Chapter X

Chapter XThis evening Cecile had written a great deal into her diary; and she now paced up and down in her room, with locked hands hanging before her and her head slightly bowed and a fixed look in her eyes. There was anxiety about her mouth. Before her was the vision, as she had conceived it. He loved her with his soul alone, not as a woman who is pretty and good, but with a higher love than that, with the finest nervous fibres of his being—his real being—with the supreme emotion of the very essence of his soul. Thus she felt that he loved her and in no other way, with contemplation, with adoration. Thus she felt it actually, through a sympathetic power of divination by which each of themwas able to guess what actually passed within the other. And this was his happiness—his first, as he said—thus to love her and in no other way. Oh, she well understood him! She understood his illusion, which he saw in her; and she now knew that, if she really wished to love him for his sake and not for her own, she must needs appear to be nothing else to him, she must preserve his illusion of a woman not of flesh, one who desired none of the earthly things that other women did, one who should be soul alone, a sister soul to his. But, while she saw before her this vision of her love, calm and radiant, she saw also the struggle which awaited her, the struggle with herself, with her own distress: distress because he thought of her so highly and named her Madonna, the while she longed only to be lowly and his slave. She would have to seem the woman he saw in her, forthe sake of his happiness, and the part would be a heavy one for her to support, for she loved him, ah, with such simplicity, with all her woman’s heart, wishing to give herself to him entirely, as only once in her life a woman gives herself, whatever the sacrifice might cost her, the sacrifice made in ignorance of herself and perhaps afterwards to be made in bitterness and sorrow! The outward appearance of her conduct and her inward consciousness of herself: the conflict of these would fall heavily upon her, but she thought upon the struggle with a smile, with joy beaming through her heart, for this bitterness would be endured forhim, deliberately for him and for him alone. Oh, the luxury to suffer for one whom she loved as she loved him; to be tortured with inner longing, that he might not come to her with the embrace of his arms and the kiss of his mouth; and to feel thatthe torture was for the sake of his happiness, his! To feel that she loved him enough to go to him with open arms and beg for the alms of his caresses; but also to feel that she loved him more than that and more highly and that—not from pride or bashfulness, which are really egoism, but solely from sacrifice of herself to his happiness—she never would, never could, be a suppliant before him!To suffer, to suffer for him! To wear a sword through her soul for him! To be a martyr for her god, for whom there was no happiness on earth save through her martyrdom! And she had passed her life, had spent long, long years, without feeling until this day that such luxury could exist, not as a fantasy in rhymes, but as a reality in her heart. She had been a young girl and had read the poets and what they rhyme of love; and she had thought she understood it all, with a subtlecomprehension and yet without ever having had the least acquaintance with emotion itself. She had been a young woman, had been married, had borne children. Her married life flashed through her mind in a lightning-flicker of memory; and she stopped still before the portrait of her dead husband, standing there on its easel, draped in sombre plush. The mask it wore was of ambition: an austere, refined face, with features sharp, as if engraved in fine steel; coldly-intelligent eyes with a fixed portrait look; thin, clean-shaven lips, closed firmly like a lock. Her husband! And she still lived in the same house where she had lived with him, where she had had to receive her many guests when he was Foreign Minister. Her receptions and dinners flickered up in her mind, so many scenes of worldliness; and she clearly recalled her husband’s eye taking in everything with a quick glance ofapproval or disapproval: the arrangement of her rooms, her dress, the ordering of her parties. Her marriage had not been unhappy; her husband was a little cold and unexpansive, wrapped wholly in his ambition; but he was attached to her after his fashion and even tenderly; she too had been fond of him; she thought at the time that she was marrying him for love: her dependent womanliness loved the male, the master. Of a delicate constitution, probably undermined by excessive brain-work, he had died after a short illness. Cecile remembered her sorrow, her loneliness with the two children, as to whom he had already feared that she would spoil them. And her loneliness had been sweet to her, among the clouds of her dreaming....This portrait—a handsome life-size photograph; a carbon impression dark with a Rembrandt shadow—why had shenever had it copied in oils, as she had at first intended? The intention had faded away within her; for months she had not given it a thought; now suddenly it recurred to her.... And she felt no self-reproach or remorse. She would not have the painting made now. The portrait was well enough as it was. She thought of the dead man without sorrow. She had never had cause to complain of him; he had never had anything with which to reproach her. And now she was free; she became conscious of the fact with a great exultation. Free, to feel what she would! Her freedom arched above her as a blue firmament in which new love ascended with a dove’s immaculate flight. Freedom, air, light! She turned from the portrait with a smile of rapture; she thrust her arms above her head as if she would measure her freedom, the width of the air, as if she would go to meet the light. Love,she was in love! There was nothing but love; nothing but the harmony of their souls, the harmony of her handmaiden’s soul with the soul of her god, an exile upon earth. Oh, what a mercy that this harmony could exist between him so exalted and her so lowly! But he must not see her lowliness; she must remain the Madonna, remain the Madonna for his sake, in the martyrdom due to his reverence, in the dizziness of the high place, the heavenly throne to which he raised her, beside himself. She felt this dizziness shuddering about her like rings of light. And she flung herself on her sofa and locked her fingers; her eyelids quivered; then she remained staring before her, towards some very distant point.Chapter XIJules had been away from school for a day or two with a bad headache, which had made him look very pale and given him an air of sadness; but he was a little better now and, feeling bored in his own room, he went downstairs to the empty drawing-room and sat at the piano. Papa was at work in his study, but it would not interfere with Papa if he played. Dolf spoilt him, seeing in his son something that was wanting in himself and therefore attracted him, even as possibly it had formerly attracted him in his wife also: Jules could do no wrong in his eyes; and, if the boy had only been willing, Dolf would have spared no expense to give him a careful musical education. But Jules violently opposed himselfto anything resembling lessons and besides maintained that it was not worth while. He had no ambition; his vanity was not tickled by his father’s hopes of him or his appreciation of his playing: he played only for himself, to express himself in the vague language of musical sounds. At this moment he felt alone and abandoned in the great house, though he knew that Papa was at work two rooms off and that when he pleased he could take refuge on Papa’s great couch; at this moment he had within himself an almost physical feeling of dread at his loneliness, which caused something to reel about him, an immense sense of utter desolation.He was fourteen years old, but he felt himself neither child nor boy: a certain feebleness, an almost feminine need of dependency, of devotion to some one who would be everything to him had already, in his earliest childhood, struck at hisvirility; and he shivered in his dread of this inner loneliness, as if he were afraid of himself. He suffered greatly from vague moods in which that strange something oppressed and stifled him; then, not knowing where to hide his inner being, he would go to play, so that he might lose himself in the great sound-soul of music. His thin, nervous fingers would grope hesitatingly over the keys; he himself would suffer from the false chords which he struck in his search; then he would let himself go, find a single, very short motive, of plaintive, minor melancholy, and caress that motive in his joy at possessing it, at having found it, caress it until it returned each moment as a monotony of sorrow. He would think the motive so beautiful that he could not part with it; those four or five notes expressed so well everything that he felt that he would play them over and over again, until Suzetteburst into the room and made him stop, saying that otherwise she would be driven mad.Thus he sat playing now. And it was pitiful at first: he hardly recognized the notes; cacophonous discords wailed and cut into his poor brain, still smarting from the headache. He moaned as if he were in pain afresh; but his fingers were hypnotized, they could not desist, they still sought on; and the notes became purer: a short phrase released itself with a cry, a cry which returned continually on the same note, suddenly high after the dull bass of the prelude. And this note came as a surprise to Jules; that fair cry of sorrow frightened him; and he was glad to have found it, glad to have so sweet a sorrow. Then he was no longer himself; he played on until he felt that it was not he who was playing but another, within him, who compelled him; he found the full, purechords as by intuition; through the sobbing of the sounds ran the same musical figure, higher and higher, with silver feet of purity, following the curve of crystal rainbows lightly spanned on high; reaching the topmost point of the arch it struck a cry, this time in very drunkenness, out into the major, throwing up wide arms in gladness to heavens of intangible blue. Then it was like souls of men, which first live and suffer and utter their complaint and then die, to glitter in forms of light whose long wings spring from their pure shoulders in sheets of silver radiance; they trip one behind the other over the rainbows, over the bridges of glass, blue and rose and yellow; and there come more and more, kindreds and nations of souls; they hurry their silver feet, they press across the rainbow, they laugh and sing and push one another; in their jostling their wings clash together, scattering silver down. Nowthey stand all on the top of the arc and look up, with the great wondering of their laughing child-eyes; and they dare not, they dare not; but others press on behind them, innumerous, more and more and yet more; they crowd upwards to the topmost height, their wings straight in the air, close together. And now, now they must; they may hesitate no longer. One of them, taking deep breaths, spreads his flight and with one shock springs out of the thick throng into the ether. Soon many follow, one after another, till their shapes swoon in the blue; all is gleam about them. Now, far below, thin as a thin thread, the rainbow arches itself, but they do not look at it; rays fall towards them: these are souls, which they embrace; they go with them in locked embraces. And then the light: light beaming over all; all things liquid in everlasting light; nothing but light: the sounds sing the light, the soundsare the light, there is nothing now but the light everlasting....“Jules!”He looked up vacantly.“Jules! Jules!”He smiled now, as if awakened from a dream-sleep; he rose, went to her, to Cecile. She stood in the doorway; she had remained standing there while he played; it had seemed to her that he was playing a part of herself.“What were you playing, Jules?” she asked.He was quite awake now and distressed, fearing that he must have made a terrible noise in the house....“I don’t know, Auntie,” he said.She hugged him, suddenly, violently, in gratitude.... To him she owed it, the great mystery, since the day when he had broken out in anger against her....ChapterXII1“Oh, for that which cannot be told, because words are so few, always the same combinations of a few letters and sounds; oh, for that which cannot be thought of in the narrow limits of comprehension; that which at best can only be groped for with the antennæ of the soul; essence of the essences of the ultimate elements of our being!...”She wrote no more, she knew no more: why write that she had no words and yet seek them?She was waiting for him and she now looked out of the open window to see ifhe was coming. She remained there for a long time; then she felt that he would come immediately and so he did: she saw him approaching along the Scheveningen Road; he pushed open the iron gate of the villa and smiled to her as he raised his hat.“Wait!” she cried. “Stay where you are!”She ran down the steps, into the garden, where he stood. She came towards him, beaming with happiness and so lovely, so delicately frail; her blonde head so seemly in the fresh green of May; her figure like a young girl’s in the palest grey gown, with black velvet ribbon and here and there a touch of silver lace.“I am so glad that you have come! You have not been to see me for so long!” she said, giving him her hand.He did not answer at once; he merely smiled.“Let us sit in the garden, behind: the weather is so lovely.”“Let us,” he said.They walked into the garden, by the mesh of the garden-paths, the jasmine-vines starring white as they passed. In an adjoining villa a piano was playing; the sounds came to them of Rubinstein’s Romance.“Listen!” said Cecile, starting. “What is that?”“What?” he asked.“What they are playing.”“Something of Rubinstein’s, I believe,” he said.“Rubinstein?...” she repeated, vaguely. “Yes....”And she relapsed into the wealth of memories of ... what? Once before, in this way, she had walked along these same paths, past jasmine-vines like these, long, ever so long ago; she had walkedwith him, with him.... Why? Could the past repeat itself, after centuries?...“It is three weeks since you have been to see me,” she said, simply, recovering herself.“Forgive me,” he replied.“What was the reason?”He hesitated throughout his being, seeking an excuse:“I don’t know,” he answered, softly. “You will forgive me, will you not? One day it was this, another day that. And then ... I don’t know. Many reasons together. It is not good that I should see you often. Not good for you, nor for me.”“Let us begin with the second. Why is it not good for you?”“No, let us begin with the first, with what concerns you. People ...”“People?”“People are talking about us. I am looked upon as an irretrievable rake. I will not have your name linked profanely with mine.”“And is it?”“Yes....”She smiled:“I don’t mind.”“But you must mind; if not for your own sake ...”He stopped. She knew he was thinking of her boys; she shrugged her shoulders.“And now, why is it not good for you?”“A man must not be happy too often.”“What a sophism! Why not?”“I don’t know; but I feel I am right. It spoils him; it is too much for him.”“Are you happy here, then?”He smiled and gently nodded yes.They were silent for very long. They were now sitting at the end of the garden,on a seat which stood in a semicircle of flowering rhododendrons: the great purple-satin blossoms shut them in with a tall hedge of closely-clustered bouquets, rising from the paths and overtopping their heads; standard roses flung their incense before them. They sat still, happy in each other, happy in the sympathy of their atmospheres mingling together; yet in their happiness there was the invincible melancholy which is an integral part of all life, even in happiness.“I don’t know how I am to tell you,” he said. “But suppose that I were to see you every day, every moment that I thought of you.... That would not do. For then I should become so refined, so subtle, that for pure happiness I should not be able to live; my other being would receive nothing and would suffer like a beast that is left to starve. I am bad, I am selfish, to be able to speak like this, but I must tellyou the truth, that you may not think too well of me. And so I only seek your company as something very beautiful which I allow myself to enjoy just once in a way.”She was silent.“Sometimes ... sometimes, too, I imagine that in doing this I am not behaving well to you, that in some way or other I offend or hurt you. Then I sit brooding about it, until I begin to think that it would be best to take leave of you for ever.”She was still silent; motionless she sat, with her hands lying slackly in her lap, her head slightly bowed, a smile about her mouth.“Speak to me,” he begged.“You do not offend me, nor hurt me,” she said. “Come to me whenever you feel the need. Do always as you think best; and I shall think that best too: you must not doubt that.”“I should so much like to know in what way you like me?”“In what way? Surely, as a Madonna does a sinner who repents and gives her his soul,” she said, archly. “Am I not a Madonna?”“Are you content to be so?”“Can you be so ignorant about women as not to know how every one of us has a longing to solace and relieve, in fact, to play at being a Madonna?”“Do not speak like that,” he said, with pain in his voice.“I am speaking seriously....”He looked at her; a doubt rose within him, but she smiled to him; a calm glory was about her; she sat amidst the bouquets of the rhododendrons as in the blossoming tenderness of one great mystic flower. The wound of his doubt was soothed with balsam. He surrendered himself wholly to his happiness; an atmosphere waftedabout him of the sweet calm of life, an atmosphere in which life becomes dispassionate and restful and smiling, like the air which is rare about the gods. It began to grow dark; a violet dusk fell from the sky like crape falling upon crape; quietly the stars lighted up. The shadows in the garden, between the shrubs among which they sat, flowed into one another; the piano in the next villa had stopped. And happiness drew a veil between his soul and the outside world: the garden with its design of plots and paths; the villa with curtains at its windows and its iron gate; the road behind, with the rattle of carriages and trams. All this withdrew itself far back; all ordinary life retreated far from him; vanishing behind the veil, it died away. It was no dream nor conceit: reality to him was the happiness that had come while the world died away; the happiness that was rare, invisible, intangible,coming from the love which alone is sympathy, calm and without passion, the love which exists purely of itself, without further thought either of taking anything or even of giving anything, the love of the gods, which is the soul of love itself. High he felt himself: the equal of the illusion which he had of her, which she wished to be for his sake, of which he also was now absolutely certain. For he could not know that what had given him happiness—his illusion—so perfect, so crystal-clear, might cause her some sort of grief; he could not at this moment penetrate without sin into the truth of the law which insists on equilibrium, which takes away from one what it offers to another, which gives happiness and grief together; he could not know that, if happiness was with him, with her there was anguish, anguish in that she had to make a pretence and deceive himfor his own sake, anguish in that she wanted what was earthly, that she craved for what was earthly, that she yearned for earthly pleasures!... And still less could he know that, notwithstanding all this, there was nevertheless voluptuousness in her anguish: that to suffer through him, to suffer for him made of her anguish all voluptuousness.2It was dark and late; and they were still sitting there.“Shall we go for a walk?” she asked.He hesitated, with a smile; but she repeated her suggestion:“Why not, if you care to?”And he could no longer refuse.They rose and went along by the back of the house; and Cecile said to the maid, whom she saw sitting with her needle-work by the kitchen-door:“Greta, fetch me my little black hat, my black-lace shawl and a pair of gloves.”The servant rose and went into the house. Cecile noticed how a trifle of shyness was emphasized in Quaerts’ hesitation, now that they stood loitering, waiting among the flower-beds. She smiled, plucked a rose and placed it in her waist-band.“Have the boys gone to bed?” he asked.“Yes,” she replied, still smiling, “long ago.”The servant returned; Cecile put on the little black hat, threw the lace about her neck, but refused the gloves which Greta offered her:“No, not these; get me a pair of grey ones....”The servant went into the house again; and as Cecile looked at Quaerts her gaiety increased. She gave a little laugh:“What is the matter?” she asked, mischievously,knowing perfectly well what it was.“Nothing, nothing!” he said, vaguely, and waited patiently until Greta returned.Then they went through the garden-gate into the Woods. They walked slowly, without speaking; Cecile played with her long gloves, not putting them on.“Really ...” he began, hesitating.“Come, what is it?”“You know; I told you the other day: it’s not right....”“What isn’t?”“What we are doing now. You risk too much.”“Too much, with you?”“If any one were to see us....”“And what then?”He shook his head:“You are wilful; you know quite well.”She clinched her eyes; her mouth grewserious; she pretended to be a little angry:“Listen, you mustn’t be anxious ifI’mnot. I am doing no harm. Our walks are not secret: Greta at least knows about them. And, besides, I am free to do as I please.”“It’s my fault: the first time we went for a walk in the evening, it was at my request....”“Then do penance and be good; come now, without scruple, atmyrequest,” she said, with mock emphasis.He yielded, feeling far too happy to wish to make any sacrifice to a convention which at that moment did not exist.They walked on silently. Cecile’s sensations always came to her in shocks of surprise. So it had been when Jules had grown suddenly angry with her; so also, midway on the stair, after that conversation at dinner of circles of sympathy. And now, precisely in the same way, withthe shock of sudden revelation, came this new sensation, that after all she was not suffering so seriously as she had at first thought; that her agony, being a voluptuousness, could not be a martyrdom; that she was happy, that happiness had come about her in the fine air of his atmosphere, because they were together, together.... Oh, why wish for anything more, above all for things less pure? Did he not love her and was not his love already a fact and was not his love earthly enough for her, now that it was a fact? Did he not love her with a tenderness which feared for anything that might trouble her in the world, through her ignoring that world and wandering about with him alone in the dark? Did he not love her with tenderness, but also with the lustre of his soul’s divinity, calling her Madonna and by this title—unconsciously, perhaps, in his simplicity—making her the equal of all thatwas divine in him? Did he not love her? Heavens above, did he not love her? Well, what did she want more? No, no, she wanted nothing more: she was happy, she shared happiness with him; he gave it to her just as she gave it to him; it was a sphere that moved with them wherever they went, seeking their way along the darkling paths of the Woods, she leaning on his arm, he leading her, for she could see nothing in the dark, which yet was not dark, but pure light of their happiness. And so it was as if it were not evening, but day, noonday, noonday in the night, hour of light in the dusk!3And the darkness was light; the night dawned with light which beamed on every side. Calmly it beamed, the light, like one solitary planet, beaming with the soft radiance of purity, bright in a heaven ofstill, white, silver light, a heaven where they walked along milky ways of light and music; it beamed and sounded beneath their feet; it welled in seas of ether high above their heads and beamed and sounded there, high and clear. And they were alone in their heaven, in their infinite heaven, which was as space, endless beneath them and above and around them, with endless spaces of light and music, of light that was music. Their heaven lay eternal on every side with blissful vistas of white radiance, fading away in lustre and vanishing landscapes, like oases of flowers and plants beside waters of light, still and clear and hushed with peace. For its peace was the ether in which all desire is dissolved and becomes transparent and crystal; and their life was a limpid existence in unruffled peace; they walked on, in heavenly sympathy of fellowship, close together, hemmed in one narrow circle, acircle of radiance which embraced them both. Barely was there a recollection in them of the world which had died out in the glitter of their heaven; there was naught in them but the ecstasy of their love, which had become their soul, as if they no longer had any soul, as if they were only love; and, when they looked about them and into the light, they saw that their heaven, in which their happiness was the light, was nothing but their love, and they saw that the landscapes—the flowers and plants by waters of light—were nothing but their love and that the endless space, the eternities of light and space, of spaces full of light and music, stretching on every hand, beneath them and above and around them, that all this was nothing but their love, which had grown into heaven and happiness.And now they came into the very midst, to the very sun-centre, the very goal whichCecile had once foreseen, concealed in the distance, in the irradiance of innate divinity. Up to the very goal they stepped; and on every side it shot its endless rays into each and every eternity, as if their love were becoming the centre of the universe...4But they sat on a bench, in the dark, not knowing that it was dark, for their eyes were full of the light. They sat against each other, silently at first, till, remembering that he had a voice and could still speak words, he said:“I have never lived through such a moment as this. I forget where we are and who we are and that we are human. We were, were we not? I seem to remember that we once were?”“Yes, but we are that no longer,” she said, smiling; and her eyes, grownbig, looked into the darkness that was light.“Once we were human, suffering and desiring, in a world where certainly much was beautiful, but where much also was ugly.”“Why speak of that now?” she asked; and her voice sounded to herself as coming from very far and low beneath her.“I seemed to remember it.”“I wanted to forget it.”“Then I will do so too. But may I not thank you in human speech for lifting me above humanity?”“Have I done so?”“Yes. May I thank you for it ... on my knees?”He knelt down and reverently took her hands. He could just distinguish the outline of her figure, seated motionless and still upon the bench; above them was apearl-grey twilight of stars, between the black boughs. She felt her hands in his and then his mouth, his kiss, upon her hand. Very gently, she released herself; and then, with a great soul of modesty, full of desireless happiness, very gently she bent her arms about his neck, took his head against her and kissed him on the forehead:“And I, I thank you too!” she whispered, rapturously.He was still; and she held him fast in her embrace.“I thank you,” she said, “for teaching me this and how to be happy as we are and no otherwise. You see, when I still lived and was human, when I was a woman, I thought that I had lived before I met you, for I had had a husband and I had children of whom I was very fond. But from you I first learnt to live, to live without egoism and without desire; Ilearnt that from you this evening or ... this day, which is it? You have given me life and happiness and everything. And I thank you, I thank you! You see, you are so great and so strong and so clear and you have borne me towards your own happiness, which should also be mine, but it was so far above me that, without you, I should never have attained it! For there was a barrier for me which did not exist for you. You see, when I was still human”—and she laughed, clasping him more tightly—“I had a sister; and she too felt that there was a barrier between her happiness and herself; and she felt that she could not surmount this barrier and was so unhappy because of it that she feared lest she should go mad. But I, I do not know: I dreamed, I thought, I hoped, I waited, oh, I waited; and then you came; and you made me understand at once that you could be no man, no husbandfor me, but that you could be more for me: my angel, O my deliverer, who would take me in his arms and bear me over the barrier into his own heaven, where he himself was god, and make me his Madonna! Oh, I thank you, I thank you! I do not know how to thank you; I can only say that I love you, that I adore you, that I lay myself at your feet. Remain as you are and let me adore you, while you kneel where you are. I may adore you, may I not, while you yourself are kneeling? You see, I too must confess, as you used to do,” she continued, for now she could not but confess. “I have not always been straightforward with you; I have sometimes pretended to be the Madonna, knowing all the time that I was but an ordinary woman, a woman who frankly loved you. But I deceived you for your own happiness, did I not? You wished me so, you were happy when I wasso and no otherwise. And now, now too you must forgive me, because now I need no longer pretend, because that is past and has died away, because I myself have died away from myself, because now I am no longer a woman, no longer human for myself, but only what you wish me to be: a Madonna and your creature, an atom of your own essence and divinity. So will you forgive me the past? May I thank you for my happiness, for my heaven, my light, O my master, for my joy, my great, my immeasurable joy?”He rose and sat beside her, taking her gently in his arms:“Are you happy?” he asked.“Yes,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder in a giddiness of light. “And you?”“Yes,” he answered; and he asked again, “And do you desire ... nothing more?”“No, nothing!” she stammered. “I want nothing but this, nothing but what is mine, oh, nothing, nothing more!”“Swear it to me ... by something sacred!”“I swear it to you ... by yourself!” she declared.He pressed her head to his shoulder again. He smiled; and she did not see that there was sadness in his laugh, for she was blinded with light.5They were long silent, sitting there. She remembered having said many things, she no longer knew what. About her she saw that it was dark, with only that pearl-grey twilight of stars above their heads, between the black boughs. She felt that she was lying with her head on his shoulder; she heard his breath. A sort of chill crept down her shoulders, notwithstandingthe warmth of his embrace; she drew the lace closer about her throat and felt that the bench on which they sat was moist with dew.“I thank you, I love you so, you make me so happy,” she repeated.He was silent; he pressed her to him very gently, with sheer tenderness. Her last words still sounded in her ears after she had spoken them. Then she was bound to acknowledge to herself that they had not been spontaneous, like all that she had told him before, as he knelt before her with his head at her breast. She had spoken them to break the silence: formerly that silence had never troubled her; why should it now?“Come!” he said gently; and even yet she did not hear the sadness of his voice, in this single word.They rose and walked on. It came to him that it was late, that they must returnby the same path; beyond that, his thoughts were sorrowful with many things which he could not have expressed; a poor twilight had come about him, after the blinding light of their heaven of but now. And he had to be cautious: it was very dark here; and he could only just see the path, lying very pale and undecided at their feet; they brushed against the trunks of the trees as they passed.“I can see nothing,” said Cecile, laughing. “Can you see the way?”“Rely upon me: I can see quite well in the dark,” he replied. “I have eyes like a lynx....”Step by step they went on and she felt a sweet joy in being guided by him; she clung close to his arm, saying laughingly that she was afraid and that she would be terrified if he were suddenly to leave hold of her.“And suppose I were suddenly to runaway and leave you alone?” said Quaerts, jestingly.She laughed; she besought him with a laugh not to do so. Then she was silent, angry with herself for laughing; a burden of sadness bore her down because of her jesting and laughter. She felt as if she were unworthy of that into which, in radiant light, she had just been received.And he too was filled with sadness: the sadness of having to lead her through the dark, by invisible paths, past rows of invisible tree-trunks which might graze and wound her; of having to lead her through a dark wood, through a black sea, through an ink-dark sphere, when they were returning from a heaven where all had been light and all happiness, without sadness or darkness.And so they were silent in that sadness, until they reached the highroad, the old Scheveningen Road.They approached the villa. A tram went by; two or three people passed on foot; it was a fine evening. He brought her home and waited until the door opened to his ring. The door remained unopened; meantime he pressed her hand tightly and hurt her a little, involuntarily. Greta must have fallen asleep, she thought:“Ring again, would you?”He rang again, louder this time; after a moment, the door opened. She gave him her hand once more, with a smile.“Good-night, mevrouw,” he said, taking her fingers respectfully and raising his hat.Now, now she could hear the sound of his voice, with its note of sadness....ChapterXIII1Then she knew, next day, when she sat alone, wrapped in reflection, that the sphere of happiness, the highest and brightest, may not be trod; that it may only beam upon us as a sun; and that we may not enter into it, into the sacred sun-centre. They had done that....Listless she sat, with her children by her side, Christie looking pale and languid. Yes, she spoiled them; but how could she change herself?Weeks passed; and Cecile heard nothing from Quaerts. It was always so: after he had been with her, weeks would drag by without her ever seeing him. For he was much too happy with her, it was more thanhe could bear. He looked upon her society as a rare pleasure to be very jealously indulged. And she, she loved him simply, with the innermost essence of her soul, loved him frankly, as a woman loves a man.... She always wanted him, every day, every hour, at every pulse of her life.Then she met him by chance, at Scheveningen, where she had gone one evening with Amélie and Suzette. Then once again at a reception at Mrs. Hoze’s. He seemed shy with her; and a certain pride in her kept her from asking him to call. Yes, something was changed in what had been woven between them. But she suffered sorely, suffered also because of that foolish pride, because she had not humbly begged him to come to her. Was he not her god? Whatever he did was good.So she did not see him for weeks andweeks. Life went on: each day she had her little occupations, in her household, with her children; Mrs. Hoze reproached her for her withdrawal from society and she began to think more about her friends, to please Mrs. Hoze, who had asked this of her. There were flashes in her memory; in those flashes she saw the dinner-party, their conversations and walks, all her love for him, all his reverence for her whom he called Madonna; their last evening of light and ecstasy. Then she smiled; and the smile itself beamed over her anguish, her anguish in that she no longer saw him, in that she felt proud and cherished a little inward bitterness. Yet all things must be well, as he wished them to be.Oh, the evenings, the summer evenings, cooling after the warm days, the evenings when she sat alone, staring out from her room, where the onyx lamp burnt with a subdued flame, staring out of the openwindows at the trams which, with their tinkling bells, came and went to Scheveningen, full, full of people! Waiting, the endless long waiting, evening after evening in solitude, after the children had gone to bed! Waiting, when she simply sat still, staring fixedly before her, looking at the trams, the tedious, everlasting trams! Where was her modulated joy of dreaming happiness? And where, where was her radiant happiness? Where was her struggle within herself between what she was and what he saw in her? This struggle no longer existed, this struggle also had been overcome; she no longer felt the force of passion; she only longed to see him come as he had always come, as he no longer came. Why did he not come? Happiness palled; people were talking about them.... It was not right that they should see much of each other—he had said so the evening before that highesthappiness—not good for him and not good for her.So she sat and thought; and great silent tears fell from her eyes, for she knew that, though he remained away partly for his own sake, it was above all for hers that he did not come. What had she not said to him that evening on the bench in the Woods, when her arms were about his neck! Oh, she should have been silent, she felt it now! She should not have uttered her rapture, but have enjoyed it secretly within herself; she should have let him utter himself: she herself should have remained his Madonna. But she had been too full, too happy; and in that over-brimming happiness she had been unable to be other than true and clear as a bright mirror.He had glanced into her and read her entirely: she knew that, she was certain of it.He knew now in what manner she loved him; she herself had revealed it to him. But, at the same time, she had made known to him that this was all past, that she was now what he wished her to be. And this had been true then, clear at that time and true.... But now? Does ecstasy endure only for one moment and did he know it? Did he know that her soul’s flight had reached its limit and must now descend again to a commoner sphere? Did he know that she loved him again now, quite ordinarily, with all her being, wholly and entirely, no longer as widely as the heavens, only as widely as her arms could reach out and embrace? And could he not return this love, this so petty love of hers, and was that why he did not come to her?2Then she received his letter:“Forgive me if I put off from day to day coming to see you; forgive me if even to-day I cannot decide to come and if I write to you instead. Forgive me if I even venture to ask you whether it may not be necessary that we see each other no more. If I hurt you and offend you, if I—which may God forbid—cause you pain, forgive me, forgive me! Perhaps I procrastinated a little from indecision, but much more because I considered that I had no other choice.“There has been between our two lives, between our two souls, a rare moment of happiness which was a special boon, a special grace of heaven. Do you not think so too? Oh, if only I had the words to tell you how grateful I am in my innermost soul for that happiness! If later I ever look back upon my life, I shall always see that happiness gleaming in between the ugliness and the blackness, like a starof light. We received it as such, as a gift of light. And I venture to ask you if that gift is not a thing for you and me to keep sacred?“Can we do that if I continue to see you? You, yes, I have no doubt of you: you will be strong to keep it sacred, our sacred happiness, especially because you have already had your struggle, as you confided to me on that sacred evening. But I, can I too be strong, especially now that I know that you have been through the struggle? I doubt myself, I doubt my own force; I am afraid of myself. There is cruelty in me, a love of destruction, something of a savage. As a boy I took pleasure in destroying beautiful things, in breaking and soiling them. The other day, Jules brought me some roses to my room; in the evening, as I sat alone, thinking of you and of our happiness—yes, at that very moment—my fingers began tofumble with a rose whose petals were loose; and, when I saw that one rose dispetalled, there came a cruel frenzy within me to tear and destroy them all; and I rumpled every one of them. I only give you a small instance, because I do not wish to give you larger instances, from vanity, lest you should know how bad I am. I am afraid of myself. If I saw you again and again and yet again, what should I begin to feel and think and wish, unconsciously? Which would be the stronger, my soul or the beast that is in me? Forgive me for laying bare my dread before you and do not despise me for it. Up to the present I havenotattempted a struggle, in the sacred world of our happiness. I saw you, I saw you often before I knew you; I guessed you as you were; I was permitted to speak to you; it was given me to love you with my soul alone: I beseech you, let it remain so.Let me continue to keep my happiness like this, to keep it sacred, a thousand times sacred. I think it worth while to have lived, now that I have knownthat: happiness, the highest. And I am afraid of the struggle which would probably come and pollute that sacred thing.“Will you believe me when I swear to you that I have reflected deeply on all this? Will you believe me when I swear to you that I suffer at the thought of never being permitted to see you again? And, above all, will you forgive me when I swear to you that I am acting in this way because I think that I am doing right? Oh, I am grateful to you and I love you as a soul of light alone, of nothing but light!“Perhaps I am wrong to send you this letter. I do not know. Perhaps presently I will tear up what I have written....”Yet he had sent her the letter.There was great bitterness within her. She had struggled once, had conquered herself and, in a sacred moment, had confessed both struggle and conquest; she knew that fate had compelled her to do so; she now knew what she would lose through her confession. For a short moment, a single evening perhaps, she had been worthy of her god and his equal. Now she was so no longer; for this reason also she felt bitter. And she felt bitterest of all because the thought dared to rise within her:“A god! Is he a god? Is a god afraid of the struggle?”Then her threefold bitterness changed to despair, black despair, a night which her eyes sought to penetrate in order to see something where they saw nothing, nothing; and she moaned low and wrung her hands, sinking into a heap before thewindow and staring at the trams which, with the tinkling of their bells, ran pitilessly to and fro.

Chapter XThis evening Cecile had written a great deal into her diary; and she now paced up and down in her room, with locked hands hanging before her and her head slightly bowed and a fixed look in her eyes. There was anxiety about her mouth. Before her was the vision, as she had conceived it. He loved her with his soul alone, not as a woman who is pretty and good, but with a higher love than that, with the finest nervous fibres of his being—his real being—with the supreme emotion of the very essence of his soul. Thus she felt that he loved her and in no other way, with contemplation, with adoration. Thus she felt it actually, through a sympathetic power of divination by which each of themwas able to guess what actually passed within the other. And this was his happiness—his first, as he said—thus to love her and in no other way. Oh, she well understood him! She understood his illusion, which he saw in her; and she now knew that, if she really wished to love him for his sake and not for her own, she must needs appear to be nothing else to him, she must preserve his illusion of a woman not of flesh, one who desired none of the earthly things that other women did, one who should be soul alone, a sister soul to his. But, while she saw before her this vision of her love, calm and radiant, she saw also the struggle which awaited her, the struggle with herself, with her own distress: distress because he thought of her so highly and named her Madonna, the while she longed only to be lowly and his slave. She would have to seem the woman he saw in her, forthe sake of his happiness, and the part would be a heavy one for her to support, for she loved him, ah, with such simplicity, with all her woman’s heart, wishing to give herself to him entirely, as only once in her life a woman gives herself, whatever the sacrifice might cost her, the sacrifice made in ignorance of herself and perhaps afterwards to be made in bitterness and sorrow! The outward appearance of her conduct and her inward consciousness of herself: the conflict of these would fall heavily upon her, but she thought upon the struggle with a smile, with joy beaming through her heart, for this bitterness would be endured forhim, deliberately for him and for him alone. Oh, the luxury to suffer for one whom she loved as she loved him; to be tortured with inner longing, that he might not come to her with the embrace of his arms and the kiss of his mouth; and to feel thatthe torture was for the sake of his happiness, his! To feel that she loved him enough to go to him with open arms and beg for the alms of his caresses; but also to feel that she loved him more than that and more highly and that—not from pride or bashfulness, which are really egoism, but solely from sacrifice of herself to his happiness—she never would, never could, be a suppliant before him!To suffer, to suffer for him! To wear a sword through her soul for him! To be a martyr for her god, for whom there was no happiness on earth save through her martyrdom! And she had passed her life, had spent long, long years, without feeling until this day that such luxury could exist, not as a fantasy in rhymes, but as a reality in her heart. She had been a young girl and had read the poets and what they rhyme of love; and she had thought she understood it all, with a subtlecomprehension and yet without ever having had the least acquaintance with emotion itself. She had been a young woman, had been married, had borne children. Her married life flashed through her mind in a lightning-flicker of memory; and she stopped still before the portrait of her dead husband, standing there on its easel, draped in sombre plush. The mask it wore was of ambition: an austere, refined face, with features sharp, as if engraved in fine steel; coldly-intelligent eyes with a fixed portrait look; thin, clean-shaven lips, closed firmly like a lock. Her husband! And she still lived in the same house where she had lived with him, where she had had to receive her many guests when he was Foreign Minister. Her receptions and dinners flickered up in her mind, so many scenes of worldliness; and she clearly recalled her husband’s eye taking in everything with a quick glance ofapproval or disapproval: the arrangement of her rooms, her dress, the ordering of her parties. Her marriage had not been unhappy; her husband was a little cold and unexpansive, wrapped wholly in his ambition; but he was attached to her after his fashion and even tenderly; she too had been fond of him; she thought at the time that she was marrying him for love: her dependent womanliness loved the male, the master. Of a delicate constitution, probably undermined by excessive brain-work, he had died after a short illness. Cecile remembered her sorrow, her loneliness with the two children, as to whom he had already feared that she would spoil them. And her loneliness had been sweet to her, among the clouds of her dreaming....This portrait—a handsome life-size photograph; a carbon impression dark with a Rembrandt shadow—why had shenever had it copied in oils, as she had at first intended? The intention had faded away within her; for months she had not given it a thought; now suddenly it recurred to her.... And she felt no self-reproach or remorse. She would not have the painting made now. The portrait was well enough as it was. She thought of the dead man without sorrow. She had never had cause to complain of him; he had never had anything with which to reproach her. And now she was free; she became conscious of the fact with a great exultation. Free, to feel what she would! Her freedom arched above her as a blue firmament in which new love ascended with a dove’s immaculate flight. Freedom, air, light! She turned from the portrait with a smile of rapture; she thrust her arms above her head as if she would measure her freedom, the width of the air, as if she would go to meet the light. Love,she was in love! There was nothing but love; nothing but the harmony of their souls, the harmony of her handmaiden’s soul with the soul of her god, an exile upon earth. Oh, what a mercy that this harmony could exist between him so exalted and her so lowly! But he must not see her lowliness; she must remain the Madonna, remain the Madonna for his sake, in the martyrdom due to his reverence, in the dizziness of the high place, the heavenly throne to which he raised her, beside himself. She felt this dizziness shuddering about her like rings of light. And she flung herself on her sofa and locked her fingers; her eyelids quivered; then she remained staring before her, towards some very distant point.

Chapter X

This evening Cecile had written a great deal into her diary; and she now paced up and down in her room, with locked hands hanging before her and her head slightly bowed and a fixed look in her eyes. There was anxiety about her mouth. Before her was the vision, as she had conceived it. He loved her with his soul alone, not as a woman who is pretty and good, but with a higher love than that, with the finest nervous fibres of his being—his real being—with the supreme emotion of the very essence of his soul. Thus she felt that he loved her and in no other way, with contemplation, with adoration. Thus she felt it actually, through a sympathetic power of divination by which each of themwas able to guess what actually passed within the other. And this was his happiness—his first, as he said—thus to love her and in no other way. Oh, she well understood him! She understood his illusion, which he saw in her; and she now knew that, if she really wished to love him for his sake and not for her own, she must needs appear to be nothing else to him, she must preserve his illusion of a woman not of flesh, one who desired none of the earthly things that other women did, one who should be soul alone, a sister soul to his. But, while she saw before her this vision of her love, calm and radiant, she saw also the struggle which awaited her, the struggle with herself, with her own distress: distress because he thought of her so highly and named her Madonna, the while she longed only to be lowly and his slave. She would have to seem the woman he saw in her, forthe sake of his happiness, and the part would be a heavy one for her to support, for she loved him, ah, with such simplicity, with all her woman’s heart, wishing to give herself to him entirely, as only once in her life a woman gives herself, whatever the sacrifice might cost her, the sacrifice made in ignorance of herself and perhaps afterwards to be made in bitterness and sorrow! The outward appearance of her conduct and her inward consciousness of herself: the conflict of these would fall heavily upon her, but she thought upon the struggle with a smile, with joy beaming through her heart, for this bitterness would be endured forhim, deliberately for him and for him alone. Oh, the luxury to suffer for one whom she loved as she loved him; to be tortured with inner longing, that he might not come to her with the embrace of his arms and the kiss of his mouth; and to feel thatthe torture was for the sake of his happiness, his! To feel that she loved him enough to go to him with open arms and beg for the alms of his caresses; but also to feel that she loved him more than that and more highly and that—not from pride or bashfulness, which are really egoism, but solely from sacrifice of herself to his happiness—she never would, never could, be a suppliant before him!To suffer, to suffer for him! To wear a sword through her soul for him! To be a martyr for her god, for whom there was no happiness on earth save through her martyrdom! And she had passed her life, had spent long, long years, without feeling until this day that such luxury could exist, not as a fantasy in rhymes, but as a reality in her heart. She had been a young girl and had read the poets and what they rhyme of love; and she had thought she understood it all, with a subtlecomprehension and yet without ever having had the least acquaintance with emotion itself. She had been a young woman, had been married, had borne children. Her married life flashed through her mind in a lightning-flicker of memory; and she stopped still before the portrait of her dead husband, standing there on its easel, draped in sombre plush. The mask it wore was of ambition: an austere, refined face, with features sharp, as if engraved in fine steel; coldly-intelligent eyes with a fixed portrait look; thin, clean-shaven lips, closed firmly like a lock. Her husband! And she still lived in the same house where she had lived with him, where she had had to receive her many guests when he was Foreign Minister. Her receptions and dinners flickered up in her mind, so many scenes of worldliness; and she clearly recalled her husband’s eye taking in everything with a quick glance ofapproval or disapproval: the arrangement of her rooms, her dress, the ordering of her parties. Her marriage had not been unhappy; her husband was a little cold and unexpansive, wrapped wholly in his ambition; but he was attached to her after his fashion and even tenderly; she too had been fond of him; she thought at the time that she was marrying him for love: her dependent womanliness loved the male, the master. Of a delicate constitution, probably undermined by excessive brain-work, he had died after a short illness. Cecile remembered her sorrow, her loneliness with the two children, as to whom he had already feared that she would spoil them. And her loneliness had been sweet to her, among the clouds of her dreaming....This portrait—a handsome life-size photograph; a carbon impression dark with a Rembrandt shadow—why had shenever had it copied in oils, as she had at first intended? The intention had faded away within her; for months she had not given it a thought; now suddenly it recurred to her.... And she felt no self-reproach or remorse. She would not have the painting made now. The portrait was well enough as it was. She thought of the dead man without sorrow. She had never had cause to complain of him; he had never had anything with which to reproach her. And now she was free; she became conscious of the fact with a great exultation. Free, to feel what she would! Her freedom arched above her as a blue firmament in which new love ascended with a dove’s immaculate flight. Freedom, air, light! She turned from the portrait with a smile of rapture; she thrust her arms above her head as if she would measure her freedom, the width of the air, as if she would go to meet the light. Love,she was in love! There was nothing but love; nothing but the harmony of their souls, the harmony of her handmaiden’s soul with the soul of her god, an exile upon earth. Oh, what a mercy that this harmony could exist between him so exalted and her so lowly! But he must not see her lowliness; she must remain the Madonna, remain the Madonna for his sake, in the martyrdom due to his reverence, in the dizziness of the high place, the heavenly throne to which he raised her, beside himself. She felt this dizziness shuddering about her like rings of light. And she flung herself on her sofa and locked her fingers; her eyelids quivered; then she remained staring before her, towards some very distant point.

This evening Cecile had written a great deal into her diary; and she now paced up and down in her room, with locked hands hanging before her and her head slightly bowed and a fixed look in her eyes. There was anxiety about her mouth. Before her was the vision, as she had conceived it. He loved her with his soul alone, not as a woman who is pretty and good, but with a higher love than that, with the finest nervous fibres of his being—his real being—with the supreme emotion of the very essence of his soul. Thus she felt that he loved her and in no other way, with contemplation, with adoration. Thus she felt it actually, through a sympathetic power of divination by which each of themwas able to guess what actually passed within the other. And this was his happiness—his first, as he said—thus to love her and in no other way. Oh, she well understood him! She understood his illusion, which he saw in her; and she now knew that, if she really wished to love him for his sake and not for her own, she must needs appear to be nothing else to him, she must preserve his illusion of a woman not of flesh, one who desired none of the earthly things that other women did, one who should be soul alone, a sister soul to his. But, while she saw before her this vision of her love, calm and radiant, she saw also the struggle which awaited her, the struggle with herself, with her own distress: distress because he thought of her so highly and named her Madonna, the while she longed only to be lowly and his slave. She would have to seem the woman he saw in her, forthe sake of his happiness, and the part would be a heavy one for her to support, for she loved him, ah, with such simplicity, with all her woman’s heart, wishing to give herself to him entirely, as only once in her life a woman gives herself, whatever the sacrifice might cost her, the sacrifice made in ignorance of herself and perhaps afterwards to be made in bitterness and sorrow! The outward appearance of her conduct and her inward consciousness of herself: the conflict of these would fall heavily upon her, but she thought upon the struggle with a smile, with joy beaming through her heart, for this bitterness would be endured forhim, deliberately for him and for him alone. Oh, the luxury to suffer for one whom she loved as she loved him; to be tortured with inner longing, that he might not come to her with the embrace of his arms and the kiss of his mouth; and to feel thatthe torture was for the sake of his happiness, his! To feel that she loved him enough to go to him with open arms and beg for the alms of his caresses; but also to feel that she loved him more than that and more highly and that—not from pride or bashfulness, which are really egoism, but solely from sacrifice of herself to his happiness—she never would, never could, be a suppliant before him!

To suffer, to suffer for him! To wear a sword through her soul for him! To be a martyr for her god, for whom there was no happiness on earth save through her martyrdom! And she had passed her life, had spent long, long years, without feeling until this day that such luxury could exist, not as a fantasy in rhymes, but as a reality in her heart. She had been a young girl and had read the poets and what they rhyme of love; and she had thought she understood it all, with a subtlecomprehension and yet without ever having had the least acquaintance with emotion itself. She had been a young woman, had been married, had borne children. Her married life flashed through her mind in a lightning-flicker of memory; and she stopped still before the portrait of her dead husband, standing there on its easel, draped in sombre plush. The mask it wore was of ambition: an austere, refined face, with features sharp, as if engraved in fine steel; coldly-intelligent eyes with a fixed portrait look; thin, clean-shaven lips, closed firmly like a lock. Her husband! And she still lived in the same house where she had lived with him, where she had had to receive her many guests when he was Foreign Minister. Her receptions and dinners flickered up in her mind, so many scenes of worldliness; and she clearly recalled her husband’s eye taking in everything with a quick glance ofapproval or disapproval: the arrangement of her rooms, her dress, the ordering of her parties. Her marriage had not been unhappy; her husband was a little cold and unexpansive, wrapped wholly in his ambition; but he was attached to her after his fashion and even tenderly; she too had been fond of him; she thought at the time that she was marrying him for love: her dependent womanliness loved the male, the master. Of a delicate constitution, probably undermined by excessive brain-work, he had died after a short illness. Cecile remembered her sorrow, her loneliness with the two children, as to whom he had already feared that she would spoil them. And her loneliness had been sweet to her, among the clouds of her dreaming....

This portrait—a handsome life-size photograph; a carbon impression dark with a Rembrandt shadow—why had shenever had it copied in oils, as she had at first intended? The intention had faded away within her; for months she had not given it a thought; now suddenly it recurred to her.... And she felt no self-reproach or remorse. She would not have the painting made now. The portrait was well enough as it was. She thought of the dead man without sorrow. She had never had cause to complain of him; he had never had anything with which to reproach her. And now she was free; she became conscious of the fact with a great exultation. Free, to feel what she would! Her freedom arched above her as a blue firmament in which new love ascended with a dove’s immaculate flight. Freedom, air, light! She turned from the portrait with a smile of rapture; she thrust her arms above her head as if she would measure her freedom, the width of the air, as if she would go to meet the light. Love,she was in love! There was nothing but love; nothing but the harmony of their souls, the harmony of her handmaiden’s soul with the soul of her god, an exile upon earth. Oh, what a mercy that this harmony could exist between him so exalted and her so lowly! But he must not see her lowliness; she must remain the Madonna, remain the Madonna for his sake, in the martyrdom due to his reverence, in the dizziness of the high place, the heavenly throne to which he raised her, beside himself. She felt this dizziness shuddering about her like rings of light. And she flung herself on her sofa and locked her fingers; her eyelids quivered; then she remained staring before her, towards some very distant point.

Chapter XIJules had been away from school for a day or two with a bad headache, which had made him look very pale and given him an air of sadness; but he was a little better now and, feeling bored in his own room, he went downstairs to the empty drawing-room and sat at the piano. Papa was at work in his study, but it would not interfere with Papa if he played. Dolf spoilt him, seeing in his son something that was wanting in himself and therefore attracted him, even as possibly it had formerly attracted him in his wife also: Jules could do no wrong in his eyes; and, if the boy had only been willing, Dolf would have spared no expense to give him a careful musical education. But Jules violently opposed himselfto anything resembling lessons and besides maintained that it was not worth while. He had no ambition; his vanity was not tickled by his father’s hopes of him or his appreciation of his playing: he played only for himself, to express himself in the vague language of musical sounds. At this moment he felt alone and abandoned in the great house, though he knew that Papa was at work two rooms off and that when he pleased he could take refuge on Papa’s great couch; at this moment he had within himself an almost physical feeling of dread at his loneliness, which caused something to reel about him, an immense sense of utter desolation.He was fourteen years old, but he felt himself neither child nor boy: a certain feebleness, an almost feminine need of dependency, of devotion to some one who would be everything to him had already, in his earliest childhood, struck at hisvirility; and he shivered in his dread of this inner loneliness, as if he were afraid of himself. He suffered greatly from vague moods in which that strange something oppressed and stifled him; then, not knowing where to hide his inner being, he would go to play, so that he might lose himself in the great sound-soul of music. His thin, nervous fingers would grope hesitatingly over the keys; he himself would suffer from the false chords which he struck in his search; then he would let himself go, find a single, very short motive, of plaintive, minor melancholy, and caress that motive in his joy at possessing it, at having found it, caress it until it returned each moment as a monotony of sorrow. He would think the motive so beautiful that he could not part with it; those four or five notes expressed so well everything that he felt that he would play them over and over again, until Suzetteburst into the room and made him stop, saying that otherwise she would be driven mad.Thus he sat playing now. And it was pitiful at first: he hardly recognized the notes; cacophonous discords wailed and cut into his poor brain, still smarting from the headache. He moaned as if he were in pain afresh; but his fingers were hypnotized, they could not desist, they still sought on; and the notes became purer: a short phrase released itself with a cry, a cry which returned continually on the same note, suddenly high after the dull bass of the prelude. And this note came as a surprise to Jules; that fair cry of sorrow frightened him; and he was glad to have found it, glad to have so sweet a sorrow. Then he was no longer himself; he played on until he felt that it was not he who was playing but another, within him, who compelled him; he found the full, purechords as by intuition; through the sobbing of the sounds ran the same musical figure, higher and higher, with silver feet of purity, following the curve of crystal rainbows lightly spanned on high; reaching the topmost point of the arch it struck a cry, this time in very drunkenness, out into the major, throwing up wide arms in gladness to heavens of intangible blue. Then it was like souls of men, which first live and suffer and utter their complaint and then die, to glitter in forms of light whose long wings spring from their pure shoulders in sheets of silver radiance; they trip one behind the other over the rainbows, over the bridges of glass, blue and rose and yellow; and there come more and more, kindreds and nations of souls; they hurry their silver feet, they press across the rainbow, they laugh and sing and push one another; in their jostling their wings clash together, scattering silver down. Nowthey stand all on the top of the arc and look up, with the great wondering of their laughing child-eyes; and they dare not, they dare not; but others press on behind them, innumerous, more and more and yet more; they crowd upwards to the topmost height, their wings straight in the air, close together. And now, now they must; they may hesitate no longer. One of them, taking deep breaths, spreads his flight and with one shock springs out of the thick throng into the ether. Soon many follow, one after another, till their shapes swoon in the blue; all is gleam about them. Now, far below, thin as a thin thread, the rainbow arches itself, but they do not look at it; rays fall towards them: these are souls, which they embrace; they go with them in locked embraces. And then the light: light beaming over all; all things liquid in everlasting light; nothing but light: the sounds sing the light, the soundsare the light, there is nothing now but the light everlasting....“Jules!”He looked up vacantly.“Jules! Jules!”He smiled now, as if awakened from a dream-sleep; he rose, went to her, to Cecile. She stood in the doorway; she had remained standing there while he played; it had seemed to her that he was playing a part of herself.“What were you playing, Jules?” she asked.He was quite awake now and distressed, fearing that he must have made a terrible noise in the house....“I don’t know, Auntie,” he said.She hugged him, suddenly, violently, in gratitude.... To him she owed it, the great mystery, since the day when he had broken out in anger against her....

Chapter XI

Jules had been away from school for a day or two with a bad headache, which had made him look very pale and given him an air of sadness; but he was a little better now and, feeling bored in his own room, he went downstairs to the empty drawing-room and sat at the piano. Papa was at work in his study, but it would not interfere with Papa if he played. Dolf spoilt him, seeing in his son something that was wanting in himself and therefore attracted him, even as possibly it had formerly attracted him in his wife also: Jules could do no wrong in his eyes; and, if the boy had only been willing, Dolf would have spared no expense to give him a careful musical education. But Jules violently opposed himselfto anything resembling lessons and besides maintained that it was not worth while. He had no ambition; his vanity was not tickled by his father’s hopes of him or his appreciation of his playing: he played only for himself, to express himself in the vague language of musical sounds. At this moment he felt alone and abandoned in the great house, though he knew that Papa was at work two rooms off and that when he pleased he could take refuge on Papa’s great couch; at this moment he had within himself an almost physical feeling of dread at his loneliness, which caused something to reel about him, an immense sense of utter desolation.He was fourteen years old, but he felt himself neither child nor boy: a certain feebleness, an almost feminine need of dependency, of devotion to some one who would be everything to him had already, in his earliest childhood, struck at hisvirility; and he shivered in his dread of this inner loneliness, as if he were afraid of himself. He suffered greatly from vague moods in which that strange something oppressed and stifled him; then, not knowing where to hide his inner being, he would go to play, so that he might lose himself in the great sound-soul of music. His thin, nervous fingers would grope hesitatingly over the keys; he himself would suffer from the false chords which he struck in his search; then he would let himself go, find a single, very short motive, of plaintive, minor melancholy, and caress that motive in his joy at possessing it, at having found it, caress it until it returned each moment as a monotony of sorrow. He would think the motive so beautiful that he could not part with it; those four or five notes expressed so well everything that he felt that he would play them over and over again, until Suzetteburst into the room and made him stop, saying that otherwise she would be driven mad.Thus he sat playing now. And it was pitiful at first: he hardly recognized the notes; cacophonous discords wailed and cut into his poor brain, still smarting from the headache. He moaned as if he were in pain afresh; but his fingers were hypnotized, they could not desist, they still sought on; and the notes became purer: a short phrase released itself with a cry, a cry which returned continually on the same note, suddenly high after the dull bass of the prelude. And this note came as a surprise to Jules; that fair cry of sorrow frightened him; and he was glad to have found it, glad to have so sweet a sorrow. Then he was no longer himself; he played on until he felt that it was not he who was playing but another, within him, who compelled him; he found the full, purechords as by intuition; through the sobbing of the sounds ran the same musical figure, higher and higher, with silver feet of purity, following the curve of crystal rainbows lightly spanned on high; reaching the topmost point of the arch it struck a cry, this time in very drunkenness, out into the major, throwing up wide arms in gladness to heavens of intangible blue. Then it was like souls of men, which first live and suffer and utter their complaint and then die, to glitter in forms of light whose long wings spring from their pure shoulders in sheets of silver radiance; they trip one behind the other over the rainbows, over the bridges of glass, blue and rose and yellow; and there come more and more, kindreds and nations of souls; they hurry their silver feet, they press across the rainbow, they laugh and sing and push one another; in their jostling their wings clash together, scattering silver down. Nowthey stand all on the top of the arc and look up, with the great wondering of their laughing child-eyes; and they dare not, they dare not; but others press on behind them, innumerous, more and more and yet more; they crowd upwards to the topmost height, their wings straight in the air, close together. And now, now they must; they may hesitate no longer. One of them, taking deep breaths, spreads his flight and with one shock springs out of the thick throng into the ether. Soon many follow, one after another, till their shapes swoon in the blue; all is gleam about them. Now, far below, thin as a thin thread, the rainbow arches itself, but they do not look at it; rays fall towards them: these are souls, which they embrace; they go with them in locked embraces. And then the light: light beaming over all; all things liquid in everlasting light; nothing but light: the sounds sing the light, the soundsare the light, there is nothing now but the light everlasting....“Jules!”He looked up vacantly.“Jules! Jules!”He smiled now, as if awakened from a dream-sleep; he rose, went to her, to Cecile. She stood in the doorway; she had remained standing there while he played; it had seemed to her that he was playing a part of herself.“What were you playing, Jules?” she asked.He was quite awake now and distressed, fearing that he must have made a terrible noise in the house....“I don’t know, Auntie,” he said.She hugged him, suddenly, violently, in gratitude.... To him she owed it, the great mystery, since the day when he had broken out in anger against her....

Jules had been away from school for a day or two with a bad headache, which had made him look very pale and given him an air of sadness; but he was a little better now and, feeling bored in his own room, he went downstairs to the empty drawing-room and sat at the piano. Papa was at work in his study, but it would not interfere with Papa if he played. Dolf spoilt him, seeing in his son something that was wanting in himself and therefore attracted him, even as possibly it had formerly attracted him in his wife also: Jules could do no wrong in his eyes; and, if the boy had only been willing, Dolf would have spared no expense to give him a careful musical education. But Jules violently opposed himselfto anything resembling lessons and besides maintained that it was not worth while. He had no ambition; his vanity was not tickled by his father’s hopes of him or his appreciation of his playing: he played only for himself, to express himself in the vague language of musical sounds. At this moment he felt alone and abandoned in the great house, though he knew that Papa was at work two rooms off and that when he pleased he could take refuge on Papa’s great couch; at this moment he had within himself an almost physical feeling of dread at his loneliness, which caused something to reel about him, an immense sense of utter desolation.

He was fourteen years old, but he felt himself neither child nor boy: a certain feebleness, an almost feminine need of dependency, of devotion to some one who would be everything to him had already, in his earliest childhood, struck at hisvirility; and he shivered in his dread of this inner loneliness, as if he were afraid of himself. He suffered greatly from vague moods in which that strange something oppressed and stifled him; then, not knowing where to hide his inner being, he would go to play, so that he might lose himself in the great sound-soul of music. His thin, nervous fingers would grope hesitatingly over the keys; he himself would suffer from the false chords which he struck in his search; then he would let himself go, find a single, very short motive, of plaintive, minor melancholy, and caress that motive in his joy at possessing it, at having found it, caress it until it returned each moment as a monotony of sorrow. He would think the motive so beautiful that he could not part with it; those four or five notes expressed so well everything that he felt that he would play them over and over again, until Suzetteburst into the room and made him stop, saying that otherwise she would be driven mad.

Thus he sat playing now. And it was pitiful at first: he hardly recognized the notes; cacophonous discords wailed and cut into his poor brain, still smarting from the headache. He moaned as if he were in pain afresh; but his fingers were hypnotized, they could not desist, they still sought on; and the notes became purer: a short phrase released itself with a cry, a cry which returned continually on the same note, suddenly high after the dull bass of the prelude. And this note came as a surprise to Jules; that fair cry of sorrow frightened him; and he was glad to have found it, glad to have so sweet a sorrow. Then he was no longer himself; he played on until he felt that it was not he who was playing but another, within him, who compelled him; he found the full, purechords as by intuition; through the sobbing of the sounds ran the same musical figure, higher and higher, with silver feet of purity, following the curve of crystal rainbows lightly spanned on high; reaching the topmost point of the arch it struck a cry, this time in very drunkenness, out into the major, throwing up wide arms in gladness to heavens of intangible blue. Then it was like souls of men, which first live and suffer and utter their complaint and then die, to glitter in forms of light whose long wings spring from their pure shoulders in sheets of silver radiance; they trip one behind the other over the rainbows, over the bridges of glass, blue and rose and yellow; and there come more and more, kindreds and nations of souls; they hurry their silver feet, they press across the rainbow, they laugh and sing and push one another; in their jostling their wings clash together, scattering silver down. Nowthey stand all on the top of the arc and look up, with the great wondering of their laughing child-eyes; and they dare not, they dare not; but others press on behind them, innumerous, more and more and yet more; they crowd upwards to the topmost height, their wings straight in the air, close together. And now, now they must; they may hesitate no longer. One of them, taking deep breaths, spreads his flight and with one shock springs out of the thick throng into the ether. Soon many follow, one after another, till their shapes swoon in the blue; all is gleam about them. Now, far below, thin as a thin thread, the rainbow arches itself, but they do not look at it; rays fall towards them: these are souls, which they embrace; they go with them in locked embraces. And then the light: light beaming over all; all things liquid in everlasting light; nothing but light: the sounds sing the light, the soundsare the light, there is nothing now but the light everlasting....

“Jules!”

He looked up vacantly.

“Jules! Jules!”

He smiled now, as if awakened from a dream-sleep; he rose, went to her, to Cecile. She stood in the doorway; she had remained standing there while he played; it had seemed to her that he was playing a part of herself.

“What were you playing, Jules?” she asked.

He was quite awake now and distressed, fearing that he must have made a terrible noise in the house....

“I don’t know, Auntie,” he said.

She hugged him, suddenly, violently, in gratitude.... To him she owed it, the great mystery, since the day when he had broken out in anger against her....

ChapterXII1“Oh, for that which cannot be told, because words are so few, always the same combinations of a few letters and sounds; oh, for that which cannot be thought of in the narrow limits of comprehension; that which at best can only be groped for with the antennæ of the soul; essence of the essences of the ultimate elements of our being!...”She wrote no more, she knew no more: why write that she had no words and yet seek them?She was waiting for him and she now looked out of the open window to see ifhe was coming. She remained there for a long time; then she felt that he would come immediately and so he did: she saw him approaching along the Scheveningen Road; he pushed open the iron gate of the villa and smiled to her as he raised his hat.“Wait!” she cried. “Stay where you are!”She ran down the steps, into the garden, where he stood. She came towards him, beaming with happiness and so lovely, so delicately frail; her blonde head so seemly in the fresh green of May; her figure like a young girl’s in the palest grey gown, with black velvet ribbon and here and there a touch of silver lace.“I am so glad that you have come! You have not been to see me for so long!” she said, giving him her hand.He did not answer at once; he merely smiled.“Let us sit in the garden, behind: the weather is so lovely.”“Let us,” he said.They walked into the garden, by the mesh of the garden-paths, the jasmine-vines starring white as they passed. In an adjoining villa a piano was playing; the sounds came to them of Rubinstein’s Romance.“Listen!” said Cecile, starting. “What is that?”“What?” he asked.“What they are playing.”“Something of Rubinstein’s, I believe,” he said.“Rubinstein?...” she repeated, vaguely. “Yes....”And she relapsed into the wealth of memories of ... what? Once before, in this way, she had walked along these same paths, past jasmine-vines like these, long, ever so long ago; she had walkedwith him, with him.... Why? Could the past repeat itself, after centuries?...“It is three weeks since you have been to see me,” she said, simply, recovering herself.“Forgive me,” he replied.“What was the reason?”He hesitated throughout his being, seeking an excuse:“I don’t know,” he answered, softly. “You will forgive me, will you not? One day it was this, another day that. And then ... I don’t know. Many reasons together. It is not good that I should see you often. Not good for you, nor for me.”“Let us begin with the second. Why is it not good for you?”“No, let us begin with the first, with what concerns you. People ...”“People?”“People are talking about us. I am looked upon as an irretrievable rake. I will not have your name linked profanely with mine.”“And is it?”“Yes....”She smiled:“I don’t mind.”“But you must mind; if not for your own sake ...”He stopped. She knew he was thinking of her boys; she shrugged her shoulders.“And now, why is it not good for you?”“A man must not be happy too often.”“What a sophism! Why not?”“I don’t know; but I feel I am right. It spoils him; it is too much for him.”“Are you happy here, then?”He smiled and gently nodded yes.They were silent for very long. They were now sitting at the end of the garden,on a seat which stood in a semicircle of flowering rhododendrons: the great purple-satin blossoms shut them in with a tall hedge of closely-clustered bouquets, rising from the paths and overtopping their heads; standard roses flung their incense before them. They sat still, happy in each other, happy in the sympathy of their atmospheres mingling together; yet in their happiness there was the invincible melancholy which is an integral part of all life, even in happiness.“I don’t know how I am to tell you,” he said. “But suppose that I were to see you every day, every moment that I thought of you.... That would not do. For then I should become so refined, so subtle, that for pure happiness I should not be able to live; my other being would receive nothing and would suffer like a beast that is left to starve. I am bad, I am selfish, to be able to speak like this, but I must tellyou the truth, that you may not think too well of me. And so I only seek your company as something very beautiful which I allow myself to enjoy just once in a way.”She was silent.“Sometimes ... sometimes, too, I imagine that in doing this I am not behaving well to you, that in some way or other I offend or hurt you. Then I sit brooding about it, until I begin to think that it would be best to take leave of you for ever.”She was still silent; motionless she sat, with her hands lying slackly in her lap, her head slightly bowed, a smile about her mouth.“Speak to me,” he begged.“You do not offend me, nor hurt me,” she said. “Come to me whenever you feel the need. Do always as you think best; and I shall think that best too: you must not doubt that.”“I should so much like to know in what way you like me?”“In what way? Surely, as a Madonna does a sinner who repents and gives her his soul,” she said, archly. “Am I not a Madonna?”“Are you content to be so?”“Can you be so ignorant about women as not to know how every one of us has a longing to solace and relieve, in fact, to play at being a Madonna?”“Do not speak like that,” he said, with pain in his voice.“I am speaking seriously....”He looked at her; a doubt rose within him, but she smiled to him; a calm glory was about her; she sat amidst the bouquets of the rhododendrons as in the blossoming tenderness of one great mystic flower. The wound of his doubt was soothed with balsam. He surrendered himself wholly to his happiness; an atmosphere waftedabout him of the sweet calm of life, an atmosphere in which life becomes dispassionate and restful and smiling, like the air which is rare about the gods. It began to grow dark; a violet dusk fell from the sky like crape falling upon crape; quietly the stars lighted up. The shadows in the garden, between the shrubs among which they sat, flowed into one another; the piano in the next villa had stopped. And happiness drew a veil between his soul and the outside world: the garden with its design of plots and paths; the villa with curtains at its windows and its iron gate; the road behind, with the rattle of carriages and trams. All this withdrew itself far back; all ordinary life retreated far from him; vanishing behind the veil, it died away. It was no dream nor conceit: reality to him was the happiness that had come while the world died away; the happiness that was rare, invisible, intangible,coming from the love which alone is sympathy, calm and without passion, the love which exists purely of itself, without further thought either of taking anything or even of giving anything, the love of the gods, which is the soul of love itself. High he felt himself: the equal of the illusion which he had of her, which she wished to be for his sake, of which he also was now absolutely certain. For he could not know that what had given him happiness—his illusion—so perfect, so crystal-clear, might cause her some sort of grief; he could not at this moment penetrate without sin into the truth of the law which insists on equilibrium, which takes away from one what it offers to another, which gives happiness and grief together; he could not know that, if happiness was with him, with her there was anguish, anguish in that she had to make a pretence and deceive himfor his own sake, anguish in that she wanted what was earthly, that she craved for what was earthly, that she yearned for earthly pleasures!... And still less could he know that, notwithstanding all this, there was nevertheless voluptuousness in her anguish: that to suffer through him, to suffer for him made of her anguish all voluptuousness.2It was dark and late; and they were still sitting there.“Shall we go for a walk?” she asked.He hesitated, with a smile; but she repeated her suggestion:“Why not, if you care to?”And he could no longer refuse.They rose and went along by the back of the house; and Cecile said to the maid, whom she saw sitting with her needle-work by the kitchen-door:“Greta, fetch me my little black hat, my black-lace shawl and a pair of gloves.”The servant rose and went into the house. Cecile noticed how a trifle of shyness was emphasized in Quaerts’ hesitation, now that they stood loitering, waiting among the flower-beds. She smiled, plucked a rose and placed it in her waist-band.“Have the boys gone to bed?” he asked.“Yes,” she replied, still smiling, “long ago.”The servant returned; Cecile put on the little black hat, threw the lace about her neck, but refused the gloves which Greta offered her:“No, not these; get me a pair of grey ones....”The servant went into the house again; and as Cecile looked at Quaerts her gaiety increased. She gave a little laugh:“What is the matter?” she asked, mischievously,knowing perfectly well what it was.“Nothing, nothing!” he said, vaguely, and waited patiently until Greta returned.Then they went through the garden-gate into the Woods. They walked slowly, without speaking; Cecile played with her long gloves, not putting them on.“Really ...” he began, hesitating.“Come, what is it?”“You know; I told you the other day: it’s not right....”“What isn’t?”“What we are doing now. You risk too much.”“Too much, with you?”“If any one were to see us....”“And what then?”He shook his head:“You are wilful; you know quite well.”She clinched her eyes; her mouth grewserious; she pretended to be a little angry:“Listen, you mustn’t be anxious ifI’mnot. I am doing no harm. Our walks are not secret: Greta at least knows about them. And, besides, I am free to do as I please.”“It’s my fault: the first time we went for a walk in the evening, it was at my request....”“Then do penance and be good; come now, without scruple, atmyrequest,” she said, with mock emphasis.He yielded, feeling far too happy to wish to make any sacrifice to a convention which at that moment did not exist.They walked on silently. Cecile’s sensations always came to her in shocks of surprise. So it had been when Jules had grown suddenly angry with her; so also, midway on the stair, after that conversation at dinner of circles of sympathy. And now, precisely in the same way, withthe shock of sudden revelation, came this new sensation, that after all she was not suffering so seriously as she had at first thought; that her agony, being a voluptuousness, could not be a martyrdom; that she was happy, that happiness had come about her in the fine air of his atmosphere, because they were together, together.... Oh, why wish for anything more, above all for things less pure? Did he not love her and was not his love already a fact and was not his love earthly enough for her, now that it was a fact? Did he not love her with a tenderness which feared for anything that might trouble her in the world, through her ignoring that world and wandering about with him alone in the dark? Did he not love her with tenderness, but also with the lustre of his soul’s divinity, calling her Madonna and by this title—unconsciously, perhaps, in his simplicity—making her the equal of all thatwas divine in him? Did he not love her? Heavens above, did he not love her? Well, what did she want more? No, no, she wanted nothing more: she was happy, she shared happiness with him; he gave it to her just as she gave it to him; it was a sphere that moved with them wherever they went, seeking their way along the darkling paths of the Woods, she leaning on his arm, he leading her, for she could see nothing in the dark, which yet was not dark, but pure light of their happiness. And so it was as if it were not evening, but day, noonday, noonday in the night, hour of light in the dusk!3And the darkness was light; the night dawned with light which beamed on every side. Calmly it beamed, the light, like one solitary planet, beaming with the soft radiance of purity, bright in a heaven ofstill, white, silver light, a heaven where they walked along milky ways of light and music; it beamed and sounded beneath their feet; it welled in seas of ether high above their heads and beamed and sounded there, high and clear. And they were alone in their heaven, in their infinite heaven, which was as space, endless beneath them and above and around them, with endless spaces of light and music, of light that was music. Their heaven lay eternal on every side with blissful vistas of white radiance, fading away in lustre and vanishing landscapes, like oases of flowers and plants beside waters of light, still and clear and hushed with peace. For its peace was the ether in which all desire is dissolved and becomes transparent and crystal; and their life was a limpid existence in unruffled peace; they walked on, in heavenly sympathy of fellowship, close together, hemmed in one narrow circle, acircle of radiance which embraced them both. Barely was there a recollection in them of the world which had died out in the glitter of their heaven; there was naught in them but the ecstasy of their love, which had become their soul, as if they no longer had any soul, as if they were only love; and, when they looked about them and into the light, they saw that their heaven, in which their happiness was the light, was nothing but their love, and they saw that the landscapes—the flowers and plants by waters of light—were nothing but their love and that the endless space, the eternities of light and space, of spaces full of light and music, stretching on every hand, beneath them and above and around them, that all this was nothing but their love, which had grown into heaven and happiness.And now they came into the very midst, to the very sun-centre, the very goal whichCecile had once foreseen, concealed in the distance, in the irradiance of innate divinity. Up to the very goal they stepped; and on every side it shot its endless rays into each and every eternity, as if their love were becoming the centre of the universe...4But they sat on a bench, in the dark, not knowing that it was dark, for their eyes were full of the light. They sat against each other, silently at first, till, remembering that he had a voice and could still speak words, he said:“I have never lived through such a moment as this. I forget where we are and who we are and that we are human. We were, were we not? I seem to remember that we once were?”“Yes, but we are that no longer,” she said, smiling; and her eyes, grownbig, looked into the darkness that was light.“Once we were human, suffering and desiring, in a world where certainly much was beautiful, but where much also was ugly.”“Why speak of that now?” she asked; and her voice sounded to herself as coming from very far and low beneath her.“I seemed to remember it.”“I wanted to forget it.”“Then I will do so too. But may I not thank you in human speech for lifting me above humanity?”“Have I done so?”“Yes. May I thank you for it ... on my knees?”He knelt down and reverently took her hands. He could just distinguish the outline of her figure, seated motionless and still upon the bench; above them was apearl-grey twilight of stars, between the black boughs. She felt her hands in his and then his mouth, his kiss, upon her hand. Very gently, she released herself; and then, with a great soul of modesty, full of desireless happiness, very gently she bent her arms about his neck, took his head against her and kissed him on the forehead:“And I, I thank you too!” she whispered, rapturously.He was still; and she held him fast in her embrace.“I thank you,” she said, “for teaching me this and how to be happy as we are and no otherwise. You see, when I still lived and was human, when I was a woman, I thought that I had lived before I met you, for I had had a husband and I had children of whom I was very fond. But from you I first learnt to live, to live without egoism and without desire; Ilearnt that from you this evening or ... this day, which is it? You have given me life and happiness and everything. And I thank you, I thank you! You see, you are so great and so strong and so clear and you have borne me towards your own happiness, which should also be mine, but it was so far above me that, without you, I should never have attained it! For there was a barrier for me which did not exist for you. You see, when I was still human”—and she laughed, clasping him more tightly—“I had a sister; and she too felt that there was a barrier between her happiness and herself; and she felt that she could not surmount this barrier and was so unhappy because of it that she feared lest she should go mad. But I, I do not know: I dreamed, I thought, I hoped, I waited, oh, I waited; and then you came; and you made me understand at once that you could be no man, no husbandfor me, but that you could be more for me: my angel, O my deliverer, who would take me in his arms and bear me over the barrier into his own heaven, where he himself was god, and make me his Madonna! Oh, I thank you, I thank you! I do not know how to thank you; I can only say that I love you, that I adore you, that I lay myself at your feet. Remain as you are and let me adore you, while you kneel where you are. I may adore you, may I not, while you yourself are kneeling? You see, I too must confess, as you used to do,” she continued, for now she could not but confess. “I have not always been straightforward with you; I have sometimes pretended to be the Madonna, knowing all the time that I was but an ordinary woman, a woman who frankly loved you. But I deceived you for your own happiness, did I not? You wished me so, you were happy when I wasso and no otherwise. And now, now too you must forgive me, because now I need no longer pretend, because that is past and has died away, because I myself have died away from myself, because now I am no longer a woman, no longer human for myself, but only what you wish me to be: a Madonna and your creature, an atom of your own essence and divinity. So will you forgive me the past? May I thank you for my happiness, for my heaven, my light, O my master, for my joy, my great, my immeasurable joy?”He rose and sat beside her, taking her gently in his arms:“Are you happy?” he asked.“Yes,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder in a giddiness of light. “And you?”“Yes,” he answered; and he asked again, “And do you desire ... nothing more?”“No, nothing!” she stammered. “I want nothing but this, nothing but what is mine, oh, nothing, nothing more!”“Swear it to me ... by something sacred!”“I swear it to you ... by yourself!” she declared.He pressed her head to his shoulder again. He smiled; and she did not see that there was sadness in his laugh, for she was blinded with light.5They were long silent, sitting there. She remembered having said many things, she no longer knew what. About her she saw that it was dark, with only that pearl-grey twilight of stars above their heads, between the black boughs. She felt that she was lying with her head on his shoulder; she heard his breath. A sort of chill crept down her shoulders, notwithstandingthe warmth of his embrace; she drew the lace closer about her throat and felt that the bench on which they sat was moist with dew.“I thank you, I love you so, you make me so happy,” she repeated.He was silent; he pressed her to him very gently, with sheer tenderness. Her last words still sounded in her ears after she had spoken them. Then she was bound to acknowledge to herself that they had not been spontaneous, like all that she had told him before, as he knelt before her with his head at her breast. She had spoken them to break the silence: formerly that silence had never troubled her; why should it now?“Come!” he said gently; and even yet she did not hear the sadness of his voice, in this single word.They rose and walked on. It came to him that it was late, that they must returnby the same path; beyond that, his thoughts were sorrowful with many things which he could not have expressed; a poor twilight had come about him, after the blinding light of their heaven of but now. And he had to be cautious: it was very dark here; and he could only just see the path, lying very pale and undecided at their feet; they brushed against the trunks of the trees as they passed.“I can see nothing,” said Cecile, laughing. “Can you see the way?”“Rely upon me: I can see quite well in the dark,” he replied. “I have eyes like a lynx....”Step by step they went on and she felt a sweet joy in being guided by him; she clung close to his arm, saying laughingly that she was afraid and that she would be terrified if he were suddenly to leave hold of her.“And suppose I were suddenly to runaway and leave you alone?” said Quaerts, jestingly.She laughed; she besought him with a laugh not to do so. Then she was silent, angry with herself for laughing; a burden of sadness bore her down because of her jesting and laughter. She felt as if she were unworthy of that into which, in radiant light, she had just been received.And he too was filled with sadness: the sadness of having to lead her through the dark, by invisible paths, past rows of invisible tree-trunks which might graze and wound her; of having to lead her through a dark wood, through a black sea, through an ink-dark sphere, when they were returning from a heaven where all had been light and all happiness, without sadness or darkness.And so they were silent in that sadness, until they reached the highroad, the old Scheveningen Road.They approached the villa. A tram went by; two or three people passed on foot; it was a fine evening. He brought her home and waited until the door opened to his ring. The door remained unopened; meantime he pressed her hand tightly and hurt her a little, involuntarily. Greta must have fallen asleep, she thought:“Ring again, would you?”He rang again, louder this time; after a moment, the door opened. She gave him her hand once more, with a smile.“Good-night, mevrouw,” he said, taking her fingers respectfully and raising his hat.Now, now she could hear the sound of his voice, with its note of sadness....

ChapterXII1“Oh, for that which cannot be told, because words are so few, always the same combinations of a few letters and sounds; oh, for that which cannot be thought of in the narrow limits of comprehension; that which at best can only be groped for with the antennæ of the soul; essence of the essences of the ultimate elements of our being!...”She wrote no more, she knew no more: why write that she had no words and yet seek them?She was waiting for him and she now looked out of the open window to see ifhe was coming. She remained there for a long time; then she felt that he would come immediately and so he did: she saw him approaching along the Scheveningen Road; he pushed open the iron gate of the villa and smiled to her as he raised his hat.“Wait!” she cried. “Stay where you are!”She ran down the steps, into the garden, where he stood. She came towards him, beaming with happiness and so lovely, so delicately frail; her blonde head so seemly in the fresh green of May; her figure like a young girl’s in the palest grey gown, with black velvet ribbon and here and there a touch of silver lace.“I am so glad that you have come! You have not been to see me for so long!” she said, giving him her hand.He did not answer at once; he merely smiled.“Let us sit in the garden, behind: the weather is so lovely.”“Let us,” he said.They walked into the garden, by the mesh of the garden-paths, the jasmine-vines starring white as they passed. In an adjoining villa a piano was playing; the sounds came to them of Rubinstein’s Romance.“Listen!” said Cecile, starting. “What is that?”“What?” he asked.“What they are playing.”“Something of Rubinstein’s, I believe,” he said.“Rubinstein?...” she repeated, vaguely. “Yes....”And she relapsed into the wealth of memories of ... what? Once before, in this way, she had walked along these same paths, past jasmine-vines like these, long, ever so long ago; she had walkedwith him, with him.... Why? Could the past repeat itself, after centuries?...“It is three weeks since you have been to see me,” she said, simply, recovering herself.“Forgive me,” he replied.“What was the reason?”He hesitated throughout his being, seeking an excuse:“I don’t know,” he answered, softly. “You will forgive me, will you not? One day it was this, another day that. And then ... I don’t know. Many reasons together. It is not good that I should see you often. Not good for you, nor for me.”“Let us begin with the second. Why is it not good for you?”“No, let us begin with the first, with what concerns you. People ...”“People?”“People are talking about us. I am looked upon as an irretrievable rake. I will not have your name linked profanely with mine.”“And is it?”“Yes....”She smiled:“I don’t mind.”“But you must mind; if not for your own sake ...”He stopped. She knew he was thinking of her boys; she shrugged her shoulders.“And now, why is it not good for you?”“A man must not be happy too often.”“What a sophism! Why not?”“I don’t know; but I feel I am right. It spoils him; it is too much for him.”“Are you happy here, then?”He smiled and gently nodded yes.They were silent for very long. They were now sitting at the end of the garden,on a seat which stood in a semicircle of flowering rhododendrons: the great purple-satin blossoms shut them in with a tall hedge of closely-clustered bouquets, rising from the paths and overtopping their heads; standard roses flung their incense before them. They sat still, happy in each other, happy in the sympathy of their atmospheres mingling together; yet in their happiness there was the invincible melancholy which is an integral part of all life, even in happiness.“I don’t know how I am to tell you,” he said. “But suppose that I were to see you every day, every moment that I thought of you.... That would not do. For then I should become so refined, so subtle, that for pure happiness I should not be able to live; my other being would receive nothing and would suffer like a beast that is left to starve. I am bad, I am selfish, to be able to speak like this, but I must tellyou the truth, that you may not think too well of me. And so I only seek your company as something very beautiful which I allow myself to enjoy just once in a way.”She was silent.“Sometimes ... sometimes, too, I imagine that in doing this I am not behaving well to you, that in some way or other I offend or hurt you. Then I sit brooding about it, until I begin to think that it would be best to take leave of you for ever.”She was still silent; motionless she sat, with her hands lying slackly in her lap, her head slightly bowed, a smile about her mouth.“Speak to me,” he begged.“You do not offend me, nor hurt me,” she said. “Come to me whenever you feel the need. Do always as you think best; and I shall think that best too: you must not doubt that.”“I should so much like to know in what way you like me?”“In what way? Surely, as a Madonna does a sinner who repents and gives her his soul,” she said, archly. “Am I not a Madonna?”“Are you content to be so?”“Can you be so ignorant about women as not to know how every one of us has a longing to solace and relieve, in fact, to play at being a Madonna?”“Do not speak like that,” he said, with pain in his voice.“I am speaking seriously....”He looked at her; a doubt rose within him, but she smiled to him; a calm glory was about her; she sat amidst the bouquets of the rhododendrons as in the blossoming tenderness of one great mystic flower. The wound of his doubt was soothed with balsam. He surrendered himself wholly to his happiness; an atmosphere waftedabout him of the sweet calm of life, an atmosphere in which life becomes dispassionate and restful and smiling, like the air which is rare about the gods. It began to grow dark; a violet dusk fell from the sky like crape falling upon crape; quietly the stars lighted up. The shadows in the garden, between the shrubs among which they sat, flowed into one another; the piano in the next villa had stopped. And happiness drew a veil between his soul and the outside world: the garden with its design of plots and paths; the villa with curtains at its windows and its iron gate; the road behind, with the rattle of carriages and trams. All this withdrew itself far back; all ordinary life retreated far from him; vanishing behind the veil, it died away. It was no dream nor conceit: reality to him was the happiness that had come while the world died away; the happiness that was rare, invisible, intangible,coming from the love which alone is sympathy, calm and without passion, the love which exists purely of itself, without further thought either of taking anything or even of giving anything, the love of the gods, which is the soul of love itself. High he felt himself: the equal of the illusion which he had of her, which she wished to be for his sake, of which he also was now absolutely certain. For he could not know that what had given him happiness—his illusion—so perfect, so crystal-clear, might cause her some sort of grief; he could not at this moment penetrate without sin into the truth of the law which insists on equilibrium, which takes away from one what it offers to another, which gives happiness and grief together; he could not know that, if happiness was with him, with her there was anguish, anguish in that she had to make a pretence and deceive himfor his own sake, anguish in that she wanted what was earthly, that she craved for what was earthly, that she yearned for earthly pleasures!... And still less could he know that, notwithstanding all this, there was nevertheless voluptuousness in her anguish: that to suffer through him, to suffer for him made of her anguish all voluptuousness.2It was dark and late; and they were still sitting there.“Shall we go for a walk?” she asked.He hesitated, with a smile; but she repeated her suggestion:“Why not, if you care to?”And he could no longer refuse.They rose and went along by the back of the house; and Cecile said to the maid, whom she saw sitting with her needle-work by the kitchen-door:“Greta, fetch me my little black hat, my black-lace shawl and a pair of gloves.”The servant rose and went into the house. Cecile noticed how a trifle of shyness was emphasized in Quaerts’ hesitation, now that they stood loitering, waiting among the flower-beds. She smiled, plucked a rose and placed it in her waist-band.“Have the boys gone to bed?” he asked.“Yes,” she replied, still smiling, “long ago.”The servant returned; Cecile put on the little black hat, threw the lace about her neck, but refused the gloves which Greta offered her:“No, not these; get me a pair of grey ones....”The servant went into the house again; and as Cecile looked at Quaerts her gaiety increased. She gave a little laugh:“What is the matter?” she asked, mischievously,knowing perfectly well what it was.“Nothing, nothing!” he said, vaguely, and waited patiently until Greta returned.Then they went through the garden-gate into the Woods. They walked slowly, without speaking; Cecile played with her long gloves, not putting them on.“Really ...” he began, hesitating.“Come, what is it?”“You know; I told you the other day: it’s not right....”“What isn’t?”“What we are doing now. You risk too much.”“Too much, with you?”“If any one were to see us....”“And what then?”He shook his head:“You are wilful; you know quite well.”She clinched her eyes; her mouth grewserious; she pretended to be a little angry:“Listen, you mustn’t be anxious ifI’mnot. I am doing no harm. Our walks are not secret: Greta at least knows about them. And, besides, I am free to do as I please.”“It’s my fault: the first time we went for a walk in the evening, it was at my request....”“Then do penance and be good; come now, without scruple, atmyrequest,” she said, with mock emphasis.He yielded, feeling far too happy to wish to make any sacrifice to a convention which at that moment did not exist.They walked on silently. Cecile’s sensations always came to her in shocks of surprise. So it had been when Jules had grown suddenly angry with her; so also, midway on the stair, after that conversation at dinner of circles of sympathy. And now, precisely in the same way, withthe shock of sudden revelation, came this new sensation, that after all she was not suffering so seriously as she had at first thought; that her agony, being a voluptuousness, could not be a martyrdom; that she was happy, that happiness had come about her in the fine air of his atmosphere, because they were together, together.... Oh, why wish for anything more, above all for things less pure? Did he not love her and was not his love already a fact and was not his love earthly enough for her, now that it was a fact? Did he not love her with a tenderness which feared for anything that might trouble her in the world, through her ignoring that world and wandering about with him alone in the dark? Did he not love her with tenderness, but also with the lustre of his soul’s divinity, calling her Madonna and by this title—unconsciously, perhaps, in his simplicity—making her the equal of all thatwas divine in him? Did he not love her? Heavens above, did he not love her? Well, what did she want more? No, no, she wanted nothing more: she was happy, she shared happiness with him; he gave it to her just as she gave it to him; it was a sphere that moved with them wherever they went, seeking their way along the darkling paths of the Woods, she leaning on his arm, he leading her, for she could see nothing in the dark, which yet was not dark, but pure light of their happiness. And so it was as if it were not evening, but day, noonday, noonday in the night, hour of light in the dusk!3And the darkness was light; the night dawned with light which beamed on every side. Calmly it beamed, the light, like one solitary planet, beaming with the soft radiance of purity, bright in a heaven ofstill, white, silver light, a heaven where they walked along milky ways of light and music; it beamed and sounded beneath their feet; it welled in seas of ether high above their heads and beamed and sounded there, high and clear. And they were alone in their heaven, in their infinite heaven, which was as space, endless beneath them and above and around them, with endless spaces of light and music, of light that was music. Their heaven lay eternal on every side with blissful vistas of white radiance, fading away in lustre and vanishing landscapes, like oases of flowers and plants beside waters of light, still and clear and hushed with peace. For its peace was the ether in which all desire is dissolved and becomes transparent and crystal; and their life was a limpid existence in unruffled peace; they walked on, in heavenly sympathy of fellowship, close together, hemmed in one narrow circle, acircle of radiance which embraced them both. Barely was there a recollection in them of the world which had died out in the glitter of their heaven; there was naught in them but the ecstasy of their love, which had become their soul, as if they no longer had any soul, as if they were only love; and, when they looked about them and into the light, they saw that their heaven, in which their happiness was the light, was nothing but their love, and they saw that the landscapes—the flowers and plants by waters of light—were nothing but their love and that the endless space, the eternities of light and space, of spaces full of light and music, stretching on every hand, beneath them and above and around them, that all this was nothing but their love, which had grown into heaven and happiness.And now they came into the very midst, to the very sun-centre, the very goal whichCecile had once foreseen, concealed in the distance, in the irradiance of innate divinity. Up to the very goal they stepped; and on every side it shot its endless rays into each and every eternity, as if their love were becoming the centre of the universe...4But they sat on a bench, in the dark, not knowing that it was dark, for their eyes were full of the light. They sat against each other, silently at first, till, remembering that he had a voice and could still speak words, he said:“I have never lived through such a moment as this. I forget where we are and who we are and that we are human. We were, were we not? I seem to remember that we once were?”“Yes, but we are that no longer,” she said, smiling; and her eyes, grownbig, looked into the darkness that was light.“Once we were human, suffering and desiring, in a world where certainly much was beautiful, but where much also was ugly.”“Why speak of that now?” she asked; and her voice sounded to herself as coming from very far and low beneath her.“I seemed to remember it.”“I wanted to forget it.”“Then I will do so too. But may I not thank you in human speech for lifting me above humanity?”“Have I done so?”“Yes. May I thank you for it ... on my knees?”He knelt down and reverently took her hands. He could just distinguish the outline of her figure, seated motionless and still upon the bench; above them was apearl-grey twilight of stars, between the black boughs. She felt her hands in his and then his mouth, his kiss, upon her hand. Very gently, she released herself; and then, with a great soul of modesty, full of desireless happiness, very gently she bent her arms about his neck, took his head against her and kissed him on the forehead:“And I, I thank you too!” she whispered, rapturously.He was still; and she held him fast in her embrace.“I thank you,” she said, “for teaching me this and how to be happy as we are and no otherwise. You see, when I still lived and was human, when I was a woman, I thought that I had lived before I met you, for I had had a husband and I had children of whom I was very fond. But from you I first learnt to live, to live without egoism and without desire; Ilearnt that from you this evening or ... this day, which is it? You have given me life and happiness and everything. And I thank you, I thank you! You see, you are so great and so strong and so clear and you have borne me towards your own happiness, which should also be mine, but it was so far above me that, without you, I should never have attained it! For there was a barrier for me which did not exist for you. You see, when I was still human”—and she laughed, clasping him more tightly—“I had a sister; and she too felt that there was a barrier between her happiness and herself; and she felt that she could not surmount this barrier and was so unhappy because of it that she feared lest she should go mad. But I, I do not know: I dreamed, I thought, I hoped, I waited, oh, I waited; and then you came; and you made me understand at once that you could be no man, no husbandfor me, but that you could be more for me: my angel, O my deliverer, who would take me in his arms and bear me over the barrier into his own heaven, where he himself was god, and make me his Madonna! Oh, I thank you, I thank you! I do not know how to thank you; I can only say that I love you, that I adore you, that I lay myself at your feet. Remain as you are and let me adore you, while you kneel where you are. I may adore you, may I not, while you yourself are kneeling? You see, I too must confess, as you used to do,” she continued, for now she could not but confess. “I have not always been straightforward with you; I have sometimes pretended to be the Madonna, knowing all the time that I was but an ordinary woman, a woman who frankly loved you. But I deceived you for your own happiness, did I not? You wished me so, you were happy when I wasso and no otherwise. And now, now too you must forgive me, because now I need no longer pretend, because that is past and has died away, because I myself have died away from myself, because now I am no longer a woman, no longer human for myself, but only what you wish me to be: a Madonna and your creature, an atom of your own essence and divinity. So will you forgive me the past? May I thank you for my happiness, for my heaven, my light, O my master, for my joy, my great, my immeasurable joy?”He rose and sat beside her, taking her gently in his arms:“Are you happy?” he asked.“Yes,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder in a giddiness of light. “And you?”“Yes,” he answered; and he asked again, “And do you desire ... nothing more?”“No, nothing!” she stammered. “I want nothing but this, nothing but what is mine, oh, nothing, nothing more!”“Swear it to me ... by something sacred!”“I swear it to you ... by yourself!” she declared.He pressed her head to his shoulder again. He smiled; and she did not see that there was sadness in his laugh, for she was blinded with light.5They were long silent, sitting there. She remembered having said many things, she no longer knew what. About her she saw that it was dark, with only that pearl-grey twilight of stars above their heads, between the black boughs. She felt that she was lying with her head on his shoulder; she heard his breath. A sort of chill crept down her shoulders, notwithstandingthe warmth of his embrace; she drew the lace closer about her throat and felt that the bench on which they sat was moist with dew.“I thank you, I love you so, you make me so happy,” she repeated.He was silent; he pressed her to him very gently, with sheer tenderness. Her last words still sounded in her ears after she had spoken them. Then she was bound to acknowledge to herself that they had not been spontaneous, like all that she had told him before, as he knelt before her with his head at her breast. She had spoken them to break the silence: formerly that silence had never troubled her; why should it now?“Come!” he said gently; and even yet she did not hear the sadness of his voice, in this single word.They rose and walked on. It came to him that it was late, that they must returnby the same path; beyond that, his thoughts were sorrowful with many things which he could not have expressed; a poor twilight had come about him, after the blinding light of their heaven of but now. And he had to be cautious: it was very dark here; and he could only just see the path, lying very pale and undecided at their feet; they brushed against the trunks of the trees as they passed.“I can see nothing,” said Cecile, laughing. “Can you see the way?”“Rely upon me: I can see quite well in the dark,” he replied. “I have eyes like a lynx....”Step by step they went on and she felt a sweet joy in being guided by him; she clung close to his arm, saying laughingly that she was afraid and that she would be terrified if he were suddenly to leave hold of her.“And suppose I were suddenly to runaway and leave you alone?” said Quaerts, jestingly.She laughed; she besought him with a laugh not to do so. Then she was silent, angry with herself for laughing; a burden of sadness bore her down because of her jesting and laughter. She felt as if she were unworthy of that into which, in radiant light, she had just been received.And he too was filled with sadness: the sadness of having to lead her through the dark, by invisible paths, past rows of invisible tree-trunks which might graze and wound her; of having to lead her through a dark wood, through a black sea, through an ink-dark sphere, when they were returning from a heaven where all had been light and all happiness, without sadness or darkness.And so they were silent in that sadness, until they reached the highroad, the old Scheveningen Road.They approached the villa. A tram went by; two or three people passed on foot; it was a fine evening. He brought her home and waited until the door opened to his ring. The door remained unopened; meantime he pressed her hand tightly and hurt her a little, involuntarily. Greta must have fallen asleep, she thought:“Ring again, would you?”He rang again, louder this time; after a moment, the door opened. She gave him her hand once more, with a smile.“Good-night, mevrouw,” he said, taking her fingers respectfully and raising his hat.Now, now she could hear the sound of his voice, with its note of sadness....

1“Oh, for that which cannot be told, because words are so few, always the same combinations of a few letters and sounds; oh, for that which cannot be thought of in the narrow limits of comprehension; that which at best can only be groped for with the antennæ of the soul; essence of the essences of the ultimate elements of our being!...”She wrote no more, she knew no more: why write that she had no words and yet seek them?She was waiting for him and she now looked out of the open window to see ifhe was coming. She remained there for a long time; then she felt that he would come immediately and so he did: she saw him approaching along the Scheveningen Road; he pushed open the iron gate of the villa and smiled to her as he raised his hat.“Wait!” she cried. “Stay where you are!”She ran down the steps, into the garden, where he stood. She came towards him, beaming with happiness and so lovely, so delicately frail; her blonde head so seemly in the fresh green of May; her figure like a young girl’s in the palest grey gown, with black velvet ribbon and here and there a touch of silver lace.“I am so glad that you have come! You have not been to see me for so long!” she said, giving him her hand.He did not answer at once; he merely smiled.“Let us sit in the garden, behind: the weather is so lovely.”“Let us,” he said.They walked into the garden, by the mesh of the garden-paths, the jasmine-vines starring white as they passed. In an adjoining villa a piano was playing; the sounds came to them of Rubinstein’s Romance.“Listen!” said Cecile, starting. “What is that?”“What?” he asked.“What they are playing.”“Something of Rubinstein’s, I believe,” he said.“Rubinstein?...” she repeated, vaguely. “Yes....”And she relapsed into the wealth of memories of ... what? Once before, in this way, she had walked along these same paths, past jasmine-vines like these, long, ever so long ago; she had walkedwith him, with him.... Why? Could the past repeat itself, after centuries?...“It is three weeks since you have been to see me,” she said, simply, recovering herself.“Forgive me,” he replied.“What was the reason?”He hesitated throughout his being, seeking an excuse:“I don’t know,” he answered, softly. “You will forgive me, will you not? One day it was this, another day that. And then ... I don’t know. Many reasons together. It is not good that I should see you often. Not good for you, nor for me.”“Let us begin with the second. Why is it not good for you?”“No, let us begin with the first, with what concerns you. People ...”“People?”“People are talking about us. I am looked upon as an irretrievable rake. I will not have your name linked profanely with mine.”“And is it?”“Yes....”She smiled:“I don’t mind.”“But you must mind; if not for your own sake ...”He stopped. She knew he was thinking of her boys; she shrugged her shoulders.“And now, why is it not good for you?”“A man must not be happy too often.”“What a sophism! Why not?”“I don’t know; but I feel I am right. It spoils him; it is too much for him.”“Are you happy here, then?”He smiled and gently nodded yes.They were silent for very long. They were now sitting at the end of the garden,on a seat which stood in a semicircle of flowering rhododendrons: the great purple-satin blossoms shut them in with a tall hedge of closely-clustered bouquets, rising from the paths and overtopping their heads; standard roses flung their incense before them. They sat still, happy in each other, happy in the sympathy of their atmospheres mingling together; yet in their happiness there was the invincible melancholy which is an integral part of all life, even in happiness.“I don’t know how I am to tell you,” he said. “But suppose that I were to see you every day, every moment that I thought of you.... That would not do. For then I should become so refined, so subtle, that for pure happiness I should not be able to live; my other being would receive nothing and would suffer like a beast that is left to starve. I am bad, I am selfish, to be able to speak like this, but I must tellyou the truth, that you may not think too well of me. And so I only seek your company as something very beautiful which I allow myself to enjoy just once in a way.”She was silent.“Sometimes ... sometimes, too, I imagine that in doing this I am not behaving well to you, that in some way or other I offend or hurt you. Then I sit brooding about it, until I begin to think that it would be best to take leave of you for ever.”She was still silent; motionless she sat, with her hands lying slackly in her lap, her head slightly bowed, a smile about her mouth.“Speak to me,” he begged.“You do not offend me, nor hurt me,” she said. “Come to me whenever you feel the need. Do always as you think best; and I shall think that best too: you must not doubt that.”“I should so much like to know in what way you like me?”“In what way? Surely, as a Madonna does a sinner who repents and gives her his soul,” she said, archly. “Am I not a Madonna?”“Are you content to be so?”“Can you be so ignorant about women as not to know how every one of us has a longing to solace and relieve, in fact, to play at being a Madonna?”“Do not speak like that,” he said, with pain in his voice.“I am speaking seriously....”He looked at her; a doubt rose within him, but she smiled to him; a calm glory was about her; she sat amidst the bouquets of the rhododendrons as in the blossoming tenderness of one great mystic flower. The wound of his doubt was soothed with balsam. He surrendered himself wholly to his happiness; an atmosphere waftedabout him of the sweet calm of life, an atmosphere in which life becomes dispassionate and restful and smiling, like the air which is rare about the gods. It began to grow dark; a violet dusk fell from the sky like crape falling upon crape; quietly the stars lighted up. The shadows in the garden, between the shrubs among which they sat, flowed into one another; the piano in the next villa had stopped. And happiness drew a veil between his soul and the outside world: the garden with its design of plots and paths; the villa with curtains at its windows and its iron gate; the road behind, with the rattle of carriages and trams. All this withdrew itself far back; all ordinary life retreated far from him; vanishing behind the veil, it died away. It was no dream nor conceit: reality to him was the happiness that had come while the world died away; the happiness that was rare, invisible, intangible,coming from the love which alone is sympathy, calm and without passion, the love which exists purely of itself, without further thought either of taking anything or even of giving anything, the love of the gods, which is the soul of love itself. High he felt himself: the equal of the illusion which he had of her, which she wished to be for his sake, of which he also was now absolutely certain. For he could not know that what had given him happiness—his illusion—so perfect, so crystal-clear, might cause her some sort of grief; he could not at this moment penetrate without sin into the truth of the law which insists on equilibrium, which takes away from one what it offers to another, which gives happiness and grief together; he could not know that, if happiness was with him, with her there was anguish, anguish in that she had to make a pretence and deceive himfor his own sake, anguish in that she wanted what was earthly, that she craved for what was earthly, that she yearned for earthly pleasures!... And still less could he know that, notwithstanding all this, there was nevertheless voluptuousness in her anguish: that to suffer through him, to suffer for him made of her anguish all voluptuousness.

1

“Oh, for that which cannot be told, because words are so few, always the same combinations of a few letters and sounds; oh, for that which cannot be thought of in the narrow limits of comprehension; that which at best can only be groped for with the antennæ of the soul; essence of the essences of the ultimate elements of our being!...”She wrote no more, she knew no more: why write that she had no words and yet seek them?She was waiting for him and she now looked out of the open window to see ifhe was coming. She remained there for a long time; then she felt that he would come immediately and so he did: she saw him approaching along the Scheveningen Road; he pushed open the iron gate of the villa and smiled to her as he raised his hat.“Wait!” she cried. “Stay where you are!”She ran down the steps, into the garden, where he stood. She came towards him, beaming with happiness and so lovely, so delicately frail; her blonde head so seemly in the fresh green of May; her figure like a young girl’s in the palest grey gown, with black velvet ribbon and here and there a touch of silver lace.“I am so glad that you have come! You have not been to see me for so long!” she said, giving him her hand.He did not answer at once; he merely smiled.“Let us sit in the garden, behind: the weather is so lovely.”“Let us,” he said.They walked into the garden, by the mesh of the garden-paths, the jasmine-vines starring white as they passed. In an adjoining villa a piano was playing; the sounds came to them of Rubinstein’s Romance.“Listen!” said Cecile, starting. “What is that?”“What?” he asked.“What they are playing.”“Something of Rubinstein’s, I believe,” he said.“Rubinstein?...” she repeated, vaguely. “Yes....”And she relapsed into the wealth of memories of ... what? Once before, in this way, she had walked along these same paths, past jasmine-vines like these, long, ever so long ago; she had walkedwith him, with him.... Why? Could the past repeat itself, after centuries?...“It is three weeks since you have been to see me,” she said, simply, recovering herself.“Forgive me,” he replied.“What was the reason?”He hesitated throughout his being, seeking an excuse:“I don’t know,” he answered, softly. “You will forgive me, will you not? One day it was this, another day that. And then ... I don’t know. Many reasons together. It is not good that I should see you often. Not good for you, nor for me.”“Let us begin with the second. Why is it not good for you?”“No, let us begin with the first, with what concerns you. People ...”“People?”“People are talking about us. I am looked upon as an irretrievable rake. I will not have your name linked profanely with mine.”“And is it?”“Yes....”She smiled:“I don’t mind.”“But you must mind; if not for your own sake ...”He stopped. She knew he was thinking of her boys; she shrugged her shoulders.“And now, why is it not good for you?”“A man must not be happy too often.”“What a sophism! Why not?”“I don’t know; but I feel I am right. It spoils him; it is too much for him.”“Are you happy here, then?”He smiled and gently nodded yes.They were silent for very long. They were now sitting at the end of the garden,on a seat which stood in a semicircle of flowering rhododendrons: the great purple-satin blossoms shut them in with a tall hedge of closely-clustered bouquets, rising from the paths and overtopping their heads; standard roses flung their incense before them. They sat still, happy in each other, happy in the sympathy of their atmospheres mingling together; yet in their happiness there was the invincible melancholy which is an integral part of all life, even in happiness.“I don’t know how I am to tell you,” he said. “But suppose that I were to see you every day, every moment that I thought of you.... That would not do. For then I should become so refined, so subtle, that for pure happiness I should not be able to live; my other being would receive nothing and would suffer like a beast that is left to starve. I am bad, I am selfish, to be able to speak like this, but I must tellyou the truth, that you may not think too well of me. And so I only seek your company as something very beautiful which I allow myself to enjoy just once in a way.”She was silent.“Sometimes ... sometimes, too, I imagine that in doing this I am not behaving well to you, that in some way or other I offend or hurt you. Then I sit brooding about it, until I begin to think that it would be best to take leave of you for ever.”She was still silent; motionless she sat, with her hands lying slackly in her lap, her head slightly bowed, a smile about her mouth.“Speak to me,” he begged.“You do not offend me, nor hurt me,” she said. “Come to me whenever you feel the need. Do always as you think best; and I shall think that best too: you must not doubt that.”“I should so much like to know in what way you like me?”“In what way? Surely, as a Madonna does a sinner who repents and gives her his soul,” she said, archly. “Am I not a Madonna?”“Are you content to be so?”“Can you be so ignorant about women as not to know how every one of us has a longing to solace and relieve, in fact, to play at being a Madonna?”“Do not speak like that,” he said, with pain in his voice.“I am speaking seriously....”He looked at her; a doubt rose within him, but she smiled to him; a calm glory was about her; she sat amidst the bouquets of the rhododendrons as in the blossoming tenderness of one great mystic flower. The wound of his doubt was soothed with balsam. He surrendered himself wholly to his happiness; an atmosphere waftedabout him of the sweet calm of life, an atmosphere in which life becomes dispassionate and restful and smiling, like the air which is rare about the gods. It began to grow dark; a violet dusk fell from the sky like crape falling upon crape; quietly the stars lighted up. The shadows in the garden, between the shrubs among which they sat, flowed into one another; the piano in the next villa had stopped. And happiness drew a veil between his soul and the outside world: the garden with its design of plots and paths; the villa with curtains at its windows and its iron gate; the road behind, with the rattle of carriages and trams. All this withdrew itself far back; all ordinary life retreated far from him; vanishing behind the veil, it died away. It was no dream nor conceit: reality to him was the happiness that had come while the world died away; the happiness that was rare, invisible, intangible,coming from the love which alone is sympathy, calm and without passion, the love which exists purely of itself, without further thought either of taking anything or even of giving anything, the love of the gods, which is the soul of love itself. High he felt himself: the equal of the illusion which he had of her, which she wished to be for his sake, of which he also was now absolutely certain. For he could not know that what had given him happiness—his illusion—so perfect, so crystal-clear, might cause her some sort of grief; he could not at this moment penetrate without sin into the truth of the law which insists on equilibrium, which takes away from one what it offers to another, which gives happiness and grief together; he could not know that, if happiness was with him, with her there was anguish, anguish in that she had to make a pretence and deceive himfor his own sake, anguish in that she wanted what was earthly, that she craved for what was earthly, that she yearned for earthly pleasures!... And still less could he know that, notwithstanding all this, there was nevertheless voluptuousness in her anguish: that to suffer through him, to suffer for him made of her anguish all voluptuousness.

“Oh, for that which cannot be told, because words are so few, always the same combinations of a few letters and sounds; oh, for that which cannot be thought of in the narrow limits of comprehension; that which at best can only be groped for with the antennæ of the soul; essence of the essences of the ultimate elements of our being!...”

She wrote no more, she knew no more: why write that she had no words and yet seek them?

She was waiting for him and she now looked out of the open window to see ifhe was coming. She remained there for a long time; then she felt that he would come immediately and so he did: she saw him approaching along the Scheveningen Road; he pushed open the iron gate of the villa and smiled to her as he raised his hat.

“Wait!” she cried. “Stay where you are!”

She ran down the steps, into the garden, where he stood. She came towards him, beaming with happiness and so lovely, so delicately frail; her blonde head so seemly in the fresh green of May; her figure like a young girl’s in the palest grey gown, with black velvet ribbon and here and there a touch of silver lace.

“I am so glad that you have come! You have not been to see me for so long!” she said, giving him her hand.

He did not answer at once; he merely smiled.

“Let us sit in the garden, behind: the weather is so lovely.”

“Let us,” he said.

They walked into the garden, by the mesh of the garden-paths, the jasmine-vines starring white as they passed. In an adjoining villa a piano was playing; the sounds came to them of Rubinstein’s Romance.

“Listen!” said Cecile, starting. “What is that?”

“What?” he asked.

“What they are playing.”

“Something of Rubinstein’s, I believe,” he said.

“Rubinstein?...” she repeated, vaguely. “Yes....”

And she relapsed into the wealth of memories of ... what? Once before, in this way, she had walked along these same paths, past jasmine-vines like these, long, ever so long ago; she had walkedwith him, with him.... Why? Could the past repeat itself, after centuries?...

“It is three weeks since you have been to see me,” she said, simply, recovering herself.

“Forgive me,” he replied.

“What was the reason?”

He hesitated throughout his being, seeking an excuse:

“I don’t know,” he answered, softly. “You will forgive me, will you not? One day it was this, another day that. And then ... I don’t know. Many reasons together. It is not good that I should see you often. Not good for you, nor for me.”

“Let us begin with the second. Why is it not good for you?”

“No, let us begin with the first, with what concerns you. People ...”

“People?”

“People are talking about us. I am looked upon as an irretrievable rake. I will not have your name linked profanely with mine.”

“And is it?”

“Yes....”

She smiled:

“I don’t mind.”

“But you must mind; if not for your own sake ...”

He stopped. She knew he was thinking of her boys; she shrugged her shoulders.

“And now, why is it not good for you?”

“A man must not be happy too often.”

“What a sophism! Why not?”

“I don’t know; but I feel I am right. It spoils him; it is too much for him.”

“Are you happy here, then?”

He smiled and gently nodded yes.

They were silent for very long. They were now sitting at the end of the garden,on a seat which stood in a semicircle of flowering rhododendrons: the great purple-satin blossoms shut them in with a tall hedge of closely-clustered bouquets, rising from the paths and overtopping their heads; standard roses flung their incense before them. They sat still, happy in each other, happy in the sympathy of their atmospheres mingling together; yet in their happiness there was the invincible melancholy which is an integral part of all life, even in happiness.

“I don’t know how I am to tell you,” he said. “But suppose that I were to see you every day, every moment that I thought of you.... That would not do. For then I should become so refined, so subtle, that for pure happiness I should not be able to live; my other being would receive nothing and would suffer like a beast that is left to starve. I am bad, I am selfish, to be able to speak like this, but I must tellyou the truth, that you may not think too well of me. And so I only seek your company as something very beautiful which I allow myself to enjoy just once in a way.”

She was silent.

“Sometimes ... sometimes, too, I imagine that in doing this I am not behaving well to you, that in some way or other I offend or hurt you. Then I sit brooding about it, until I begin to think that it would be best to take leave of you for ever.”

She was still silent; motionless she sat, with her hands lying slackly in her lap, her head slightly bowed, a smile about her mouth.

“Speak to me,” he begged.

“You do not offend me, nor hurt me,” she said. “Come to me whenever you feel the need. Do always as you think best; and I shall think that best too: you must not doubt that.”

“I should so much like to know in what way you like me?”

“In what way? Surely, as a Madonna does a sinner who repents and gives her his soul,” she said, archly. “Am I not a Madonna?”

“Are you content to be so?”

“Can you be so ignorant about women as not to know how every one of us has a longing to solace and relieve, in fact, to play at being a Madonna?”

“Do not speak like that,” he said, with pain in his voice.

“I am speaking seriously....”

He looked at her; a doubt rose within him, but she smiled to him; a calm glory was about her; she sat amidst the bouquets of the rhododendrons as in the blossoming tenderness of one great mystic flower. The wound of his doubt was soothed with balsam. He surrendered himself wholly to his happiness; an atmosphere waftedabout him of the sweet calm of life, an atmosphere in which life becomes dispassionate and restful and smiling, like the air which is rare about the gods. It began to grow dark; a violet dusk fell from the sky like crape falling upon crape; quietly the stars lighted up. The shadows in the garden, between the shrubs among which they sat, flowed into one another; the piano in the next villa had stopped. And happiness drew a veil between his soul and the outside world: the garden with its design of plots and paths; the villa with curtains at its windows and its iron gate; the road behind, with the rattle of carriages and trams. All this withdrew itself far back; all ordinary life retreated far from him; vanishing behind the veil, it died away. It was no dream nor conceit: reality to him was the happiness that had come while the world died away; the happiness that was rare, invisible, intangible,coming from the love which alone is sympathy, calm and without passion, the love which exists purely of itself, without further thought either of taking anything or even of giving anything, the love of the gods, which is the soul of love itself. High he felt himself: the equal of the illusion which he had of her, which she wished to be for his sake, of which he also was now absolutely certain. For he could not know that what had given him happiness—his illusion—so perfect, so crystal-clear, might cause her some sort of grief; he could not at this moment penetrate without sin into the truth of the law which insists on equilibrium, which takes away from one what it offers to another, which gives happiness and grief together; he could not know that, if happiness was with him, with her there was anguish, anguish in that she had to make a pretence and deceive himfor his own sake, anguish in that she wanted what was earthly, that she craved for what was earthly, that she yearned for earthly pleasures!... And still less could he know that, notwithstanding all this, there was nevertheless voluptuousness in her anguish: that to suffer through him, to suffer for him made of her anguish all voluptuousness.

2It was dark and late; and they were still sitting there.“Shall we go for a walk?” she asked.He hesitated, with a smile; but she repeated her suggestion:“Why not, if you care to?”And he could no longer refuse.They rose and went along by the back of the house; and Cecile said to the maid, whom she saw sitting with her needle-work by the kitchen-door:“Greta, fetch me my little black hat, my black-lace shawl and a pair of gloves.”The servant rose and went into the house. Cecile noticed how a trifle of shyness was emphasized in Quaerts’ hesitation, now that they stood loitering, waiting among the flower-beds. She smiled, plucked a rose and placed it in her waist-band.“Have the boys gone to bed?” he asked.“Yes,” she replied, still smiling, “long ago.”The servant returned; Cecile put on the little black hat, threw the lace about her neck, but refused the gloves which Greta offered her:“No, not these; get me a pair of grey ones....”The servant went into the house again; and as Cecile looked at Quaerts her gaiety increased. She gave a little laugh:“What is the matter?” she asked, mischievously,knowing perfectly well what it was.“Nothing, nothing!” he said, vaguely, and waited patiently until Greta returned.Then they went through the garden-gate into the Woods. They walked slowly, without speaking; Cecile played with her long gloves, not putting them on.“Really ...” he began, hesitating.“Come, what is it?”“You know; I told you the other day: it’s not right....”“What isn’t?”“What we are doing now. You risk too much.”“Too much, with you?”“If any one were to see us....”“And what then?”He shook his head:“You are wilful; you know quite well.”She clinched her eyes; her mouth grewserious; she pretended to be a little angry:“Listen, you mustn’t be anxious ifI’mnot. I am doing no harm. Our walks are not secret: Greta at least knows about them. And, besides, I am free to do as I please.”“It’s my fault: the first time we went for a walk in the evening, it was at my request....”“Then do penance and be good; come now, without scruple, atmyrequest,” she said, with mock emphasis.He yielded, feeling far too happy to wish to make any sacrifice to a convention which at that moment did not exist.They walked on silently. Cecile’s sensations always came to her in shocks of surprise. So it had been when Jules had grown suddenly angry with her; so also, midway on the stair, after that conversation at dinner of circles of sympathy. And now, precisely in the same way, withthe shock of sudden revelation, came this new sensation, that after all she was not suffering so seriously as she had at first thought; that her agony, being a voluptuousness, could not be a martyrdom; that she was happy, that happiness had come about her in the fine air of his atmosphere, because they were together, together.... Oh, why wish for anything more, above all for things less pure? Did he not love her and was not his love already a fact and was not his love earthly enough for her, now that it was a fact? Did he not love her with a tenderness which feared for anything that might trouble her in the world, through her ignoring that world and wandering about with him alone in the dark? Did he not love her with tenderness, but also with the lustre of his soul’s divinity, calling her Madonna and by this title—unconsciously, perhaps, in his simplicity—making her the equal of all thatwas divine in him? Did he not love her? Heavens above, did he not love her? Well, what did she want more? No, no, she wanted nothing more: she was happy, she shared happiness with him; he gave it to her just as she gave it to him; it was a sphere that moved with them wherever they went, seeking their way along the darkling paths of the Woods, she leaning on his arm, he leading her, for she could see nothing in the dark, which yet was not dark, but pure light of their happiness. And so it was as if it were not evening, but day, noonday, noonday in the night, hour of light in the dusk!

2

It was dark and late; and they were still sitting there.“Shall we go for a walk?” she asked.He hesitated, with a smile; but she repeated her suggestion:“Why not, if you care to?”And he could no longer refuse.They rose and went along by the back of the house; and Cecile said to the maid, whom she saw sitting with her needle-work by the kitchen-door:“Greta, fetch me my little black hat, my black-lace shawl and a pair of gloves.”The servant rose and went into the house. Cecile noticed how a trifle of shyness was emphasized in Quaerts’ hesitation, now that they stood loitering, waiting among the flower-beds. She smiled, plucked a rose and placed it in her waist-band.“Have the boys gone to bed?” he asked.“Yes,” she replied, still smiling, “long ago.”The servant returned; Cecile put on the little black hat, threw the lace about her neck, but refused the gloves which Greta offered her:“No, not these; get me a pair of grey ones....”The servant went into the house again; and as Cecile looked at Quaerts her gaiety increased. She gave a little laugh:“What is the matter?” she asked, mischievously,knowing perfectly well what it was.“Nothing, nothing!” he said, vaguely, and waited patiently until Greta returned.Then they went through the garden-gate into the Woods. They walked slowly, without speaking; Cecile played with her long gloves, not putting them on.“Really ...” he began, hesitating.“Come, what is it?”“You know; I told you the other day: it’s not right....”“What isn’t?”“What we are doing now. You risk too much.”“Too much, with you?”“If any one were to see us....”“And what then?”He shook his head:“You are wilful; you know quite well.”She clinched her eyes; her mouth grewserious; she pretended to be a little angry:“Listen, you mustn’t be anxious ifI’mnot. I am doing no harm. Our walks are not secret: Greta at least knows about them. And, besides, I am free to do as I please.”“It’s my fault: the first time we went for a walk in the evening, it was at my request....”“Then do penance and be good; come now, without scruple, atmyrequest,” she said, with mock emphasis.He yielded, feeling far too happy to wish to make any sacrifice to a convention which at that moment did not exist.They walked on silently. Cecile’s sensations always came to her in shocks of surprise. So it had been when Jules had grown suddenly angry with her; so also, midway on the stair, after that conversation at dinner of circles of sympathy. And now, precisely in the same way, withthe shock of sudden revelation, came this new sensation, that after all she was not suffering so seriously as she had at first thought; that her agony, being a voluptuousness, could not be a martyrdom; that she was happy, that happiness had come about her in the fine air of his atmosphere, because they were together, together.... Oh, why wish for anything more, above all for things less pure? Did he not love her and was not his love already a fact and was not his love earthly enough for her, now that it was a fact? Did he not love her with a tenderness which feared for anything that might trouble her in the world, through her ignoring that world and wandering about with him alone in the dark? Did he not love her with tenderness, but also with the lustre of his soul’s divinity, calling her Madonna and by this title—unconsciously, perhaps, in his simplicity—making her the equal of all thatwas divine in him? Did he not love her? Heavens above, did he not love her? Well, what did she want more? No, no, she wanted nothing more: she was happy, she shared happiness with him; he gave it to her just as she gave it to him; it was a sphere that moved with them wherever they went, seeking their way along the darkling paths of the Woods, she leaning on his arm, he leading her, for she could see nothing in the dark, which yet was not dark, but pure light of their happiness. And so it was as if it were not evening, but day, noonday, noonday in the night, hour of light in the dusk!

It was dark and late; and they were still sitting there.

“Shall we go for a walk?” she asked.

He hesitated, with a smile; but she repeated her suggestion:

“Why not, if you care to?”

And he could no longer refuse.

They rose and went along by the back of the house; and Cecile said to the maid, whom she saw sitting with her needle-work by the kitchen-door:

“Greta, fetch me my little black hat, my black-lace shawl and a pair of gloves.”

The servant rose and went into the house. Cecile noticed how a trifle of shyness was emphasized in Quaerts’ hesitation, now that they stood loitering, waiting among the flower-beds. She smiled, plucked a rose and placed it in her waist-band.

“Have the boys gone to bed?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied, still smiling, “long ago.”

The servant returned; Cecile put on the little black hat, threw the lace about her neck, but refused the gloves which Greta offered her:

“No, not these; get me a pair of grey ones....”

The servant went into the house again; and as Cecile looked at Quaerts her gaiety increased. She gave a little laugh:

“What is the matter?” she asked, mischievously,knowing perfectly well what it was.

“Nothing, nothing!” he said, vaguely, and waited patiently until Greta returned.

Then they went through the garden-gate into the Woods. They walked slowly, without speaking; Cecile played with her long gloves, not putting them on.

“Really ...” he began, hesitating.

“Come, what is it?”

“You know; I told you the other day: it’s not right....”

“What isn’t?”

“What we are doing now. You risk too much.”

“Too much, with you?”

“If any one were to see us....”

“And what then?”

He shook his head:

“You are wilful; you know quite well.”

She clinched her eyes; her mouth grewserious; she pretended to be a little angry:

“Listen, you mustn’t be anxious ifI’mnot. I am doing no harm. Our walks are not secret: Greta at least knows about them. And, besides, I am free to do as I please.”

“It’s my fault: the first time we went for a walk in the evening, it was at my request....”

“Then do penance and be good; come now, without scruple, atmyrequest,” she said, with mock emphasis.

He yielded, feeling far too happy to wish to make any sacrifice to a convention which at that moment did not exist.

They walked on silently. Cecile’s sensations always came to her in shocks of surprise. So it had been when Jules had grown suddenly angry with her; so also, midway on the stair, after that conversation at dinner of circles of sympathy. And now, precisely in the same way, withthe shock of sudden revelation, came this new sensation, that after all she was not suffering so seriously as she had at first thought; that her agony, being a voluptuousness, could not be a martyrdom; that she was happy, that happiness had come about her in the fine air of his atmosphere, because they were together, together.... Oh, why wish for anything more, above all for things less pure? Did he not love her and was not his love already a fact and was not his love earthly enough for her, now that it was a fact? Did he not love her with a tenderness which feared for anything that might trouble her in the world, through her ignoring that world and wandering about with him alone in the dark? Did he not love her with tenderness, but also with the lustre of his soul’s divinity, calling her Madonna and by this title—unconsciously, perhaps, in his simplicity—making her the equal of all thatwas divine in him? Did he not love her? Heavens above, did he not love her? Well, what did she want more? No, no, she wanted nothing more: she was happy, she shared happiness with him; he gave it to her just as she gave it to him; it was a sphere that moved with them wherever they went, seeking their way along the darkling paths of the Woods, she leaning on his arm, he leading her, for she could see nothing in the dark, which yet was not dark, but pure light of their happiness. And so it was as if it were not evening, but day, noonday, noonday in the night, hour of light in the dusk!

3And the darkness was light; the night dawned with light which beamed on every side. Calmly it beamed, the light, like one solitary planet, beaming with the soft radiance of purity, bright in a heaven ofstill, white, silver light, a heaven where they walked along milky ways of light and music; it beamed and sounded beneath their feet; it welled in seas of ether high above their heads and beamed and sounded there, high and clear. And they were alone in their heaven, in their infinite heaven, which was as space, endless beneath them and above and around them, with endless spaces of light and music, of light that was music. Their heaven lay eternal on every side with blissful vistas of white radiance, fading away in lustre and vanishing landscapes, like oases of flowers and plants beside waters of light, still and clear and hushed with peace. For its peace was the ether in which all desire is dissolved and becomes transparent and crystal; and their life was a limpid existence in unruffled peace; they walked on, in heavenly sympathy of fellowship, close together, hemmed in one narrow circle, acircle of radiance which embraced them both. Barely was there a recollection in them of the world which had died out in the glitter of their heaven; there was naught in them but the ecstasy of their love, which had become their soul, as if they no longer had any soul, as if they were only love; and, when they looked about them and into the light, they saw that their heaven, in which their happiness was the light, was nothing but their love, and they saw that the landscapes—the flowers and plants by waters of light—were nothing but their love and that the endless space, the eternities of light and space, of spaces full of light and music, stretching on every hand, beneath them and above and around them, that all this was nothing but their love, which had grown into heaven and happiness.And now they came into the very midst, to the very sun-centre, the very goal whichCecile had once foreseen, concealed in the distance, in the irradiance of innate divinity. Up to the very goal they stepped; and on every side it shot its endless rays into each and every eternity, as if their love were becoming the centre of the universe...

3

And the darkness was light; the night dawned with light which beamed on every side. Calmly it beamed, the light, like one solitary planet, beaming with the soft radiance of purity, bright in a heaven ofstill, white, silver light, a heaven where they walked along milky ways of light and music; it beamed and sounded beneath their feet; it welled in seas of ether high above their heads and beamed and sounded there, high and clear. And they were alone in their heaven, in their infinite heaven, which was as space, endless beneath them and above and around them, with endless spaces of light and music, of light that was music. Their heaven lay eternal on every side with blissful vistas of white radiance, fading away in lustre and vanishing landscapes, like oases of flowers and plants beside waters of light, still and clear and hushed with peace. For its peace was the ether in which all desire is dissolved and becomes transparent and crystal; and their life was a limpid existence in unruffled peace; they walked on, in heavenly sympathy of fellowship, close together, hemmed in one narrow circle, acircle of radiance which embraced them both. Barely was there a recollection in them of the world which had died out in the glitter of their heaven; there was naught in them but the ecstasy of their love, which had become their soul, as if they no longer had any soul, as if they were only love; and, when they looked about them and into the light, they saw that their heaven, in which their happiness was the light, was nothing but their love, and they saw that the landscapes—the flowers and plants by waters of light—were nothing but their love and that the endless space, the eternities of light and space, of spaces full of light and music, stretching on every hand, beneath them and above and around them, that all this was nothing but their love, which had grown into heaven and happiness.And now they came into the very midst, to the very sun-centre, the very goal whichCecile had once foreseen, concealed in the distance, in the irradiance of innate divinity. Up to the very goal they stepped; and on every side it shot its endless rays into each and every eternity, as if their love were becoming the centre of the universe...

And the darkness was light; the night dawned with light which beamed on every side. Calmly it beamed, the light, like one solitary planet, beaming with the soft radiance of purity, bright in a heaven ofstill, white, silver light, a heaven where they walked along milky ways of light and music; it beamed and sounded beneath their feet; it welled in seas of ether high above their heads and beamed and sounded there, high and clear. And they were alone in their heaven, in their infinite heaven, which was as space, endless beneath them and above and around them, with endless spaces of light and music, of light that was music. Their heaven lay eternal on every side with blissful vistas of white radiance, fading away in lustre and vanishing landscapes, like oases of flowers and plants beside waters of light, still and clear and hushed with peace. For its peace was the ether in which all desire is dissolved and becomes transparent and crystal; and their life was a limpid existence in unruffled peace; they walked on, in heavenly sympathy of fellowship, close together, hemmed in one narrow circle, acircle of radiance which embraced them both. Barely was there a recollection in them of the world which had died out in the glitter of their heaven; there was naught in them but the ecstasy of their love, which had become their soul, as if they no longer had any soul, as if they were only love; and, when they looked about them and into the light, they saw that their heaven, in which their happiness was the light, was nothing but their love, and they saw that the landscapes—the flowers and plants by waters of light—were nothing but their love and that the endless space, the eternities of light and space, of spaces full of light and music, stretching on every hand, beneath them and above and around them, that all this was nothing but their love, which had grown into heaven and happiness.

And now they came into the very midst, to the very sun-centre, the very goal whichCecile had once foreseen, concealed in the distance, in the irradiance of innate divinity. Up to the very goal they stepped; and on every side it shot its endless rays into each and every eternity, as if their love were becoming the centre of the universe...

4But they sat on a bench, in the dark, not knowing that it was dark, for their eyes were full of the light. They sat against each other, silently at first, till, remembering that he had a voice and could still speak words, he said:“I have never lived through such a moment as this. I forget where we are and who we are and that we are human. We were, were we not? I seem to remember that we once were?”“Yes, but we are that no longer,” she said, smiling; and her eyes, grownbig, looked into the darkness that was light.“Once we were human, suffering and desiring, in a world where certainly much was beautiful, but where much also was ugly.”“Why speak of that now?” she asked; and her voice sounded to herself as coming from very far and low beneath her.“I seemed to remember it.”“I wanted to forget it.”“Then I will do so too. But may I not thank you in human speech for lifting me above humanity?”“Have I done so?”“Yes. May I thank you for it ... on my knees?”He knelt down and reverently took her hands. He could just distinguish the outline of her figure, seated motionless and still upon the bench; above them was apearl-grey twilight of stars, between the black boughs. She felt her hands in his and then his mouth, his kiss, upon her hand. Very gently, she released herself; and then, with a great soul of modesty, full of desireless happiness, very gently she bent her arms about his neck, took his head against her and kissed him on the forehead:“And I, I thank you too!” she whispered, rapturously.He was still; and she held him fast in her embrace.“I thank you,” she said, “for teaching me this and how to be happy as we are and no otherwise. You see, when I still lived and was human, when I was a woman, I thought that I had lived before I met you, for I had had a husband and I had children of whom I was very fond. But from you I first learnt to live, to live without egoism and without desire; Ilearnt that from you this evening or ... this day, which is it? You have given me life and happiness and everything. And I thank you, I thank you! You see, you are so great and so strong and so clear and you have borne me towards your own happiness, which should also be mine, but it was so far above me that, without you, I should never have attained it! For there was a barrier for me which did not exist for you. You see, when I was still human”—and she laughed, clasping him more tightly—“I had a sister; and she too felt that there was a barrier between her happiness and herself; and she felt that she could not surmount this barrier and was so unhappy because of it that she feared lest she should go mad. But I, I do not know: I dreamed, I thought, I hoped, I waited, oh, I waited; and then you came; and you made me understand at once that you could be no man, no husbandfor me, but that you could be more for me: my angel, O my deliverer, who would take me in his arms and bear me over the barrier into his own heaven, where he himself was god, and make me his Madonna! Oh, I thank you, I thank you! I do not know how to thank you; I can only say that I love you, that I adore you, that I lay myself at your feet. Remain as you are and let me adore you, while you kneel where you are. I may adore you, may I not, while you yourself are kneeling? You see, I too must confess, as you used to do,” she continued, for now she could not but confess. “I have not always been straightforward with you; I have sometimes pretended to be the Madonna, knowing all the time that I was but an ordinary woman, a woman who frankly loved you. But I deceived you for your own happiness, did I not? You wished me so, you were happy when I wasso and no otherwise. And now, now too you must forgive me, because now I need no longer pretend, because that is past and has died away, because I myself have died away from myself, because now I am no longer a woman, no longer human for myself, but only what you wish me to be: a Madonna and your creature, an atom of your own essence and divinity. So will you forgive me the past? May I thank you for my happiness, for my heaven, my light, O my master, for my joy, my great, my immeasurable joy?”He rose and sat beside her, taking her gently in his arms:“Are you happy?” he asked.“Yes,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder in a giddiness of light. “And you?”“Yes,” he answered; and he asked again, “And do you desire ... nothing more?”“No, nothing!” she stammered. “I want nothing but this, nothing but what is mine, oh, nothing, nothing more!”“Swear it to me ... by something sacred!”“I swear it to you ... by yourself!” she declared.He pressed her head to his shoulder again. He smiled; and she did not see that there was sadness in his laugh, for she was blinded with light.

4

But they sat on a bench, in the dark, not knowing that it was dark, for their eyes were full of the light. They sat against each other, silently at first, till, remembering that he had a voice and could still speak words, he said:“I have never lived through such a moment as this. I forget where we are and who we are and that we are human. We were, were we not? I seem to remember that we once were?”“Yes, but we are that no longer,” she said, smiling; and her eyes, grownbig, looked into the darkness that was light.“Once we were human, suffering and desiring, in a world where certainly much was beautiful, but where much also was ugly.”“Why speak of that now?” she asked; and her voice sounded to herself as coming from very far and low beneath her.“I seemed to remember it.”“I wanted to forget it.”“Then I will do so too. But may I not thank you in human speech for lifting me above humanity?”“Have I done so?”“Yes. May I thank you for it ... on my knees?”He knelt down and reverently took her hands. He could just distinguish the outline of her figure, seated motionless and still upon the bench; above them was apearl-grey twilight of stars, between the black boughs. She felt her hands in his and then his mouth, his kiss, upon her hand. Very gently, she released herself; and then, with a great soul of modesty, full of desireless happiness, very gently she bent her arms about his neck, took his head against her and kissed him on the forehead:“And I, I thank you too!” she whispered, rapturously.He was still; and she held him fast in her embrace.“I thank you,” she said, “for teaching me this and how to be happy as we are and no otherwise. You see, when I still lived and was human, when I was a woman, I thought that I had lived before I met you, for I had had a husband and I had children of whom I was very fond. But from you I first learnt to live, to live without egoism and without desire; Ilearnt that from you this evening or ... this day, which is it? You have given me life and happiness and everything. And I thank you, I thank you! You see, you are so great and so strong and so clear and you have borne me towards your own happiness, which should also be mine, but it was so far above me that, without you, I should never have attained it! For there was a barrier for me which did not exist for you. You see, when I was still human”—and she laughed, clasping him more tightly—“I had a sister; and she too felt that there was a barrier between her happiness and herself; and she felt that she could not surmount this barrier and was so unhappy because of it that she feared lest she should go mad. But I, I do not know: I dreamed, I thought, I hoped, I waited, oh, I waited; and then you came; and you made me understand at once that you could be no man, no husbandfor me, but that you could be more for me: my angel, O my deliverer, who would take me in his arms and bear me over the barrier into his own heaven, where he himself was god, and make me his Madonna! Oh, I thank you, I thank you! I do not know how to thank you; I can only say that I love you, that I adore you, that I lay myself at your feet. Remain as you are and let me adore you, while you kneel where you are. I may adore you, may I not, while you yourself are kneeling? You see, I too must confess, as you used to do,” she continued, for now she could not but confess. “I have not always been straightforward with you; I have sometimes pretended to be the Madonna, knowing all the time that I was but an ordinary woman, a woman who frankly loved you. But I deceived you for your own happiness, did I not? You wished me so, you were happy when I wasso and no otherwise. And now, now too you must forgive me, because now I need no longer pretend, because that is past and has died away, because I myself have died away from myself, because now I am no longer a woman, no longer human for myself, but only what you wish me to be: a Madonna and your creature, an atom of your own essence and divinity. So will you forgive me the past? May I thank you for my happiness, for my heaven, my light, O my master, for my joy, my great, my immeasurable joy?”He rose and sat beside her, taking her gently in his arms:“Are you happy?” he asked.“Yes,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder in a giddiness of light. “And you?”“Yes,” he answered; and he asked again, “And do you desire ... nothing more?”“No, nothing!” she stammered. “I want nothing but this, nothing but what is mine, oh, nothing, nothing more!”“Swear it to me ... by something sacred!”“I swear it to you ... by yourself!” she declared.He pressed her head to his shoulder again. He smiled; and she did not see that there was sadness in his laugh, for she was blinded with light.

But they sat on a bench, in the dark, not knowing that it was dark, for their eyes were full of the light. They sat against each other, silently at first, till, remembering that he had a voice and could still speak words, he said:

“I have never lived through such a moment as this. I forget where we are and who we are and that we are human. We were, were we not? I seem to remember that we once were?”

“Yes, but we are that no longer,” she said, smiling; and her eyes, grownbig, looked into the darkness that was light.

“Once we were human, suffering and desiring, in a world where certainly much was beautiful, but where much also was ugly.”

“Why speak of that now?” she asked; and her voice sounded to herself as coming from very far and low beneath her.

“I seemed to remember it.”

“I wanted to forget it.”

“Then I will do so too. But may I not thank you in human speech for lifting me above humanity?”

“Have I done so?”

“Yes. May I thank you for it ... on my knees?”

He knelt down and reverently took her hands. He could just distinguish the outline of her figure, seated motionless and still upon the bench; above them was apearl-grey twilight of stars, between the black boughs. She felt her hands in his and then his mouth, his kiss, upon her hand. Very gently, she released herself; and then, with a great soul of modesty, full of desireless happiness, very gently she bent her arms about his neck, took his head against her and kissed him on the forehead:

“And I, I thank you too!” she whispered, rapturously.

He was still; and she held him fast in her embrace.

“I thank you,” she said, “for teaching me this and how to be happy as we are and no otherwise. You see, when I still lived and was human, when I was a woman, I thought that I had lived before I met you, for I had had a husband and I had children of whom I was very fond. But from you I first learnt to live, to live without egoism and without desire; Ilearnt that from you this evening or ... this day, which is it? You have given me life and happiness and everything. And I thank you, I thank you! You see, you are so great and so strong and so clear and you have borne me towards your own happiness, which should also be mine, but it was so far above me that, without you, I should never have attained it! For there was a barrier for me which did not exist for you. You see, when I was still human”—and she laughed, clasping him more tightly—“I had a sister; and she too felt that there was a barrier between her happiness and herself; and she felt that she could not surmount this barrier and was so unhappy because of it that she feared lest she should go mad. But I, I do not know: I dreamed, I thought, I hoped, I waited, oh, I waited; and then you came; and you made me understand at once that you could be no man, no husbandfor me, but that you could be more for me: my angel, O my deliverer, who would take me in his arms and bear me over the barrier into his own heaven, where he himself was god, and make me his Madonna! Oh, I thank you, I thank you! I do not know how to thank you; I can only say that I love you, that I adore you, that I lay myself at your feet. Remain as you are and let me adore you, while you kneel where you are. I may adore you, may I not, while you yourself are kneeling? You see, I too must confess, as you used to do,” she continued, for now she could not but confess. “I have not always been straightforward with you; I have sometimes pretended to be the Madonna, knowing all the time that I was but an ordinary woman, a woman who frankly loved you. But I deceived you for your own happiness, did I not? You wished me so, you were happy when I wasso and no otherwise. And now, now too you must forgive me, because now I need no longer pretend, because that is past and has died away, because I myself have died away from myself, because now I am no longer a woman, no longer human for myself, but only what you wish me to be: a Madonna and your creature, an atom of your own essence and divinity. So will you forgive me the past? May I thank you for my happiness, for my heaven, my light, O my master, for my joy, my great, my immeasurable joy?”

He rose and sat beside her, taking her gently in his arms:

“Are you happy?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder in a giddiness of light. “And you?”

“Yes,” he answered; and he asked again, “And do you desire ... nothing more?”

“No, nothing!” she stammered. “I want nothing but this, nothing but what is mine, oh, nothing, nothing more!”

“Swear it to me ... by something sacred!”

“I swear it to you ... by yourself!” she declared.

He pressed her head to his shoulder again. He smiled; and she did not see that there was sadness in his laugh, for she was blinded with light.

5They were long silent, sitting there. She remembered having said many things, she no longer knew what. About her she saw that it was dark, with only that pearl-grey twilight of stars above their heads, between the black boughs. She felt that she was lying with her head on his shoulder; she heard his breath. A sort of chill crept down her shoulders, notwithstandingthe warmth of his embrace; she drew the lace closer about her throat and felt that the bench on which they sat was moist with dew.“I thank you, I love you so, you make me so happy,” she repeated.He was silent; he pressed her to him very gently, with sheer tenderness. Her last words still sounded in her ears after she had spoken them. Then she was bound to acknowledge to herself that they had not been spontaneous, like all that she had told him before, as he knelt before her with his head at her breast. She had spoken them to break the silence: formerly that silence had never troubled her; why should it now?“Come!” he said gently; and even yet she did not hear the sadness of his voice, in this single word.They rose and walked on. It came to him that it was late, that they must returnby the same path; beyond that, his thoughts were sorrowful with many things which he could not have expressed; a poor twilight had come about him, after the blinding light of their heaven of but now. And he had to be cautious: it was very dark here; and he could only just see the path, lying very pale and undecided at their feet; they brushed against the trunks of the trees as they passed.“I can see nothing,” said Cecile, laughing. “Can you see the way?”“Rely upon me: I can see quite well in the dark,” he replied. “I have eyes like a lynx....”Step by step they went on and she felt a sweet joy in being guided by him; she clung close to his arm, saying laughingly that she was afraid and that she would be terrified if he were suddenly to leave hold of her.“And suppose I were suddenly to runaway and leave you alone?” said Quaerts, jestingly.She laughed; she besought him with a laugh not to do so. Then she was silent, angry with herself for laughing; a burden of sadness bore her down because of her jesting and laughter. She felt as if she were unworthy of that into which, in radiant light, she had just been received.And he too was filled with sadness: the sadness of having to lead her through the dark, by invisible paths, past rows of invisible tree-trunks which might graze and wound her; of having to lead her through a dark wood, through a black sea, through an ink-dark sphere, when they were returning from a heaven where all had been light and all happiness, without sadness or darkness.And so they were silent in that sadness, until they reached the highroad, the old Scheveningen Road.They approached the villa. A tram went by; two or three people passed on foot; it was a fine evening. He brought her home and waited until the door opened to his ring. The door remained unopened; meantime he pressed her hand tightly and hurt her a little, involuntarily. Greta must have fallen asleep, she thought:“Ring again, would you?”He rang again, louder this time; after a moment, the door opened. She gave him her hand once more, with a smile.“Good-night, mevrouw,” he said, taking her fingers respectfully and raising his hat.Now, now she could hear the sound of his voice, with its note of sadness....

5

They were long silent, sitting there. She remembered having said many things, she no longer knew what. About her she saw that it was dark, with only that pearl-grey twilight of stars above their heads, between the black boughs. She felt that she was lying with her head on his shoulder; she heard his breath. A sort of chill crept down her shoulders, notwithstandingthe warmth of his embrace; she drew the lace closer about her throat and felt that the bench on which they sat was moist with dew.“I thank you, I love you so, you make me so happy,” she repeated.He was silent; he pressed her to him very gently, with sheer tenderness. Her last words still sounded in her ears after she had spoken them. Then she was bound to acknowledge to herself that they had not been spontaneous, like all that she had told him before, as he knelt before her with his head at her breast. She had spoken them to break the silence: formerly that silence had never troubled her; why should it now?“Come!” he said gently; and even yet she did not hear the sadness of his voice, in this single word.They rose and walked on. It came to him that it was late, that they must returnby the same path; beyond that, his thoughts were sorrowful with many things which he could not have expressed; a poor twilight had come about him, after the blinding light of their heaven of but now. And he had to be cautious: it was very dark here; and he could only just see the path, lying very pale and undecided at their feet; they brushed against the trunks of the trees as they passed.“I can see nothing,” said Cecile, laughing. “Can you see the way?”“Rely upon me: I can see quite well in the dark,” he replied. “I have eyes like a lynx....”Step by step they went on and she felt a sweet joy in being guided by him; she clung close to his arm, saying laughingly that she was afraid and that she would be terrified if he were suddenly to leave hold of her.“And suppose I were suddenly to runaway and leave you alone?” said Quaerts, jestingly.She laughed; she besought him with a laugh not to do so. Then she was silent, angry with herself for laughing; a burden of sadness bore her down because of her jesting and laughter. She felt as if she were unworthy of that into which, in radiant light, she had just been received.And he too was filled with sadness: the sadness of having to lead her through the dark, by invisible paths, past rows of invisible tree-trunks which might graze and wound her; of having to lead her through a dark wood, through a black sea, through an ink-dark sphere, when they were returning from a heaven where all had been light and all happiness, without sadness or darkness.And so they were silent in that sadness, until they reached the highroad, the old Scheveningen Road.They approached the villa. A tram went by; two or three people passed on foot; it was a fine evening. He brought her home and waited until the door opened to his ring. The door remained unopened; meantime he pressed her hand tightly and hurt her a little, involuntarily. Greta must have fallen asleep, she thought:“Ring again, would you?”He rang again, louder this time; after a moment, the door opened. She gave him her hand once more, with a smile.“Good-night, mevrouw,” he said, taking her fingers respectfully and raising his hat.Now, now she could hear the sound of his voice, with its note of sadness....

They were long silent, sitting there. She remembered having said many things, she no longer knew what. About her she saw that it was dark, with only that pearl-grey twilight of stars above their heads, between the black boughs. She felt that she was lying with her head on his shoulder; she heard his breath. A sort of chill crept down her shoulders, notwithstandingthe warmth of his embrace; she drew the lace closer about her throat and felt that the bench on which they sat was moist with dew.

“I thank you, I love you so, you make me so happy,” she repeated.

He was silent; he pressed her to him very gently, with sheer tenderness. Her last words still sounded in her ears after she had spoken them. Then she was bound to acknowledge to herself that they had not been spontaneous, like all that she had told him before, as he knelt before her with his head at her breast. She had spoken them to break the silence: formerly that silence had never troubled her; why should it now?

“Come!” he said gently; and even yet she did not hear the sadness of his voice, in this single word.

They rose and walked on. It came to him that it was late, that they must returnby the same path; beyond that, his thoughts were sorrowful with many things which he could not have expressed; a poor twilight had come about him, after the blinding light of their heaven of but now. And he had to be cautious: it was very dark here; and he could only just see the path, lying very pale and undecided at their feet; they brushed against the trunks of the trees as they passed.

“I can see nothing,” said Cecile, laughing. “Can you see the way?”

“Rely upon me: I can see quite well in the dark,” he replied. “I have eyes like a lynx....”

Step by step they went on and she felt a sweet joy in being guided by him; she clung close to his arm, saying laughingly that she was afraid and that she would be terrified if he were suddenly to leave hold of her.

“And suppose I were suddenly to runaway and leave you alone?” said Quaerts, jestingly.

She laughed; she besought him with a laugh not to do so. Then she was silent, angry with herself for laughing; a burden of sadness bore her down because of her jesting and laughter. She felt as if she were unworthy of that into which, in radiant light, she had just been received.

And he too was filled with sadness: the sadness of having to lead her through the dark, by invisible paths, past rows of invisible tree-trunks which might graze and wound her; of having to lead her through a dark wood, through a black sea, through an ink-dark sphere, when they were returning from a heaven where all had been light and all happiness, without sadness or darkness.

And so they were silent in that sadness, until they reached the highroad, the old Scheveningen Road.

They approached the villa. A tram went by; two or three people passed on foot; it was a fine evening. He brought her home and waited until the door opened to his ring. The door remained unopened; meantime he pressed her hand tightly and hurt her a little, involuntarily. Greta must have fallen asleep, she thought:

“Ring again, would you?”

He rang again, louder this time; after a moment, the door opened. She gave him her hand once more, with a smile.

“Good-night, mevrouw,” he said, taking her fingers respectfully and raising his hat.

Now, now she could hear the sound of his voice, with its note of sadness....

ChapterXIII1Then she knew, next day, when she sat alone, wrapped in reflection, that the sphere of happiness, the highest and brightest, may not be trod; that it may only beam upon us as a sun; and that we may not enter into it, into the sacred sun-centre. They had done that....Listless she sat, with her children by her side, Christie looking pale and languid. Yes, she spoiled them; but how could she change herself?Weeks passed; and Cecile heard nothing from Quaerts. It was always so: after he had been with her, weeks would drag by without her ever seeing him. For he was much too happy with her, it was more thanhe could bear. He looked upon her society as a rare pleasure to be very jealously indulged. And she, she loved him simply, with the innermost essence of her soul, loved him frankly, as a woman loves a man.... She always wanted him, every day, every hour, at every pulse of her life.Then she met him by chance, at Scheveningen, where she had gone one evening with Amélie and Suzette. Then once again at a reception at Mrs. Hoze’s. He seemed shy with her; and a certain pride in her kept her from asking him to call. Yes, something was changed in what had been woven between them. But she suffered sorely, suffered also because of that foolish pride, because she had not humbly begged him to come to her. Was he not her god? Whatever he did was good.So she did not see him for weeks andweeks. Life went on: each day she had her little occupations, in her household, with her children; Mrs. Hoze reproached her for her withdrawal from society and she began to think more about her friends, to please Mrs. Hoze, who had asked this of her. There were flashes in her memory; in those flashes she saw the dinner-party, their conversations and walks, all her love for him, all his reverence for her whom he called Madonna; their last evening of light and ecstasy. Then she smiled; and the smile itself beamed over her anguish, her anguish in that she no longer saw him, in that she felt proud and cherished a little inward bitterness. Yet all things must be well, as he wished them to be.Oh, the evenings, the summer evenings, cooling after the warm days, the evenings when she sat alone, staring out from her room, where the onyx lamp burnt with a subdued flame, staring out of the openwindows at the trams which, with their tinkling bells, came and went to Scheveningen, full, full of people! Waiting, the endless long waiting, evening after evening in solitude, after the children had gone to bed! Waiting, when she simply sat still, staring fixedly before her, looking at the trams, the tedious, everlasting trams! Where was her modulated joy of dreaming happiness? And where, where was her radiant happiness? Where was her struggle within herself between what she was and what he saw in her? This struggle no longer existed, this struggle also had been overcome; she no longer felt the force of passion; she only longed to see him come as he had always come, as he no longer came. Why did he not come? Happiness palled; people were talking about them.... It was not right that they should see much of each other—he had said so the evening before that highesthappiness—not good for him and not good for her.So she sat and thought; and great silent tears fell from her eyes, for she knew that, though he remained away partly for his own sake, it was above all for hers that he did not come. What had she not said to him that evening on the bench in the Woods, when her arms were about his neck! Oh, she should have been silent, she felt it now! She should not have uttered her rapture, but have enjoyed it secretly within herself; she should have let him utter himself: she herself should have remained his Madonna. But she had been too full, too happy; and in that over-brimming happiness she had been unable to be other than true and clear as a bright mirror.He had glanced into her and read her entirely: she knew that, she was certain of it.He knew now in what manner she loved him; she herself had revealed it to him. But, at the same time, she had made known to him that this was all past, that she was now what he wished her to be. And this had been true then, clear at that time and true.... But now? Does ecstasy endure only for one moment and did he know it? Did he know that her soul’s flight had reached its limit and must now descend again to a commoner sphere? Did he know that she loved him again now, quite ordinarily, with all her being, wholly and entirely, no longer as widely as the heavens, only as widely as her arms could reach out and embrace? And could he not return this love, this so petty love of hers, and was that why he did not come to her?2Then she received his letter:“Forgive me if I put off from day to day coming to see you; forgive me if even to-day I cannot decide to come and if I write to you instead. Forgive me if I even venture to ask you whether it may not be necessary that we see each other no more. If I hurt you and offend you, if I—which may God forbid—cause you pain, forgive me, forgive me! Perhaps I procrastinated a little from indecision, but much more because I considered that I had no other choice.“There has been between our two lives, between our two souls, a rare moment of happiness which was a special boon, a special grace of heaven. Do you not think so too? Oh, if only I had the words to tell you how grateful I am in my innermost soul for that happiness! If later I ever look back upon my life, I shall always see that happiness gleaming in between the ugliness and the blackness, like a starof light. We received it as such, as a gift of light. And I venture to ask you if that gift is not a thing for you and me to keep sacred?“Can we do that if I continue to see you? You, yes, I have no doubt of you: you will be strong to keep it sacred, our sacred happiness, especially because you have already had your struggle, as you confided to me on that sacred evening. But I, can I too be strong, especially now that I know that you have been through the struggle? I doubt myself, I doubt my own force; I am afraid of myself. There is cruelty in me, a love of destruction, something of a savage. As a boy I took pleasure in destroying beautiful things, in breaking and soiling them. The other day, Jules brought me some roses to my room; in the evening, as I sat alone, thinking of you and of our happiness—yes, at that very moment—my fingers began tofumble with a rose whose petals were loose; and, when I saw that one rose dispetalled, there came a cruel frenzy within me to tear and destroy them all; and I rumpled every one of them. I only give you a small instance, because I do not wish to give you larger instances, from vanity, lest you should know how bad I am. I am afraid of myself. If I saw you again and again and yet again, what should I begin to feel and think and wish, unconsciously? Which would be the stronger, my soul or the beast that is in me? Forgive me for laying bare my dread before you and do not despise me for it. Up to the present I havenotattempted a struggle, in the sacred world of our happiness. I saw you, I saw you often before I knew you; I guessed you as you were; I was permitted to speak to you; it was given me to love you with my soul alone: I beseech you, let it remain so.Let me continue to keep my happiness like this, to keep it sacred, a thousand times sacred. I think it worth while to have lived, now that I have knownthat: happiness, the highest. And I am afraid of the struggle which would probably come and pollute that sacred thing.“Will you believe me when I swear to you that I have reflected deeply on all this? Will you believe me when I swear to you that I suffer at the thought of never being permitted to see you again? And, above all, will you forgive me when I swear to you that I am acting in this way because I think that I am doing right? Oh, I am grateful to you and I love you as a soul of light alone, of nothing but light!“Perhaps I am wrong to send you this letter. I do not know. Perhaps presently I will tear up what I have written....”Yet he had sent her the letter.There was great bitterness within her. She had struggled once, had conquered herself and, in a sacred moment, had confessed both struggle and conquest; she knew that fate had compelled her to do so; she now knew what she would lose through her confession. For a short moment, a single evening perhaps, she had been worthy of her god and his equal. Now she was so no longer; for this reason also she felt bitter. And she felt bitterest of all because the thought dared to rise within her:“A god! Is he a god? Is a god afraid of the struggle?”Then her threefold bitterness changed to despair, black despair, a night which her eyes sought to penetrate in order to see something where they saw nothing, nothing; and she moaned low and wrung her hands, sinking into a heap before thewindow and staring at the trams which, with the tinkling of their bells, ran pitilessly to and fro.

ChapterXIII1Then she knew, next day, when she sat alone, wrapped in reflection, that the sphere of happiness, the highest and brightest, may not be trod; that it may only beam upon us as a sun; and that we may not enter into it, into the sacred sun-centre. They had done that....Listless she sat, with her children by her side, Christie looking pale and languid. Yes, she spoiled them; but how could she change herself?Weeks passed; and Cecile heard nothing from Quaerts. It was always so: after he had been with her, weeks would drag by without her ever seeing him. For he was much too happy with her, it was more thanhe could bear. He looked upon her society as a rare pleasure to be very jealously indulged. And she, she loved him simply, with the innermost essence of her soul, loved him frankly, as a woman loves a man.... She always wanted him, every day, every hour, at every pulse of her life.Then she met him by chance, at Scheveningen, where she had gone one evening with Amélie and Suzette. Then once again at a reception at Mrs. Hoze’s. He seemed shy with her; and a certain pride in her kept her from asking him to call. Yes, something was changed in what had been woven between them. But she suffered sorely, suffered also because of that foolish pride, because she had not humbly begged him to come to her. Was he not her god? Whatever he did was good.So she did not see him for weeks andweeks. Life went on: each day she had her little occupations, in her household, with her children; Mrs. Hoze reproached her for her withdrawal from society and she began to think more about her friends, to please Mrs. Hoze, who had asked this of her. There were flashes in her memory; in those flashes she saw the dinner-party, their conversations and walks, all her love for him, all his reverence for her whom he called Madonna; their last evening of light and ecstasy. Then she smiled; and the smile itself beamed over her anguish, her anguish in that she no longer saw him, in that she felt proud and cherished a little inward bitterness. Yet all things must be well, as he wished them to be.Oh, the evenings, the summer evenings, cooling after the warm days, the evenings when she sat alone, staring out from her room, where the onyx lamp burnt with a subdued flame, staring out of the openwindows at the trams which, with their tinkling bells, came and went to Scheveningen, full, full of people! Waiting, the endless long waiting, evening after evening in solitude, after the children had gone to bed! Waiting, when she simply sat still, staring fixedly before her, looking at the trams, the tedious, everlasting trams! Where was her modulated joy of dreaming happiness? And where, where was her radiant happiness? Where was her struggle within herself between what she was and what he saw in her? This struggle no longer existed, this struggle also had been overcome; she no longer felt the force of passion; she only longed to see him come as he had always come, as he no longer came. Why did he not come? Happiness palled; people were talking about them.... It was not right that they should see much of each other—he had said so the evening before that highesthappiness—not good for him and not good for her.So she sat and thought; and great silent tears fell from her eyes, for she knew that, though he remained away partly for his own sake, it was above all for hers that he did not come. What had she not said to him that evening on the bench in the Woods, when her arms were about his neck! Oh, she should have been silent, she felt it now! She should not have uttered her rapture, but have enjoyed it secretly within herself; she should have let him utter himself: she herself should have remained his Madonna. But she had been too full, too happy; and in that over-brimming happiness she had been unable to be other than true and clear as a bright mirror.He had glanced into her and read her entirely: she knew that, she was certain of it.He knew now in what manner she loved him; she herself had revealed it to him. But, at the same time, she had made known to him that this was all past, that she was now what he wished her to be. And this had been true then, clear at that time and true.... But now? Does ecstasy endure only for one moment and did he know it? Did he know that her soul’s flight had reached its limit and must now descend again to a commoner sphere? Did he know that she loved him again now, quite ordinarily, with all her being, wholly and entirely, no longer as widely as the heavens, only as widely as her arms could reach out and embrace? And could he not return this love, this so petty love of hers, and was that why he did not come to her?2Then she received his letter:“Forgive me if I put off from day to day coming to see you; forgive me if even to-day I cannot decide to come and if I write to you instead. Forgive me if I even venture to ask you whether it may not be necessary that we see each other no more. If I hurt you and offend you, if I—which may God forbid—cause you pain, forgive me, forgive me! Perhaps I procrastinated a little from indecision, but much more because I considered that I had no other choice.“There has been between our two lives, between our two souls, a rare moment of happiness which was a special boon, a special grace of heaven. Do you not think so too? Oh, if only I had the words to tell you how grateful I am in my innermost soul for that happiness! If later I ever look back upon my life, I shall always see that happiness gleaming in between the ugliness and the blackness, like a starof light. We received it as such, as a gift of light. And I venture to ask you if that gift is not a thing for you and me to keep sacred?“Can we do that if I continue to see you? You, yes, I have no doubt of you: you will be strong to keep it sacred, our sacred happiness, especially because you have already had your struggle, as you confided to me on that sacred evening. But I, can I too be strong, especially now that I know that you have been through the struggle? I doubt myself, I doubt my own force; I am afraid of myself. There is cruelty in me, a love of destruction, something of a savage. As a boy I took pleasure in destroying beautiful things, in breaking and soiling them. The other day, Jules brought me some roses to my room; in the evening, as I sat alone, thinking of you and of our happiness—yes, at that very moment—my fingers began tofumble with a rose whose petals were loose; and, when I saw that one rose dispetalled, there came a cruel frenzy within me to tear and destroy them all; and I rumpled every one of them. I only give you a small instance, because I do not wish to give you larger instances, from vanity, lest you should know how bad I am. I am afraid of myself. If I saw you again and again and yet again, what should I begin to feel and think and wish, unconsciously? Which would be the stronger, my soul or the beast that is in me? Forgive me for laying bare my dread before you and do not despise me for it. Up to the present I havenotattempted a struggle, in the sacred world of our happiness. I saw you, I saw you often before I knew you; I guessed you as you were; I was permitted to speak to you; it was given me to love you with my soul alone: I beseech you, let it remain so.Let me continue to keep my happiness like this, to keep it sacred, a thousand times sacred. I think it worth while to have lived, now that I have knownthat: happiness, the highest. And I am afraid of the struggle which would probably come and pollute that sacred thing.“Will you believe me when I swear to you that I have reflected deeply on all this? Will you believe me when I swear to you that I suffer at the thought of never being permitted to see you again? And, above all, will you forgive me when I swear to you that I am acting in this way because I think that I am doing right? Oh, I am grateful to you and I love you as a soul of light alone, of nothing but light!“Perhaps I am wrong to send you this letter. I do not know. Perhaps presently I will tear up what I have written....”Yet he had sent her the letter.There was great bitterness within her. She had struggled once, had conquered herself and, in a sacred moment, had confessed both struggle and conquest; she knew that fate had compelled her to do so; she now knew what she would lose through her confession. For a short moment, a single evening perhaps, she had been worthy of her god and his equal. Now she was so no longer; for this reason also she felt bitter. And she felt bitterest of all because the thought dared to rise within her:“A god! Is he a god? Is a god afraid of the struggle?”Then her threefold bitterness changed to despair, black despair, a night which her eyes sought to penetrate in order to see something where they saw nothing, nothing; and she moaned low and wrung her hands, sinking into a heap before thewindow and staring at the trams which, with the tinkling of their bells, ran pitilessly to and fro.

1Then she knew, next day, when she sat alone, wrapped in reflection, that the sphere of happiness, the highest and brightest, may not be trod; that it may only beam upon us as a sun; and that we may not enter into it, into the sacred sun-centre. They had done that....Listless she sat, with her children by her side, Christie looking pale and languid. Yes, she spoiled them; but how could she change herself?Weeks passed; and Cecile heard nothing from Quaerts. It was always so: after he had been with her, weeks would drag by without her ever seeing him. For he was much too happy with her, it was more thanhe could bear. He looked upon her society as a rare pleasure to be very jealously indulged. And she, she loved him simply, with the innermost essence of her soul, loved him frankly, as a woman loves a man.... She always wanted him, every day, every hour, at every pulse of her life.Then she met him by chance, at Scheveningen, where she had gone one evening with Amélie and Suzette. Then once again at a reception at Mrs. Hoze’s. He seemed shy with her; and a certain pride in her kept her from asking him to call. Yes, something was changed in what had been woven between them. But she suffered sorely, suffered also because of that foolish pride, because she had not humbly begged him to come to her. Was he not her god? Whatever he did was good.So she did not see him for weeks andweeks. Life went on: each day she had her little occupations, in her household, with her children; Mrs. Hoze reproached her for her withdrawal from society and she began to think more about her friends, to please Mrs. Hoze, who had asked this of her. There were flashes in her memory; in those flashes she saw the dinner-party, their conversations and walks, all her love for him, all his reverence for her whom he called Madonna; their last evening of light and ecstasy. Then she smiled; and the smile itself beamed over her anguish, her anguish in that she no longer saw him, in that she felt proud and cherished a little inward bitterness. Yet all things must be well, as he wished them to be.Oh, the evenings, the summer evenings, cooling after the warm days, the evenings when she sat alone, staring out from her room, where the onyx lamp burnt with a subdued flame, staring out of the openwindows at the trams which, with their tinkling bells, came and went to Scheveningen, full, full of people! Waiting, the endless long waiting, evening after evening in solitude, after the children had gone to bed! Waiting, when she simply sat still, staring fixedly before her, looking at the trams, the tedious, everlasting trams! Where was her modulated joy of dreaming happiness? And where, where was her radiant happiness? Where was her struggle within herself between what she was and what he saw in her? This struggle no longer existed, this struggle also had been overcome; she no longer felt the force of passion; she only longed to see him come as he had always come, as he no longer came. Why did he not come? Happiness palled; people were talking about them.... It was not right that they should see much of each other—he had said so the evening before that highesthappiness—not good for him and not good for her.So she sat and thought; and great silent tears fell from her eyes, for she knew that, though he remained away partly for his own sake, it was above all for hers that he did not come. What had she not said to him that evening on the bench in the Woods, when her arms were about his neck! Oh, she should have been silent, she felt it now! She should not have uttered her rapture, but have enjoyed it secretly within herself; she should have let him utter himself: she herself should have remained his Madonna. But she had been too full, too happy; and in that over-brimming happiness she had been unable to be other than true and clear as a bright mirror.He had glanced into her and read her entirely: she knew that, she was certain of it.He knew now in what manner she loved him; she herself had revealed it to him. But, at the same time, she had made known to him that this was all past, that she was now what he wished her to be. And this had been true then, clear at that time and true.... But now? Does ecstasy endure only for one moment and did he know it? Did he know that her soul’s flight had reached its limit and must now descend again to a commoner sphere? Did he know that she loved him again now, quite ordinarily, with all her being, wholly and entirely, no longer as widely as the heavens, only as widely as her arms could reach out and embrace? And could he not return this love, this so petty love of hers, and was that why he did not come to her?

1

Then she knew, next day, when she sat alone, wrapped in reflection, that the sphere of happiness, the highest and brightest, may not be trod; that it may only beam upon us as a sun; and that we may not enter into it, into the sacred sun-centre. They had done that....Listless she sat, with her children by her side, Christie looking pale and languid. Yes, she spoiled them; but how could she change herself?Weeks passed; and Cecile heard nothing from Quaerts. It was always so: after he had been with her, weeks would drag by without her ever seeing him. For he was much too happy with her, it was more thanhe could bear. He looked upon her society as a rare pleasure to be very jealously indulged. And she, she loved him simply, with the innermost essence of her soul, loved him frankly, as a woman loves a man.... She always wanted him, every day, every hour, at every pulse of her life.Then she met him by chance, at Scheveningen, where she had gone one evening with Amélie and Suzette. Then once again at a reception at Mrs. Hoze’s. He seemed shy with her; and a certain pride in her kept her from asking him to call. Yes, something was changed in what had been woven between them. But she suffered sorely, suffered also because of that foolish pride, because she had not humbly begged him to come to her. Was he not her god? Whatever he did was good.So she did not see him for weeks andweeks. Life went on: each day she had her little occupations, in her household, with her children; Mrs. Hoze reproached her for her withdrawal from society and she began to think more about her friends, to please Mrs. Hoze, who had asked this of her. There were flashes in her memory; in those flashes she saw the dinner-party, their conversations and walks, all her love for him, all his reverence for her whom he called Madonna; their last evening of light and ecstasy. Then she smiled; and the smile itself beamed over her anguish, her anguish in that she no longer saw him, in that she felt proud and cherished a little inward bitterness. Yet all things must be well, as he wished them to be.Oh, the evenings, the summer evenings, cooling after the warm days, the evenings when she sat alone, staring out from her room, where the onyx lamp burnt with a subdued flame, staring out of the openwindows at the trams which, with their tinkling bells, came and went to Scheveningen, full, full of people! Waiting, the endless long waiting, evening after evening in solitude, after the children had gone to bed! Waiting, when she simply sat still, staring fixedly before her, looking at the trams, the tedious, everlasting trams! Where was her modulated joy of dreaming happiness? And where, where was her radiant happiness? Where was her struggle within herself between what she was and what he saw in her? This struggle no longer existed, this struggle also had been overcome; she no longer felt the force of passion; she only longed to see him come as he had always come, as he no longer came. Why did he not come? Happiness palled; people were talking about them.... It was not right that they should see much of each other—he had said so the evening before that highesthappiness—not good for him and not good for her.So she sat and thought; and great silent tears fell from her eyes, for she knew that, though he remained away partly for his own sake, it was above all for hers that he did not come. What had she not said to him that evening on the bench in the Woods, when her arms were about his neck! Oh, she should have been silent, she felt it now! She should not have uttered her rapture, but have enjoyed it secretly within herself; she should have let him utter himself: she herself should have remained his Madonna. But she had been too full, too happy; and in that over-brimming happiness she had been unable to be other than true and clear as a bright mirror.He had glanced into her and read her entirely: she knew that, she was certain of it.He knew now in what manner she loved him; she herself had revealed it to him. But, at the same time, she had made known to him that this was all past, that she was now what he wished her to be. And this had been true then, clear at that time and true.... But now? Does ecstasy endure only for one moment and did he know it? Did he know that her soul’s flight had reached its limit and must now descend again to a commoner sphere? Did he know that she loved him again now, quite ordinarily, with all her being, wholly and entirely, no longer as widely as the heavens, only as widely as her arms could reach out and embrace? And could he not return this love, this so petty love of hers, and was that why he did not come to her?

Then she knew, next day, when she sat alone, wrapped in reflection, that the sphere of happiness, the highest and brightest, may not be trod; that it may only beam upon us as a sun; and that we may not enter into it, into the sacred sun-centre. They had done that....

Listless she sat, with her children by her side, Christie looking pale and languid. Yes, she spoiled them; but how could she change herself?

Weeks passed; and Cecile heard nothing from Quaerts. It was always so: after he had been with her, weeks would drag by without her ever seeing him. For he was much too happy with her, it was more thanhe could bear. He looked upon her society as a rare pleasure to be very jealously indulged. And she, she loved him simply, with the innermost essence of her soul, loved him frankly, as a woman loves a man.... She always wanted him, every day, every hour, at every pulse of her life.

Then she met him by chance, at Scheveningen, where she had gone one evening with Amélie and Suzette. Then once again at a reception at Mrs. Hoze’s. He seemed shy with her; and a certain pride in her kept her from asking him to call. Yes, something was changed in what had been woven between them. But she suffered sorely, suffered also because of that foolish pride, because she had not humbly begged him to come to her. Was he not her god? Whatever he did was good.

So she did not see him for weeks andweeks. Life went on: each day she had her little occupations, in her household, with her children; Mrs. Hoze reproached her for her withdrawal from society and she began to think more about her friends, to please Mrs. Hoze, who had asked this of her. There were flashes in her memory; in those flashes she saw the dinner-party, their conversations and walks, all her love for him, all his reverence for her whom he called Madonna; their last evening of light and ecstasy. Then she smiled; and the smile itself beamed over her anguish, her anguish in that she no longer saw him, in that she felt proud and cherished a little inward bitterness. Yet all things must be well, as he wished them to be.

Oh, the evenings, the summer evenings, cooling after the warm days, the evenings when she sat alone, staring out from her room, where the onyx lamp burnt with a subdued flame, staring out of the openwindows at the trams which, with their tinkling bells, came and went to Scheveningen, full, full of people! Waiting, the endless long waiting, evening after evening in solitude, after the children had gone to bed! Waiting, when she simply sat still, staring fixedly before her, looking at the trams, the tedious, everlasting trams! Where was her modulated joy of dreaming happiness? And where, where was her radiant happiness? Where was her struggle within herself between what she was and what he saw in her? This struggle no longer existed, this struggle also had been overcome; she no longer felt the force of passion; she only longed to see him come as he had always come, as he no longer came. Why did he not come? Happiness palled; people were talking about them.... It was not right that they should see much of each other—he had said so the evening before that highesthappiness—not good for him and not good for her.

So she sat and thought; and great silent tears fell from her eyes, for she knew that, though he remained away partly for his own sake, it was above all for hers that he did not come. What had she not said to him that evening on the bench in the Woods, when her arms were about his neck! Oh, she should have been silent, she felt it now! She should not have uttered her rapture, but have enjoyed it secretly within herself; she should have let him utter himself: she herself should have remained his Madonna. But she had been too full, too happy; and in that over-brimming happiness she had been unable to be other than true and clear as a bright mirror.

He had glanced into her and read her entirely: she knew that, she was certain of it.

He knew now in what manner she loved him; she herself had revealed it to him. But, at the same time, she had made known to him that this was all past, that she was now what he wished her to be. And this had been true then, clear at that time and true.... But now? Does ecstasy endure only for one moment and did he know it? Did he know that her soul’s flight had reached its limit and must now descend again to a commoner sphere? Did he know that she loved him again now, quite ordinarily, with all her being, wholly and entirely, no longer as widely as the heavens, only as widely as her arms could reach out and embrace? And could he not return this love, this so petty love of hers, and was that why he did not come to her?

2Then she received his letter:“Forgive me if I put off from day to day coming to see you; forgive me if even to-day I cannot decide to come and if I write to you instead. Forgive me if I even venture to ask you whether it may not be necessary that we see each other no more. If I hurt you and offend you, if I—which may God forbid—cause you pain, forgive me, forgive me! Perhaps I procrastinated a little from indecision, but much more because I considered that I had no other choice.“There has been between our two lives, between our two souls, a rare moment of happiness which was a special boon, a special grace of heaven. Do you not think so too? Oh, if only I had the words to tell you how grateful I am in my innermost soul for that happiness! If later I ever look back upon my life, I shall always see that happiness gleaming in between the ugliness and the blackness, like a starof light. We received it as such, as a gift of light. And I venture to ask you if that gift is not a thing for you and me to keep sacred?“Can we do that if I continue to see you? You, yes, I have no doubt of you: you will be strong to keep it sacred, our sacred happiness, especially because you have already had your struggle, as you confided to me on that sacred evening. But I, can I too be strong, especially now that I know that you have been through the struggle? I doubt myself, I doubt my own force; I am afraid of myself. There is cruelty in me, a love of destruction, something of a savage. As a boy I took pleasure in destroying beautiful things, in breaking and soiling them. The other day, Jules brought me some roses to my room; in the evening, as I sat alone, thinking of you and of our happiness—yes, at that very moment—my fingers began tofumble with a rose whose petals were loose; and, when I saw that one rose dispetalled, there came a cruel frenzy within me to tear and destroy them all; and I rumpled every one of them. I only give you a small instance, because I do not wish to give you larger instances, from vanity, lest you should know how bad I am. I am afraid of myself. If I saw you again and again and yet again, what should I begin to feel and think and wish, unconsciously? Which would be the stronger, my soul or the beast that is in me? Forgive me for laying bare my dread before you and do not despise me for it. Up to the present I havenotattempted a struggle, in the sacred world of our happiness. I saw you, I saw you often before I knew you; I guessed you as you were; I was permitted to speak to you; it was given me to love you with my soul alone: I beseech you, let it remain so.Let me continue to keep my happiness like this, to keep it sacred, a thousand times sacred. I think it worth while to have lived, now that I have knownthat: happiness, the highest. And I am afraid of the struggle which would probably come and pollute that sacred thing.“Will you believe me when I swear to you that I have reflected deeply on all this? Will you believe me when I swear to you that I suffer at the thought of never being permitted to see you again? And, above all, will you forgive me when I swear to you that I am acting in this way because I think that I am doing right? Oh, I am grateful to you and I love you as a soul of light alone, of nothing but light!“Perhaps I am wrong to send you this letter. I do not know. Perhaps presently I will tear up what I have written....”Yet he had sent her the letter.There was great bitterness within her. She had struggled once, had conquered herself and, in a sacred moment, had confessed both struggle and conquest; she knew that fate had compelled her to do so; she now knew what she would lose through her confession. For a short moment, a single evening perhaps, she had been worthy of her god and his equal. Now she was so no longer; for this reason also she felt bitter. And she felt bitterest of all because the thought dared to rise within her:“A god! Is he a god? Is a god afraid of the struggle?”Then her threefold bitterness changed to despair, black despair, a night which her eyes sought to penetrate in order to see something where they saw nothing, nothing; and she moaned low and wrung her hands, sinking into a heap before thewindow and staring at the trams which, with the tinkling of their bells, ran pitilessly to and fro.

2

Then she received his letter:“Forgive me if I put off from day to day coming to see you; forgive me if even to-day I cannot decide to come and if I write to you instead. Forgive me if I even venture to ask you whether it may not be necessary that we see each other no more. If I hurt you and offend you, if I—which may God forbid—cause you pain, forgive me, forgive me! Perhaps I procrastinated a little from indecision, but much more because I considered that I had no other choice.“There has been between our two lives, between our two souls, a rare moment of happiness which was a special boon, a special grace of heaven. Do you not think so too? Oh, if only I had the words to tell you how grateful I am in my innermost soul for that happiness! If later I ever look back upon my life, I shall always see that happiness gleaming in between the ugliness and the blackness, like a starof light. We received it as such, as a gift of light. And I venture to ask you if that gift is not a thing for you and me to keep sacred?“Can we do that if I continue to see you? You, yes, I have no doubt of you: you will be strong to keep it sacred, our sacred happiness, especially because you have already had your struggle, as you confided to me on that sacred evening. But I, can I too be strong, especially now that I know that you have been through the struggle? I doubt myself, I doubt my own force; I am afraid of myself. There is cruelty in me, a love of destruction, something of a savage. As a boy I took pleasure in destroying beautiful things, in breaking and soiling them. The other day, Jules brought me some roses to my room; in the evening, as I sat alone, thinking of you and of our happiness—yes, at that very moment—my fingers began tofumble with a rose whose petals were loose; and, when I saw that one rose dispetalled, there came a cruel frenzy within me to tear and destroy them all; and I rumpled every one of them. I only give you a small instance, because I do not wish to give you larger instances, from vanity, lest you should know how bad I am. I am afraid of myself. If I saw you again and again and yet again, what should I begin to feel and think and wish, unconsciously? Which would be the stronger, my soul or the beast that is in me? Forgive me for laying bare my dread before you and do not despise me for it. Up to the present I havenotattempted a struggle, in the sacred world of our happiness. I saw you, I saw you often before I knew you; I guessed you as you were; I was permitted to speak to you; it was given me to love you with my soul alone: I beseech you, let it remain so.Let me continue to keep my happiness like this, to keep it sacred, a thousand times sacred. I think it worth while to have lived, now that I have knownthat: happiness, the highest. And I am afraid of the struggle which would probably come and pollute that sacred thing.“Will you believe me when I swear to you that I have reflected deeply on all this? Will you believe me when I swear to you that I suffer at the thought of never being permitted to see you again? And, above all, will you forgive me when I swear to you that I am acting in this way because I think that I am doing right? Oh, I am grateful to you and I love you as a soul of light alone, of nothing but light!“Perhaps I am wrong to send you this letter. I do not know. Perhaps presently I will tear up what I have written....”Yet he had sent her the letter.There was great bitterness within her. She had struggled once, had conquered herself and, in a sacred moment, had confessed both struggle and conquest; she knew that fate had compelled her to do so; she now knew what she would lose through her confession. For a short moment, a single evening perhaps, she had been worthy of her god and his equal. Now she was so no longer; for this reason also she felt bitter. And she felt bitterest of all because the thought dared to rise within her:“A god! Is he a god? Is a god afraid of the struggle?”Then her threefold bitterness changed to despair, black despair, a night which her eyes sought to penetrate in order to see something where they saw nothing, nothing; and she moaned low and wrung her hands, sinking into a heap before thewindow and staring at the trams which, with the tinkling of their bells, ran pitilessly to and fro.

Then she received his letter:

“Forgive me if I put off from day to day coming to see you; forgive me if even to-day I cannot decide to come and if I write to you instead. Forgive me if I even venture to ask you whether it may not be necessary that we see each other no more. If I hurt you and offend you, if I—which may God forbid—cause you pain, forgive me, forgive me! Perhaps I procrastinated a little from indecision, but much more because I considered that I had no other choice.

“There has been between our two lives, between our two souls, a rare moment of happiness which was a special boon, a special grace of heaven. Do you not think so too? Oh, if only I had the words to tell you how grateful I am in my innermost soul for that happiness! If later I ever look back upon my life, I shall always see that happiness gleaming in between the ugliness and the blackness, like a starof light. We received it as such, as a gift of light. And I venture to ask you if that gift is not a thing for you and me to keep sacred?

“Can we do that if I continue to see you? You, yes, I have no doubt of you: you will be strong to keep it sacred, our sacred happiness, especially because you have already had your struggle, as you confided to me on that sacred evening. But I, can I too be strong, especially now that I know that you have been through the struggle? I doubt myself, I doubt my own force; I am afraid of myself. There is cruelty in me, a love of destruction, something of a savage. As a boy I took pleasure in destroying beautiful things, in breaking and soiling them. The other day, Jules brought me some roses to my room; in the evening, as I sat alone, thinking of you and of our happiness—yes, at that very moment—my fingers began tofumble with a rose whose petals were loose; and, when I saw that one rose dispetalled, there came a cruel frenzy within me to tear and destroy them all; and I rumpled every one of them. I only give you a small instance, because I do not wish to give you larger instances, from vanity, lest you should know how bad I am. I am afraid of myself. If I saw you again and again and yet again, what should I begin to feel and think and wish, unconsciously? Which would be the stronger, my soul or the beast that is in me? Forgive me for laying bare my dread before you and do not despise me for it. Up to the present I havenotattempted a struggle, in the sacred world of our happiness. I saw you, I saw you often before I knew you; I guessed you as you were; I was permitted to speak to you; it was given me to love you with my soul alone: I beseech you, let it remain so.Let me continue to keep my happiness like this, to keep it sacred, a thousand times sacred. I think it worth while to have lived, now that I have knownthat: happiness, the highest. And I am afraid of the struggle which would probably come and pollute that sacred thing.

“Will you believe me when I swear to you that I have reflected deeply on all this? Will you believe me when I swear to you that I suffer at the thought of never being permitted to see you again? And, above all, will you forgive me when I swear to you that I am acting in this way because I think that I am doing right? Oh, I am grateful to you and I love you as a soul of light alone, of nothing but light!

“Perhaps I am wrong to send you this letter. I do not know. Perhaps presently I will tear up what I have written....”

Yet he had sent her the letter.

There was great bitterness within her. She had struggled once, had conquered herself and, in a sacred moment, had confessed both struggle and conquest; she knew that fate had compelled her to do so; she now knew what she would lose through her confession. For a short moment, a single evening perhaps, she had been worthy of her god and his equal. Now she was so no longer; for this reason also she felt bitter. And she felt bitterest of all because the thought dared to rise within her:

“A god! Is he a god? Is a god afraid of the struggle?”

Then her threefold bitterness changed to despair, black despair, a night which her eyes sought to penetrate in order to see something where they saw nothing, nothing; and she moaned low and wrung her hands, sinking into a heap before thewindow and staring at the trams which, with the tinkling of their bells, ran pitilessly to and fro.

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