 
 crossed the threshold, it seemed to him as if they 
 were strangers. 
 
 " I'm tired," said Mathilde. 
 
 " So am I," said Addie. 
 
 He kissed her, left her and went to his own bed- 
 room. Through the closed door he could follow 
 her movements, heard her undressing, heard the 
 rustle of her clothes. He sank into a chair and 
 stared in front of him : 
 
 " I know," he thought, with his eyes very wide. 
 " She loves him and he loves her. I . . . I no 
 longer love her. . . . She has never been indis- 
 pensable to my existence. ... I made a mistake. 
 I did not know for myself. ..." 
 
 He did not sleep that night. Next morning early 
 he said to Mathilde : 
 
 " Tilly, I want to talk to you." 
 
 "What about?" 
 
 " About ourselves." 
 
 She raised her eyebrows impatiently: 
 
 "What for?" she asked. "We have had that 
 sort of talk so often. It leads to nothing. It tires 
 me." 
 
 ' Yes, you're looking tired . . . and ill. You're 
 not happy." 
 
 " Oh, never mind my happiness ! "
 
 298 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " But what else did we come here for, Tilly, except 
 your happiness? " 
 
 " That's true," she said, without interest. " You 
 did it for my sake. It was nice of you." 
 
 " But it did no good." 
 
 " No, it did no good. And it would be bet- 
 ter . . ." 
 'What?" 
 
 " For you to go back to Driebergen, Addie." 
 
 " I agree," he said, gently. 
 
 She started: 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " I was thinking the same thing." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " That I ought to go back to Driebergen." 
 
 She looked at him in surprise : 
 
 "And I? "she asked. 
 
 " You remain here . . . with the children." 
 
 " I don't understand." 
 
 " You stay in the Hague . . . you and the 
 children." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " I'll go down there." 
 
 " I don't understand," she repeated. 
 
 " I mean what I say, Tilly," he said. " It is 
 better ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " That we should separate." 
 
 "Separate?" 
 
 " Perhaps. For a longer or shorter period." 
 
 She stared at him: 
 
 " Do you want a divorce? " 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 She continued to stare at him and choked down 
 her tears: 
 
 " Addie, do you no longer love me ? " 
 
 " No," he said, gently.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 299 
 
 She looked deep in his eyes, affronted : 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " That I don't love you, any longer, enough to" 
 live with you. I beg your pardon, Tilly, if I have 
 spoilt your life, if I have shattered your life. I 
 have spoilt and shattered it. I beg your pardon 
 ... if you can forgive me." 
 
 " Only a little while ago . . . you told me that 
 you cared for me." 
 
 " I thought so at the time ... It seemed to 
 mean so much to me." 
 
 "And now?" 
 
 " Now I don't" 
 
 She rebelled with injured pride : 
 
 " Then why did you ask me to marry you ? " 
 
 " Yes, that was just it." 
 
 "Just what?" 
 
 " The mistake. . . . Tell me, do you still love 
 me?" 
 
 " No," she said, proudly. 
 
 " So you see: it's better ..." 
 
 " That we should be divorced." 
 
 " Don't you think so yourself? " 
 
 " And the children? " she asked. 
 
 " That's my punishment," he said, gently. " They 
 will remain with you." 
 
 " You entrust them to me ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " Addle 1 " she cried, with a sob. 
 
 ' You still love me a little, Tilly ..." 
 
 She only sobbed. 
 
 " But not so much as you did," he assured her. 
 " You are in love with Erzeele." 
 
 "Erzeele?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 11 He is a friend." 
 
 " He may become more . . . later," he forced
 
 300 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 himself to say, uncleansed as yet of jealousy, be- 
 cause she was still his wife. 
 
 " Addie," she said, " I am to blame. If I could 
 only have got accustomed to things, like all of 
 you, at Driebergen ... I should have been 
 happy." 
 
 " Yes, but it is not your fault that you couldn't." 
 
 " I don't want a divorce," she said. 
 
 'Why not?" 
 
 " For my sake . . . and the children's." 
 
 'The children's?" 
 
 " For their sake especially. No, Addie, I don't 
 want it. Unless ..." 
 
 'What?" 
 
 " Unless you want it ... for your own sake, 
 to be free, to marry somebody else." 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then I don't want it either. If you assure 
 me . . ." 
 
 " I do assure you." 
 
 " Then I don't want it either." 
 
 "AndErzeele?" 
 
 " No," she said, shaking her head. " It's not as 
 people say." 
 
 "What do they say?" 
 
 ' That he is my lover. He's not that." 
 
 " I never supposed he was." 
 
 " I value his friendship . . . but I could not be 
 his wife." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because I am your wife." 
 
 "Do you feel that?" 
 
 " Always." 
 
 " My poor child ! " he said, in spite of himself. 
 
 ' Why do you pity me? " she asked, proudly. 
 
 " Because I have done you a wrong. Because I 
 am unable to atone."
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 301 
 
 " You have done me no wrong. We loved each 
 other very much . . . then. At that time . . . 
 I thought I understood you. Now I no longer 
 understand you. You breathe too rarefied an air 
 for me." 
 
 "No, it isn't that. But ..." 
 
 " What? " 
 
 " Nothing. So, Tilly, you don't want us to be 
 divorced." 
 
 She looked at him anxiously : 
 
 " No," she entreated. 
 
 " Well, dear, then we won't be," he said, gently. 
 " Only . . . our present life . . . is no life at 
 all. So it will be better if . . ." 
 
 "If what?" 
 
 " If I don't stay with you, if I go away." 
 
 "And I?" 
 
 " You remain here, in this house, where every- 
 thing is as you like it. You stay . . . with our 
 children." 
 
 " Our . . . our children," she stammered. 
 
 "Perhaps later ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Because of our children, we shall come together 
 again . . . when all misunderstanding has disap- 
 peared." 
 
 ;' I don't follow you." 
 
 " Perhaps you will later. But perhaps also 
 . . . you will become so fond of Erzeele . . . 
 that . 
 
 She shook her head, stared before her. 
 
 ' We never know," said Addie, gently. 
 
 " No," she said, pensively. " I know nothing 
 . . . nothing now. I used to think . . . that 
 you knew everything." 
 
 " I do sometimes know things . . . for others. 
 I have not known for myself."
 
 302 DR. ADklAAN 
 
 " And now?" 
 
 " Now I know better . . . for you." 
 
 " For me?" 
 
 " Yes, now I know, Tilly . . . that it is better 
 for you . . . that I should leave you ..." 
 
 "For good?" 
 
 " Perhaps. Perhaps for a long time . . . 
 only ..." 
 
 "And the children? Won't you be longing for 
 them?" 
 
 It was more than he could bear; and he said 
 nothing, only nodded yes. Then he said : 
 
 " But they will be all right . . . with you, 
 Tilly." 
 
 It was more than she could bear either. She fell 
 into a chair, sobbing. 
 
 " Don't be unhappy, Tilly," he said. " We must 
 make a change. If we remain as we are, we shall 
 end by hating each other. . . . Don't be unhappy 
 about parting . . . when you reflect . . . that 
 it is really out of the question for us to remain 
 together." 
 
 4 You are right," she said, coldly. "So. . ." 
 
 * You will stay here. You will live here. That 
 is, if you like." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "I? I shall go home." 
 
 She felt her jealousy of all of them, out there : 
 
 ' Yes," he said, gently. 
 
 " If you don't love me," she burst out, " they will 
 not need to console you long." 
 
 " I shall feel regret . . . because I have spoilt 
 your life . . . and because I sha'n't see the child- 
 ren any more." 
 
 " Spoilt my life? " she said, proudly. " You have 
 not done that." 
 
 He did not answer.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 303 
 
 "The children?" she continued. "Why should 
 you not see them . . . when you want to? " 
 
 " Would you allow that? " 
 
 "Allow it? They are your children. I have 
 nothing to say in the matter. In fact ..." 
 
 "In fact?" 
 
 " I should not think it right ... if you did not 
 see them often." 
 
 " Then I shall come." 
 
 " Of course. . . . But to go on living here 
 . . . would be too expensive." 
 
 " No, not at all. I ... I shall want nothing 
 . . . out there. Whatever I make is yours." 
 
 " I can't accept it." 
 
 " Yes, you can . . . for the children. It's 
 better, Tilly, that everything should remain as it is." 
 
 " Very well," she consented. " Only, Addie 
 . . . it's not a solution." 
 
 " There can be no solution . . . until you know 
 that you care enough for Johan Erzeele ..." 
 
 "No, no, I don't!" 
 
 " That you care enough for Johan Erzeele 
 to . . ."' 
 
 " I don't know, I don't know . . . and I refuse 
 to discuss it." 
 
 " I understand that, Tilly. Then . . . there 
 can be no solution yet, can there? We know no- 
 thing about a solution. I am simply giving you back 
 your life, as far as I can, and you are doing the 
 same to me. Later we will see what happens. It 
 will all come of itself. What do we know? We 
 know nothing . . . for ourselves. Knowledge will 
 all come of itself. Do you understand? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " You will, later. . . . You will live here, with 
 the children; you will see me hardly at all. I shall 
 not see the children for a time. It will be as though
 
 3 o 4 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 I were on a journey. They are so small : oh, I hope 
 that they won't miss me and that, when they do see 
 me again, they will know me! . . .So you will 
 be alone . . . with the children ... It may be 
 that you will want me back then, that the former 
 love will return. ... In my case too, perhaps. 
 . . . We shall see. It will ... it will all come 
 of itself and we ... we know nothing. . . . 
 Perhaps, in years to come, we shall be living 
 quietly together again . . . with the children. Or 
 else ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Or else you will be far away from me . . . 
 and will have found your happiness with another." 
 
 She put her hands before her eyes : 
 
 " I don't see it. ... I don't know. ..." 
 
 " Now you are being honest. No, you don't 
 know if you will come to care so much as that for 
 Johan. . . . And I ... I will be honest too! 
 I don't know if I shall ever care for you again. 
 . . . But we must wait, Tilly; and the best thing 
 therefore is to leave each other and . . . and not 
 to talk to each other again until it has come of itself 
 and until we know. . . . You will not be alone in 
 the world; for, if ever I can do anything for you, 
 I will come to you. I shall never forget you." 
 
 " Yes, perhaps that will be best," she said, in a 
 dead voice. " I shall try to look at it like that . . . 
 and to live alone . . . with the children. I shall 
 not see Johan again." 
 
 " No, no, on the contrary: you must see him." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " So as to know. You will never be weak." 
 
 ' No, I shall never be that." 
 
 ' You know how he feels towards you." 
 
 " How do you know? " 
 
 " I know you do. . . . You know what he feels
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 305 
 
 for you. But you do not know what you feel for 
 him." 
 
 "Addiel Oh, Addie!" 
 
 " Don't deny it. Be honest. These are the last 
 words, perhaps, that we shall exchange for quite a 
 long time. I am going away now." 
 
 "Now?" 
 
 " Yes. . . . Write to me when there's any oc- 
 casion." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " Good-bye, Tilly." 
 
 She was silent, sat staring before her, with her 
 hands clasped over her knees. No, she did not 
 understand him, but she could not act otherwise than 
 he wished. 
 
 He was gone; and suddenly she felt very lonely. 
 She heard him upstairs packing, rummaging in his 
 cupboards. 
 
 And she began to reflect, sadly: 
 
 " He acts differently and speaks differently from 
 anybody else. Divorced? Oh, no, I don't want 
 that . . . if he doesn't want it for himself ! . . . 
 I ... at least . . . not yet. . . . No, no, nor 
 ever. . . . Oh, I don't know, I don't know ! . . . 
 I am fond of Johan. . . . If I were free now, if 
 I were a girl still. . . . But Addie, the children. 
 ... I don't know, I don't know. . . . That 
 was why Addie thought it would be well . . . for 
 us not to see each other . . . for a time. How 
 he will miss the children! . . . Oh dear, is he 
 really, really going? Yes, I hear him upstairs . . . 
 packing. . . . What will people say? Not that it 
 matters. We can say that he has to read, quietly, 
 out there ... at Driebergen. . . . We can tell 
 people something of the kind . . . even if they do 
 understand. ... I simply can't go back to Drie- 
 bergen. . . . Oh, how will it work out, how will
 
 306 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 it all work out? That is just what Addle doesn't 
 know either. . . . Do I? No, Heaven help me, 
 I don't know any more than he does! ... I am 
 fond of Johan: shall I grow fonder of him, now 
 that I am less fond of Addie ? I don't know, I don't 
 know. . . . Oh, if only I hadn't my children! 
 . . . As it is, I could wish, my God, how I could 
 wish, for his sake and the children's, that I knew 
 how to be happy at Driebergen, in that house of 
 theirs, with all of them, and that I could go 
 back to it! Shall I ever go back to it? . . . 
 Shall I be Johan's wife one day, after all? 
 . . . Oh, it is all so dark and uncertain! . . . 
 Addie says a solution will come of itself. . . . 
 We know nothing, he says. . . . Must I let it 
 come as it will? . . . But how will it come? 
 . . . Oh, even Addie, who is so wise, can find no 
 solution! . . . There is ... there is no solu- 
 tion yet ! . . . Will there ever be one ? . . . Oh, 
 if I could go back ... to the house down there ! 
 . . . Should I ever be able to? Perhaps years 
 hence ! Perhaps never ! Who can tell ? . . .Is 
 Johan . . . really fond of me ? Not only because 
 he admires me . . . not only for that? . . . Oh, 
 that was the only reason why Addie loved me! 
 ... I know it now, I know it: that was his one 
 idea, to have healthy children. . . . Now we are 
 parted: parted for ever? ... Or shall we come 
 together again one day? Shall we ever become hus- 
 band and wife again ... or not? ... I do 
 care for Johan. He is so matter-of-fact, so simple : 
 I should have become very happy and simple with 
 him, without all this thinking about things which 
 I can't grasp or feel . . . and which came haunt- 
 ing me down there, at Driebergen, gradually. . . . 
 Oh, if I could only force myself to live there again ! 
 i. . . But perhaps I never can! Perhaps, in three
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 307 
 
 or four years' time, I shall be Johan's wife . . . 
 and have to give up the children, the poor children, 
 toAddie! ..." 
 
 Now she sobbed, because she did not know. The 
 days and months would drift past slowly and slowly 
 before she knew. . . . 
 
 There is a sacred knowledge for ourselves, a 
 knowledge so sacred that we know it only . . . 
 when the future is here. . .
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THE months drifted by. 
 
 " It is strange," said Brauws, " that we haven't 
 heard from Addie lately." 
 
 " How long is it since we did? " asked Constance, 
 vaguely. 
 
 " Nearly a week." 
 
 " Yes, it must be close upon a week." 
 
 " His last letters were brighter." 
 
 " Do you think the travelling is doing him good? " 
 
 " He doesn't travel as another man would. In 
 the three months that he has been away ..." 
 
 " Yes, he will have learnt a good deal that will 
 be useful to him ... in his profession." 
 
 " His letters were cheerful." 
 
 " I'm longing badly to see him again. . ; ., . 
 Listen to the wind ! " 
 
 ' That's the autumn coming." 
 
 " The summer is past. This is our typical 
 weather. Look, here, out of my window, you can 
 see the clouds coming up over the moor as you never 
 do downstairs, because the trees in the garden hide 
 all the view." 
 
 " Up here it reminds me sometimes of the Hague, 
 in the Kerkhoflaan." 
 
 " But it's wider, wider ..." 
 
 " And finer." 
 
 " There, they're coming up, the clouds. . . . 
 That must be rain. . . . They're all grey and dark 
 purple : I have never seen such purple as in our skies 
 down here." 
 
 " You're able to live under them now." 
 308
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 309 
 
 " Now I am. But it took so long . . . that I 
 had to get old first. I'm old now and it's all right 
 now. . . . Look, look: the clouds are drifting 
 along. . . . That means storm ..." 
 
 " For days on end." 
 
 " Oh, I am yearning for Addie ! . . . How long 
 is it since we saw him? Three months, isn't it? 
 . . . Three months ! What an age ! . . . We 
 are all yearning for him. ..." 
 
 " His father is counting the days till he returns. 
 . . . Poor Hans!" 
 
 " Poor Henri ! . . . Even Mamma was asking 
 the other day, where Addie was." 
 
 " She always knows him." 
 
 " Ernst and Paul can't get on without him." 
 
 " And he has an excellent influence on Alex : the 
 boy's doing very well." 
 
 * Yes, he's grown so calm and manly . . . lat- 
 terly." 
 
 " Guy's letters are satisfactory, are they not? " 
 
 ' Yes. It's kind of you, Brauws, to take so much 
 interest ... in all of us." 
 
 ' Well, I'm living . . . with you all." 
 
 ' You belong to us." 
 
 " It is like one family." 
 
 " Family. . . . Yes, there is such a thing as 
 family. In the old days, I often used to think that 
 it was just a word." 
 
 1 No, it's there, only ..." 
 
 ' Yes, I understand what you mean. . . . Some- 
 times it does not begin to take shape until we our- 
 selves are no longer young. ... It was there for 
 Mamma, whereas for us, at that time . . . But 
 for Mamma it was an illusion and ..." 
 
 " For us . . . it is indeed a reality ..." 
 
 " In so far that we think so ... we old 
 people."
 
 310 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " No, no, it is so." 
 
 " I am quite willing to believe it is. ... Yes. 
 .. . . Addie ought soon to be home again." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " I think ... he will stay here." 
 
 "AndMathilde?" 
 
 ' There . . . with the children." 
 
 ' That is not a solution." 
 
 "No, but Addie says ..." 
 
 " That it will have to come ..." 
 
 " Later, of itself." 
 
 " I dare say he's right. . . . How is she?" 
 
 " Reconciled . . . more reconciled. . . . P saw 
 her the other day." 
 
 " Don't leave her to herself." 
 
 " No, we are not doing that. . . . It's not her 
 fault. And she is a good mother to her children." 
 
 " As you say, it's not her fault" 
 
 " Nor Addie's either. It's our fault: Henri's and 
 mine." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I don't know, I feel it is. It's all our fault. 
 It's still the punishment dragging along." 
 
 "No, no!/' 
 
 ' Yes, it is. Our child was doomed not to be 
 happy . . . because of us." 
 
 " No." 
 
 " You know quite well that you too . . . look 
 on it like that." 
 
 " Not entirely. . . . If he had had certain un- 
 derstanding for himself : . ." 
 
 " He couldn't, because ..." 
 
 " Hush ! Say no more on that subject. . . . 
 There is a knowledge ... which is so sa- 
 cred . . . Which of us has that certain under- 
 standing for himself? . . . We all just let it 
 come.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 311 
 
 " Look how dark it's growing." 
 
 " Here comes the rain." 
 
 " It's lashing against the windows." 
 
 " Strange that, even in this weather, the house 
 and this room don't seem sombre ... to me." 
 
 ' There is an air of so much affection in the 
 house. ... If Addie would only come! If he 
 would only come now! . . . Tell me, Brauws, 
 what is your opinion? What will be the end of it? 
 Will they ever go back to each other? " 
 
 "Possibly . . . later. ..." 
 
 " You can't say it positively? " 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 " Do you think that she cares for Erzeele?" 
 
 11 It's difficult to say." 
 
 " She doesn't know, herself. Only the other day 
 she told me so herself: she herself doesn't know. 
 . . . Will the children prevent her? " 
 
 14 Who can say?" 
 
 " Is it right . . . that Addie should let things 
 decide themselves? " 
 
 " Perfectly right." 
 
 " Say that . . . say that again. I sometimes 
 doubt. Is it right that Addie should let things decide 
 themselves? " 
 
 ' Yes, I am firmly persuaded that it is right." 
 
 " Is she . . . strong enough? " 
 
 " I think so ... in that way ... of course 
 she mustn't sit still, with her hands folded. . . . 
 She will have to find herself." 
 
 " Oh, if she could only feel in sympathy with all 
 of us ! . . . // she ever comes back, I swear that 
 I shall ..." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Nothing. I was thinking. . . . Then I begin 
 to hope that she and all of us will feel alike. . . . 
 And, strangely enough, I see that in everything. We
 
 3 i2 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 all want it. // she comes back, I am almost sure 
 that we shall all . . . do a great deal ... to 
 make her ours ..." 
 
 " And to make her happy ..." 
 
 " // she comes back. . . . How delightful it 
 would be, if she came back . . . with the child- 
 ren." 
 
 "Delightful?" 
 
 " I mean . . . yes, I mean delightful. . . . 
 Lives that have once been interlaced ..." 
 
 " Are bad to pull apart. I agree. . . . And 
 Hans?" 
 
 " Oh, even he . . . even he will try !" 
 
 "Who knows? Perhaps one day it'll be like 
 that." 
 
 " For the present, there's nothing to be said." 
 
 1 No, nothing." 
 
 " It's all still mystery and darkness." 
 
 " Listen to the rain." 
 
 " The sky is black." 
 
 "What's the time?" 
 
 " Almost dinner-time." 
 
 ' There goes the bell." 
 
 " Shall we go downstairs? " 
 
 They went down the dark staircase. The wind 
 howled round the house. The old lady was sitting 
 at the window of the conservatory at the back when 
 Constance and Brauws entered. 
 
 " It's blowing hard," she said. " There are great 
 branches falling from the trees in the garden." 
 
 " Aren't you too cold in. here, Mamma? " 
 
 The old woman did not understand; and Con- 
 stance put a shawl over her shoulders : 
 
 " Will you come in, Mamma, when you feel too 
 cold?" 
 
 The old woman nodded, without understanding. 
 She remained sitting where she was. She had al-
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 313 
 
 ready had something to eat, with Marietje to wait 
 on her: she never sat down to table with the 
 others. 
 
 The second bell rang. 
 
 " Come," said Constance. 
 
 Paul was there and noticed how miserable Van 
 der Welcke looked : 
 
 " What's the matter? " he asked. 
 
 Van der Welcke was carving : 
 
 " I loathe carving," he said. " Addie always used 
 to do it, or Guy." 
 
 " I never learnt how," said Paul, secretly fearing 
 the gravy. 
 
 " Give it to me, Hans," said Brauws. 
 
 They were silent round the table ; the wind howled 
 outside. 
 
 " The gas is burning badly," said Constance. 
 
 " How nice-looking Mary is growing now that 
 she's down here ! " said Paul. " There, you needn't 
 go blushing: your old uncle may surely pay you a 
 compliment." 
 
 " Well, Uncle Paul, I'm not as young as all that 
 myself: I'm getting on for thirty." 
 
 " And you, Klaasje," said Paul, " you're eating 
 like a grown-up person." 
 
 "I do eat nicely now, don't I, Auntie?" said 
 Klaasje, proudly. 
 
 Constance nodded to her with a smile. 
 
 " Only Gerdy . . . she's not doing well," 
 thought Paul. " How pale she looks ! . . . Ah, 
 well ! Perhaps it'll all come right later for the poor 
 child. . . . He or another. . . . Love, it's a 
 strange thing: I never felt it." 
 
 He felt a shiver pass through him and said : 
 
 " It's cold to-day, Constance." 
 
 " Yes. We shall start fires to-morrow." 
 
 " It's blowing bitterly outside. And what a
 
 3 14 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 draught! I'm sure there's a draught in the house! 
 What do you say, Ernst? " 
 
 Ernst looked up : 
 
 " There's no draught," he said. " I'm quite 
 warm. You people are always feeling things that 
 don't exist." 
 
 "Why is it so dark to-day?" asked Adeline, as 
 though waking from a dream. 
 
 ' The gas is burning badly," said Constance. 
 
 ' Truitje," said Van der Welcke, " take the key 
 and see that the meter is turned on full." 
 
 " Grandmamma was very tired to-day," said 
 Marietje. 
 
 " Grandmamma hardly ate anything at all," said 
 Adeletje. 
 
 " She's getting very old," said Constance, sadly. 
 
 The meal dragged on. They exchanged only an 
 occasional word. 
 
 ' We're very cosy, among ourselves, like this," 
 said Constance, fondly. " Oh, I wish that Dorine 
 would come and live here too ! " 
 
 u Nothing will induce her to," said Paul. 
 
 " No, I'm afraid not." 
 
 A carriage drove up outside, drove through the 
 garden. 
 
 " Hark! " said Constance. 
 
 " It's Addie! " said Van der Welcke. 
 
 " But he never wired ! " 
 
 Gerdy had got up : she rushed outside, leaving 
 the door open. A cold draught blew in. They all 
 rose. The bell had rung; Truitje opened the door. 
 
 "Oh, Addie, Addie!" Gerdy exclaimed. "Is 
 that you? Have you come back at last? We have 
 missed you so frightfully ! " 
 
 It was he. She flung herself into his arms and 
 embraced him, with a little sob. 
 
 They all welcomed him home; they no longer
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 315 
 
 noticed the draught, no longer heard the wind. 
 They hardly ate anything now, hurriedly finishing 
 their dinner. 
 
 " Come into the drawing-room," said Constance, 
 " it's warmer there. I don't know why the dining- 
 room should be so chilly." 
 
 " We'll set the stove going to-morrow," said Van 
 der Welcke. 
 
 His face had brightened up out of recognition. 
 
 " Let's see how you're looking, old chap." 
 
 He, the father, was so much excited that the tears 
 came to Addie's eyes. The others left the two of 
 them together in the drawing-room with Van der 
 Welcke while in the dimly-lighted dining-room the 
 old woman seemed to be asleep. 
 
 " How are you, my boy? " 
 
 ; ' Very well indeed, Dad." 
 
 "And now . . . you're staying here?" 
 * Yes, I'm staying . . . with all of you." 
 ' Yes, this is your home. . . . And your wife ? " 
 
 ;' We shall see. That will settle itself." 
 
 " So . . . there's nothing certain yet . . . 
 about Mathilde?" 
 
 " No, nothing certain. ... I write to her once 
 a month; she writes rather oftener . . . about the 
 children. She's very good to them." 
 
 " So . . .no talk of a divorce?" 
 
 " No, no talk of that. . . . Perhaps, later, all 
 will come right between us. Perhaps, on the other 
 hand, she will feel that she would sooner be free 
 ... in spite of the children." 
 
 They both thought of Erzeele. 
 
 " So you don't know anything yet? " 
 
 " No, not yet. It will settle itself. It must settle 
 itself some day." 
 
 ' You see, my boy, I'm different. In your place, 
 I should have fought a duel with Erzeele. I should
 
 3 i6 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 have had a divorce ... if my wife didn't care 
 for me, if she cared for Erzeele." 
 
 " Yes, Father, I know, that's you. I'm different." 
 
 11 You're better." 
 
 " No, not better. But, whatever I may be, I am 
 first of all your son." 
 
 "You, my son? You're my friend, my pal; al- 
 ways have been." 
 
 " And suppose I now wanted to be . . . your 
 son? I have come back feeling very sad and very 
 tired, because I feel that I am much to blame." 
 
 " Nothing has happened? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "What has happened? Nothing at all. You're 
 too fond of thinking. What you have to do now is 
 to seek your own happiness. Just selfishly." 
 
 " Perhaps . . . if I can. Perhaps that will be- 
 come Mathilde's happiness too. We shall see. But 
 I don't feel certain of myself. I don't know things. 
 And I now feel . . . not your friend and pal but 
 your son, Father. I seem to feel it for the first 
 time." 
 
 ' You always used to know things." 
 
 " For you, Daddie, and for Mamma. But now, 
 now ..." 
 
 " Now you're my son." 
 
 " Yes " 
 
 "My big boy." 
 
 " Father." 
 
 Van der Welcke was standing in front of him; 
 Addie was sitting down. And Van der Welcke now 
 took his son's head in his hands. 
 
 " Father," said Addie, " I wonder if you realize 
 ,;, . . how devotedly I love you! It's something 
 that I feel only for my parents and for my children, 
 not for any woman." 
 
 " You're a funny chap," said Van der Welcke.
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 317 
 
 " But it is not your fault. It is your parents' fault." 
 
 " If you only knew," Addie repeated, " how de- 
 votedly I love you . . . and Mamma! . . . 
 And all of them here a bit too ! . . . If I had my 
 children here, then . . . Perhaps, perhaps they 
 will come back later . . . very much later, with 
 . . . with Mathilde. . . . Look here, if that 
 ever happens, we must all of us . . . behave dif- 
 ferently to her." 
 
 " Yes, my dear boy." 
 
 " Or try to." 
 
 " Yes, old fellow, I know what you mean. We'll 
 all do it . . . for your sake." 
 
 " You see, she is my wife. I ... I am to blame 
 for everything. If you will try . . . " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "// she comes back. . . . Perhaps she won't 
 come. ..." 
 
 " Do you want her to? " 
 
 "Yes, I do. I can't do without my children 
 . . . like this." 
 
 " But you'll see them now and again." 
 
 " Yes. So, if she does come back, you promise, 
 Dad . . ." 
 
 " That I'll try." 
 
 " And, if they will all try, then . . . then I shall 
 be happy." 
 
 ' Yes, they'll do it, for your sake. But ..." 
 
 " If she comes back, I honestly believe . . . 
 that she will have learnt . . . also to try ... 
 to like us all a little." 
 
 " You mustn't be angry, Addie, that it was not 
 like that at once. She is so different . . . from 
 all of us." 
 
 ' Yes, it's my fault." 
 
 " No, my boy, don't go thinking that and worry- 
 ing about it."
 
 3 i8 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 " No, Father." 
 
 " What you've got to do now is to try and be 
 happy among us all . . . to work ... to pick 
 up your work again, you know." 
 
 ' Yes, just so." 
 
 u And then, gradually, to let things come . . . 
 as you say. . . . Would it upset you very much 
 if she and Erzeele ..." 
 
 " Yes. Because I should then feel my short- 
 comings towards her still more strongly. . . . 
 And also because of my children." 
 
 " Perhaps things will come right, later, my boy." 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " Take it all calmly now . . . and don't worry. 
 And just do your work here quietly." 
 
 " Yes, Father. . . . Oh, I feel that you are my 
 father!" 
 
 " Perhaps for the first time ! . . . A different 
 part for your old ruffian of a father! " 
 
 " You're not an old ruffian, you're ..." 
 
 Addie stood up and embraced his father. 
 
 "Don't squeeze the breath out of my body!" 
 said Van der Welcke. " You're strong enough still. 
 And you're looking well too. Your eyes look inter- 
 ested again, even though they're a bit too pensive. 
 And they were always calm. . . . Did you have 
 an interesting time abroad? " 
 
 " I saw a great deal of misery . . . but also a 
 great deal of good-will. ..." 
 
 " That's it : do what you can here, just simply, 
 in your own surroundings.- Oh, my dear chap, how 
 glad I am that you're back! " 
 
 Gerdy looked in at the door: 
 
 " May we never come in? . . . Uncle Henri, 
 you're being selfish about Addie! ..." 
 
 " You may come in, dear." 
 
 Addie took her hands :
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 319 
 
 " Will you be strong, Gerdy? " 
 
 She sobbed and laughed through her tears: 
 
 " I have tried to be all the time, Addie," she 
 whispered. " But for you ..." 
 
 ' You know, life isn't all your first suffering." 
 
 " No, so you've told me." 
 
 " And you must believe it. ... It will help 
 you. . . . You have such 3 long future before 
 you." 
 
 "Yes. Oh, Addie, Addie, but for you ..." 
 
 'What?" 
 
 " I should have died ! I have suffered so, I have 
 suffered so ! " 
 
 " And you see so much suffering around you. 
 . . . But life . . ." 
 
 " Isn't all your first suffering ... as you say." 
 
 " And you must believe it." 
 
 " Yes, I'll try." 
 
 Constance entered : 
 
 " Am I to see nothing of my boy this evening? " 
 she asked, banteringly. 
 
 He took her in a clinging embrace : 
 
 ' You've got him home for good now." 
 
 She gave a sob: 
 
 " My poor child . . . then I haven't lost you ?" 
 
 "Lost me? Why?" 
 
 "A son . . ." 
 
 " You've always been afraid ... of losing me. 
 But you never have lost me." 
 
 " No, never. . . . Tell me, dear, am I to 
 blame ? I am to blame, am I not? " 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " About Mathilde." 
 
 " No, you're not to blame. . . . But, if she 
 comes back, later, with the children, Mamma, let us 
 try . . ." 
 
 " Yes, dear, yes."
 
 320 DR. ADRIAAN 
 
 '* We will, won't we ? We must try ... to 
 bring ourselves into harmony with her as far as 
 possible. ..." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I will try." 
 
 " And all of us." 
 
 " Yes, all of us." 
 
 " That's so, Gerdy, isn't it? We must all . . ." 
 ' What did you say, Addie? " 
 
 " I was saying, Gerdy, if Mathilde comes back, 
 later on .- . ." 
 'Yes . . ." 
 
 " Would you be willing to try . . . with all of 
 us, with Papa and Mamma, with every one of us 
 . . .to get into harmony with her as far as 
 possible, so that she ..." 
 
 "Yes, oh, Addie, yes! Til try!" 
 
 "You will?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! . . .If she comes back, I'll try, 
 Addie, I'll try." 
 
 " My dear, listen to it blowing." 
 
 " That's our wind, Mamma." 
 
 " Yes, always." 
 
 Marietje and Adeletje had now gone into the 
 dining-room; Adeline and Emilie came after them. 
 
 " Why is it so dark in there? " asked Marietje. 
 
 " Grandmamma's taking a nap." 
 
 " We must take her to bed," said Constance. 
 
 Adeletje turned up the gas. 
 
 " Auntie ! " cried Marietje, in alarm. 
 
 "What is it, dear?" 
 
 " Oh, Auntie, Auntie . - . . come here ! " 
 
 Constance came in, with Addie and Gerdy. 
 
 " Is Grandmamma ... is Grandmamma . . . ? " 
 stammered Marietje, aghast. 
 
 They all looked at the old woman. She was 
 sitting as usual, sitting quietly in her big chair, with
 
 DR. ADRIAAN 321 
 
 her veined and wrinkled hands folded in her black 
 lap. Her head hung back, framed white in her 
 white hair. All knowledge was hers now; and her 
 old mouth smiled because of it, encouragingly. . .., .., 
 
 THE END
 
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