Chapter XIX

Chapter XIXThe winter months dragged sadly and monotonously past, with their continual rains and no frost: even such snow as fell melted at once in the raw, damp atmosphere. But the wind blew all the time, kept on blowing from some mysterious cloud-realm, carrying the clouds with it, violet clouds and grey clouds, a never-ending succession, which came sailing over the trees in the Woods as though over the sea. And Constance followed them with her eyes, vaguely and dreamily, dreaming on and on in an endless reverie. The clouds sailed everlastingly on the wind; and the wind blew everlastingly, like an everlasting storm, not always raging, but always rustling, sometimes high up above the trees, sometimes straight through the trees themselves. Constance remained mostly at home and sat by her window during those short afternoons, which she lengthened out in the dim shadows of the fire-lit room, where at three o’clock dusk was falling.... The everyday life went on, regularly and monotonously: when the weather was tolerable, Van der Welcke went bicycling; but for the rest he stayed upstairs a great deal, seldom going to the Witte or the Plaats, smoking, cursing inwardly because he was not rich enough to buy a “sewing-machine” ofhis own. Addie went to and fro between home and school; and it was he that enlivened the meals....And Constance, in her drawing-room, sat at the window and gazed at the clouds, looked out at the rain. Through the silent monotony of her short, grey days a dream began to weave itself, as with a luminous thread, so that she was not oppressed by the sombre melancholy of the rainy winter. When Van der Welcke went upstairs, cursing because it was raining again and because he had nothing to do, she settled herself in her drawing-room—in that room in which she lived and which was tinged as it were with her own personality—and looked out at the clouds, at the rain. She sat dreaming. She smiled, wide-eyed. She liked the ever louring skies, the ever drifting clouds; and, though at times the gusty squalls still made her start with that sudden catch in her throat and breast, she loved the raging and rustling winds, listened to them, content for them to blow and blow, high above her head, her house, her trees—hers—till, blowing, they lost themselves in the infinities beyond.... She had her work beside her, a book; but she did not sew, did not read: she dreamt.... She smiled, looking out, looking up at the endlessly rolling skies.... The clouds sailed by, sometimes high, sometimes low, above the houses, above the people’s heads, like passions disdaining mankind: dank, monstrous passions riding arrogantly by upon the passion of the winds,from a far-off land of sheer passion, sullen and tempestuous; and the threatening cohorts rolled on, great and majestic, like Olympian deities towering above the petty human strife hidden under the roofs over which they passed, ever opening their mighty flood-gates.... When Constance looked up at them, the vast, phantom monsters, coming she knew not whence and going she knew not whither, just shadowing across her life and followed by new monsters, no less vast and no less big with mystery, she was not afraid or sad, for she felt safe in her dream. The sombre skies had always attracted her, even in the old days, though they used to frighten her then, she did not know why; but now, now for the first time she smiled, because she felt safe. A soft radiance shone from her eyes, which gazed up at the phantom monsters. When the wind whistled, soughed, moaned and bellowed round the house, like a giant soul in pain, she remained as it were looking up at the wind, let her soul swell softly in unison with its dirges, like something that surrenders itself, small and weak but peaceful, to a mighty force. In her little house, as she gazed out at the dreary road, on these winter days, especially when it grew dark of an afternoon, the wind and the rain round about her seemed almost one element, vast and sad as life, which came from over the sea, which drifted away over the town and which continued to hold her and her house in its embrace....She looked outside, she smiled. Sometimes she heard her husband’s step in the passages, as he went through the house, grumbling, muttering, cursing, because he wanted to go out.... Then she would think for a moment:“He hasn’t seen Marianne for days.”But then she would think no more about either of them; and her dream shone out before her again. The dream shone softly and unfalteringly, like a gentle, steady ray: a path of soft light that issued as it were from her eyes to the sombre, frowning clouds out yonder. Over the soft-shining path something seemed to be wafted from her outwards, upwards, far and wide and then back again, to where she sat.... It was so strange that she smiled at it, closed her eyes; and, when she opened them, it was once more as though she saw her dream, that path of light, always.... Her dream took no more definite shape and remained thus, a gentle, kindly glow, a pale, soft ray from her to the sombre skies.... It was dusk now and she sat on, quite lost in the misty, shadowy darkness all around her, quite invisible in the black room; and her eyes continued to stare outside, at the last wan streaks in the darkening heavens.... The road outside was black.... A street-lamp shone out, throwing its harsh light upon a puddle....Then she covered her face with her hands, ashamed because she had sat musing so long,ashamed especially because she had allowed herself to wander along that luminous thread, the path of her dream.... She rang, had the lamps lit and waited for Addie, who would soon be home.But those were the lonely afternoons.... Sometimes in those wet, dull afternoons when it grew dark so early, she sawhisfigure pass the window, heard him ring. It was Brauws. She did not move and she heard him go upstairs first, when Van der Welcke was in. But, since he had recommenced his visits to their house, he had got into the way of saying to Van der Welcke, in half an hour or so:“Now I’ll go and pay my respects to your wife.”The first few times, Van der Welcke had gone with him to the drawing-room; but, now that Brauws had taken to calling in a more informal fashion, Van der Welcke stayed upstairs, let him go his own way. And, after the first shock which Brauws’ ideas had produced in their house, his friendship became something cheering and comforting which both Van der Welcke and Constance continued to appreciate for their own and each other’s sakes. He and Van Vreeswijck were now the only friends whom they both really liked, the two regular visitors to their otherwise lonely house. And for that reason Van der Welcke let Brauws go to Constance alone, staying away, never entering his wife’s drawing-room unnecessarily ... except when he heard the little bells of Marianne’s voice and laugh.Constance’ heart beat when she heard Brauws’ voice on the stairs:“Now I’ll go and pay my respects to your wife. She’s at home, isn’t she?”“Sure to be, in this beastly weather.”She heard Brauws’ step, which made the stairs creak as it came down them. Then she felt a violent emotion, of which she was secretly ashamed, ashamed for herself. For she was severe with herself: she was afraid of becoming ridiculous in her own eyes. When she felt her emotion grow too violent, she at once conjured up Addie’s image: he was fourteen now. The mother of a son of fourteen! Then a smile of ironic indulgence would curve the dimples by her lips; and it was with the greatest composure that she welcomed Brauws:“Isn’t it dark early? But it’s only half-past three and really too soon to light the lamp.”“There are times when twilight upsets me,” he said, “and times when it makes me feel very calm and peaceful.”He sat down near her, contentedly, and his broad figure loomed darkly in the little room, among the other shadows. The street-lamps were already lighted outside, glittering harshly on the wet road.“It’s been awful weather lately.”“Yes, so I prefer to stay indoors.”“You’re too much indoors.”“I go out whenever it’s fine.”“You don’t care for going out ‘in all weathers.’”“I like looking at the weather from here. It’s a different sky every day....”Then they talked on all sorts of subjects. He often spoke of Addie, with a sort of enthusiasm which he had conceived for the lad. Her face would glow with pride as she listened. And, almost involuntarily, she told him how the boy had always been a comfort to them, to Van der Welcke as well as to her. And, when she mentioned her husband’s name, he often answered, as though with a touch of reproach:“I’m very fond of Hans. He is a child; and still I’m fond of him....”Then she would feel ashamed, because she had just had a wordy dispute with Van der Welcke—about nothing at all—and she would veer round and say:“It can’t be helped. We cannotget on. We endure each other as well as we can. To separate would be too silly ... and also very sad for Addie. He is fond of both of us.”And their conversation again turned on the boy. Then she had to tell him about Brussels and even about Rome.“It’s strange,” he said. “When you were in Brussels ... I was living at Schaerbeek.”“And we never met.”“No, never. And, when you and Hans went to the Riviera, I was there in the same year.”“Did you come often to Monte Carlo?”“Once or twice, at any rate. Attracted by just that vivid contrast between the atmosphere out there, where money has no value, and my own ideas. It was a sort of self-inflicted torture. And we never saw each other there.... And, when you were here, in the Hague, as a girl, I used often to come to the Hague and I even remember often passing your parents’ house, where your mother still lives, in the Alexanderstraat, and reading your name on the door: Van Lowe....”“We were destined never to meet,” she said, trying to laugh softly; and in spite of herself her voice broke, as though sadly.“No,” he said, quietly, “we were destined not to meet.”“The fatality of meeting is sometimes very strange,” she said.“There are thousands and millions, in our lives....”“Don’t you think that we often, day after day, for months on end, pass quite close to somebody....”“Somebody who, if we met him or her, would influence our lives?...”“Yes, that’s what I mean.”“I’m certain of it.”“It’s curious to think of.... In the street, sometimes, one’s always meeting the same people, without knowing them.”“Yes, I know what you mean. In New York, when I was a tram-driver, there was a woman who always got into my car; and, without being in love with her, I used to think I should like to speak to her, to know her, to meet her....”“And how often it is the other way round! I have met thousands of people and forgotten their names and what they said to me. They were like ghosts. That is how we meet people in society.”“Yes, it’s all so futile....”“You exchange names, exchange a few sentences ... and nothing remains, not the slightest recollection....”“Yes, it all vanishes.”“I was so often tired ... of so many people, so many ghosts.... I couldn’t live like that now.”“Yet you have remained a society-woman.”“Oh, no, I am no longer that!”And she told him how she had once thought of making her reappearance in Hague society; she told him about Van Naghel and Bertha.“Are you on bad terms with your sister now?”“Not on bad terms....”“He died suddenly...?”“Yes, quite suddenly. They had just had a dinner-party.... It was a terrible blow for my sister. And I hear there are serious financial difficulties. It is all very sad.... But this doesn’t interest you. Tell me about yourself.”“Again?”“It interests me.”“Tell me about your own life.”“I’ve just been telling you.”“Yes, about Rome and Brussels. Now tell me about Buitenzorg.”“Why about that?”“The childhood of my friends—I hope I may number you among my friends?—always interests me.”“About Buitenzorg? I don’t remember anything.... I was a little girl.... There was nothing in particular....”“Your brother Gerrit....”She turned pale, but he did not see it, in the dim room.“What has he been saying?”“Your brother Gerrit remembers it all. The other night, after your dinner here, he told me about it while we were smoking.”“Gerrit?” she said, anxiously.“Yes: how prettily you used to play on the great boulders in the river....”She flushed scarlet, in the friendly dusk:“He’s mad!” she said, harshly. “What does he want to talk about that for?”He laughed:“Mayn’t he? He idolizes you ... and he idolized you at that time....”“He’s always teasing me with those reminiscences.... They’re ridiculous now.”“Why?”“Because I’m old. Those memories are pretty enough when you are young.... When you grow older, you let them sleep ... in the dead, silent years. For, when you’re old, they become ridiculous.”Her voice sounded hard. He was silent.“Don’t you think I’m right?” she asked.“Perhaps,” he said, very gently. “Perhaps you are right. But it is a pity.”“Why?” she forced herself to ask.He gave a very deep sigh:“Because it reminds us of all that we lose as we grow older ... even the right to our memories.”“The right to our memories,” she echoed almost under her breath. And, in a firmer voice, she repeated, severely, “Certainly. When we grow older, we lose our right.... There are memories to which we lose our right as we grow old....”“Tell me,” he said, “is it hard for a woman to grow old?”“I don’t know,” she answered, softly. “I believe that I shall grow old, that I am growing old as it is, without finding it hard.”“But you’re not old,” he said.“I am forty-three,” she replied, “and my son is fourteen.”She was determined to show herself no mercy.“And now tell me about yourself,” she went on.“Why should I?” he asked, almost dejectedly. “You would never understand me, however long I spoke. No, I can’t speak about myself to-day.”“It’s not only to-day: it’s very often.”“Yes, very often. The idea suddenly comes to me ... that everything has been of no use. That I have done nothing that was worth while. That my life ought to have been quite different ... to be worth while.”“What do you mean by worth while?”“Worth while for people, for humanity. It always obsessed me, after my games in the woods. You remember my telling you how I used to play in the woods?”“Yes,” she said, very softly.“Tell me,” he suddenly broke in. “Are those memories to which I have no right?”“You are a man,” said she.“Have I more right to memories, as a man?”“Why not ... to these?” she said, softly. “They do not make your years ridiculous ... as mine do mine.”“Are you so much afraid ... of ridicule?”“Yes,” she said, frankly. “I am as unwilling to be ashamed in my own eyes ... as in those of the world.”“So you abdicate....”“My youth,” she said, gently.He was silent. Then he said:“I interrupted myself just now. I meant to tell you that, after my games as a child, it was always my obsession ... to be something. To be somebody. To be a man. To be a man among men. That was when I was a boy of sixteen or seventeen. Afterwards, at the university, I was amazed at the childishness of Hans and Van Vreeswijck and the others. They never thought; I was always thinking.... I worked hard, I wanted to know everything. When I knew a good deal, I said to myself, ‘Why go on learning all this that others have thought out? Think things out for yourself!’ ... Then I had a feeling of utter helplessness.... But I’m boring you.”“No,” she said, impatiently.“I felt utterly helpless.... Then I said to myself, ‘If you can’t think things out,dosomething. Be somebody. Be a man. Work!’ ... Then I read Marx, Fourier, Saint-Simon: do you know them?”“I’ve never read them,” said she, “but I’ve heard their names often enough to follow you. Go on.”“When I had read them, I started thinking, I thought a great deal ... and then I wanted to work. As a labourer. So as to understand all those who were destitute.... God, how difficult words are! I simply can’t speak to you about myself.”“And about Peace you speak ... as if you were inspired!”“About Peace ... perhaps, but not about myself. I went to America, I became a workman. But the terrible thing was that I felt I wasnota workman. I had money. I gave it all to the poor ... nearly. But I kept just enough never to be hungry, to live a little more comfortably than my mates, to take a day’s rest when I was tired, to buy meat and wine and medicines when I wanted them ... to go to the theatre dressed as a gentleman. Do you understand? I was a Sunday workman. I was an amateur labourer. I remained a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I come of a good middle-class family: well, over there, in America, while I was a workman, I remained—I became even more than I had been—an aristocrat. I felt that I was far above my fellow-workmen. I knew more than they, I knew a great deal: they could tell it by listening to me. I was finer-grained, more delicately constituted than they: they could tell it by looking at me. They regarded me as a wastrel who had been kicked out of doors, who had ‘seen better days;’ but they continued to think me a gentleman and I myself felt a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I never became a proper workman. I should have liked to, so as to understand the workman thoroughly and afterwards, in the light of my knowledge, to work for his welfare, back in my own country, in my own station of life. But,though I was living among working people, I did not understand them. I shuddered involuntarily at their jokes, their oaths, their drinking, their friendship even. I remained a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I remained of a different blood and a different culture. My ideas and my theories would have had me resemble my mates; but all my former life—my birth, my upbringing, my education—all my own and my parents’ past, all my inherited instincts were against it. I simply could not fraternize with them. I kept on trying something different, thinking it was that that was amiss: a different sort of work, a different occupation. Nothing made any difference. I remained a harmless, inquisitive amateur; and just that settled conviction, that I could leave off at any time if I wished, was the reason why my life never became the profoundly serious thing which I would have had it. It remained amateurish. It became almost a mockery of the life of my mates. I was free and they were slaves. I was vigorous and they were worked to death. To me, after my brain-work, that manual and muscular labour came as a tonic. If I was overtired, I rested, left my job, looked for something else after a few weeks. The others would be sweated, right up to their old age, till they had yielded the last ounce of their working-power. I should work just as long as I took pleasure in it. I looked healthy and well, even though my face and hands became rough. I ate in proportionto the hardness of my work. And I thought: if they could all eat as I do, it would be all right. Then I felt ashamed of myself, distributed all my money, secretly, among the poor and lived solely on my wages ... until I fell ill ... and cured myself with my money. It became absurd. And never more so than when I, habitually well-fed, looked down upon my mates because their unalterable ideal appeared to be ... to eat beef every day! Do they long for nothing better and higher and nobler, I thought, than to eat beef? It was easy for me to think like that and look down on them, I who ate beef whenever I wanted to! Well-fed, even though tired with my work, I could think of nobler things than beef. And yet ... and yet, though I felt all this at the time, I still continued to despise them for their base ideal. That was because of my blood and my birth, but especially because of my superior training and education. And then I became very despondent and thought, ‘I shall never feel myself their brother; I shall remain a gentleman, a “toff;” it is not my fault: it is the fault of everything, of all my past life.’ ... Then, suddenly, without any transition, I went back to Europe. I have lectured here ... on Peace. In a year’s time, perhaps, I shall be lecturing on War. I am still seeking. I no longer know anything. Properly speaking, I never did know anything. I seek and seek.... But why have I talked to you at such length about myself? Iam ashamed of myself, I am ashamed. Perhaps I have no right to go on seeking. A man seeks when he is young, does he not? When he has come to my age, which is the same as yours, he ought to have found and he has no right to go on seeking. And, if he hasn’t found, then he looks back upon his life as one colossal failure, as one huge mistake—mistake upon mistake—and then things become hopeless, hopeless, hopeless....”She was silent....She thought of her own life, her small feminine life—the life of a small soul that had not thought and had not felt, that was only just beginning to feel and only just beginning at rare intervals to think—and she saw her own small life also wasting the years in mistake upon mistake.“Oh,” he said, in a voice filled with longing, “to have found what one might have gone on seeking for years! To have found, when young, happiness ... for one’s self ... and for others! Oh, to be young, to be once more young!... And then to seek ... and then to find when young ... and tomeetwhen young ... and to be happy when young and to make others—everybody!—happy!... To be young, oh, to be young!”“But you are not old,” she said. “You are in the prime of life.”“I hate that phrase,” he said, gloomily. “The prime of life occurs at my age in people who do notseek, but who have quietly travelled a definite, known path. Those are the people who, when they are my age, are in the prime of life. I am not: I have sought; I have never found. I now feel all the sadness of my wasted efforts; I now feel ... old. I feel old. What more can I do now? Think a little more; try to keep abreast of modern thought and modern conditions; seek a little, like a blind man. And,” with a bitter laugh, “I have even lost that right: the right to seek. You seek only when you are very young, or else it becomes absurd.”“You are echoing me,” she said, in gentle reproach.“But you were right, you were right. It is so. There is nothing left, at our age; not even our memories....”“Our memories,” she murmured, very softly.“The memories of our childhood....”“Of our childhood,” she repeated.“Not even that.”“Not even that,” she repeated, as though hypnotized.“No, there is nothing left ... for us....”The door opened suddenly: they started.“Mamma, are you there?”It was Addie.“Yes, my boy....”“I can’t see you. It is quite dark.”“And here is Mr. Brauws.”“I can see nothing and nobody. May I light one of the lamps?”“Yes, do.”He bustled through the room, hunted for matches, lit a lamp in the corner:“That’s it. Now at least I can see you.”He came nearer: a young, handsome, bright boy, with his good-looking, healthy face and his serious, blue eyes; broad and strong, shedding a note of joy in the melancholy room, which lit up softly with the glow of its one lamp, behind Constance. She smiled at him, drew him down beside her, put her arms round him while he kissed her:“Heis left!” she said, softly, with a glance at Brauws, referring to the last words which he had spoken.He understood:“Yes,” he answered—and his gloom seemed suddenly to brighten into a sort of rueful gladness, a yearning hope that all was not yet lost, that his dreams might be realized not by myself, but by another, by Addie—and he repeated her own, radiant words, “Yes, yes,heis left!”The boy did not understand, looked at them both by turns and smiled enquiringly, receiving only their smiles in answer....Chapter XXFor a long time, Constance had not been to Mamma van Lowe’s Sunday-evenings; and at first Mamma had not insisted. Now, however, one afternoon, she said, gently:“Are you never coming again on a Sunday, Constance?”She saw that her mother had suddenly become very nervous and she was sorry that she had not made an effort and overcome her reluctance to attend the family-gatherings after that terrible evening.“Yes, Mamma,” she said, without hesitation, “I will come. This is Saturday: I will come to-morrow.”The old woman leant back wearily in her chair, nodded her head up and down, as though she knew all sorts of sad things:“It is so sad ... about Van Naghel,” she said. “Bertha is going through a lot of trouble.”It seemed as if Mamma wished to talk about it; but Constance, with an affected indifference to her relations’ affairs, asked no questions.The next evening, Constance and Addie were ready to start for the Alexanderstraat.“Aren’t you coming?” she asked Van der Welcke.He hesitated. He would rather not go, feeling unfriendly towards the whole family, but he would have liked to see Marianne. Still he said:“No, I think not.”He was afraid that his refusal would cause a scene; but latterly, even though anger welled up inside her, she had shown a forbearance which surprised him; and she merely said:“Mamma would like us all to come again.”He was really fond of the old lady: she had always been kind to him.“Who will be there?” he asked.“Why, all of them!” she said. “As usual.”“Surely not Bertha ... and her children...?”“I think so,” she said, gently, feeling that he was sounding her to see if Marianne would be there. “Why shouldn’t they go, though they are in mourning? It’s not a party: there will be no one but the family.”“Perhaps I’ll come on later,” he said, still hesitating.She did not insist, went off on foot with Addie. It was curious, but now, whenever she went to her mother’s house, nice though her mother always was to her, she felt as if she were going there as a stranger, not as a daughter. It was because of the others that she felt like a stranger, because of Bertha, Adolphine, Karel, Cateau and Dorine. Gerrit and Paul were the only ones whom she still looked uponas brothers; and she was very fond of Adeline.This evening again, as she entered the room, she felt like that, like a stranger. The old aunts were sitting in their usual places, doing their crochet-work mechanically. Mamma, as Constance knew, had had an angry scene with the two old things, to explain to them that they mustn’t talk scandal and, above all, that they mustn’t do so out loud, a scene which had thoroughly upset Mamma herself and which the old aunts had not even seemed to understand, for they merely nodded a vague consent, nodded yes, yes, no doubt Marie was right. Yet Constance suspected that Auntie Rine had understood at least something of it, for she was now looking at Constance askance, with a frightened look. Constance could not bring herself to speak to the old aunts: she walked past them; and Auntie Tine whispered to Auntie Rine:“There she is again!”“Who?” screamed Auntie Rine, aloud.But Auntie Tine dared not whisper anything more, because of their sister Marie, who had flown into such a passion; and she pinched Auntie Rine’s withered hand, whereupon Auntie Rine glared at her angrily. Then they cackled together for a moment, bad-temperedly. The three young Saetzemas, playing their cards in a corner of the conservatory, sat bursting with laughter at the bickering of the two old aunts.Constance sat down quietly by Mamma. And shefelt, now that Addie spoke to Marietje—Adolphine’s Marietje—but did not go to the boys in the conservatory, that there was no harmony among them all and that they only met for the sake of Mamma, of Grandmamma. Poor Mamma! And yet she did not seem to notice it, was glad that the children and grandchildren came to her Sundays, to her “family-group.”Adolphine and Cateau sat talking in a corner; and Constance caught what they said:“So Ber-tha isnot... keep-ing on the house?”“I should think not, indeed! They have nothing but debts.”“Is it their bro-ther-in-law who is see-ing to things and ad-min-istering the es-tate?”“Yes, the commissary in Overijssel.”1“So they arenotwelloff?”“No, they haven’t a farthing.”“Yes, as I al-ways used to say to Ka-rel, they al-ways lived on much toolargeascale.”“They squandered all they had.”“Well, that’s not very pleas-ant for the children!”“No. And there’s Emilie, who wants a divorce. But don’t mention that to Mamma: she doesn’t know about it.”“Ve-ry well.... Yes, that’s most unfor-tunate. Your Floor-tje, Phine, is bet-ter off than that with Dij-kerhof.”“At least, they’re not thinking of getting divorced. I always look upon a divorce as a scandal. We’ve one divorce in the family as it is; and I consider that one too many.”Constance turned pale and felt that Adolphine was speaking loud on purpose, though it was behind her back.... Dear Mamma noticed nothing!... She had been much upset on that one Sunday, that terrible evening, but had not really understood the truth: the terrible thing to her was merely that the old sisters had talked so loud and so spitefully about her poor Constance, like the cross-grained, spiteful old women that they were; but what happened besides she had really never quite known.... And this, now that Constance was gradually drawing farther away from her brothers and sisters, suddenly struck her as rather fine. Whatever happened, they kept Mamma out of it as far as they could, in a general filial affection for Mamma, in a filial conspiracy to leave Mamma her happiness and her illusion about the family; and it seemed as if the brothers and sisters also impressed this on their children; it appeared that Adolphine even taught it to her loutish boys, for, to her sudden surprise, she saw Chris and Piet go up to Addie and ask him to join in their game. Addie refused, coldly; and nowConstance was almost ashamed that she herself had not pointed out to Addie that Grandmamma must always be spared and left in her fond illusion that all was harmony. But fortunately Addie of his own accord always knew what was the right thing to do; for, when Adolphine’s Marietje also came up with a smile and asked him to come and play cards in the conservatory, he went with her at once. She smiled because of it all: no, there was no mutual sympathy, but there was a general affection for Mamma. A general affection, for Mamma, was something rather touching after all; and really she had never before seen it in that light, as something fine, that strong and really unanimous feeling among all those different members of a family whose interests and inclinations in the natural course of things were divided. Yes, now that she was standing farther away from her brothers and sisters, she saw for the first time this one feature which was good in them. Yes, it was really something very good, something lovable; and even Adolphine had it.... It was as though a softer mood came over Constance, no longer one of criticism and resentment, but rather of sympathy and understanding, in which bitterness had given place to kindliness; and in that softer mood there was still indeed sadness, but no anger, as if everything could not well be other than it was, in their circle of small people, of very small people, whose eyes saw only a little way beyond themselves, whosehearts were sensitive only a little way beyond themselves, not farther than the narrow circle of their children and perhaps their children’s children.... She did not know why, but, in the vague sadness of this new, softer mood, she thought of Brauws. And, though not able at once to explain why, she connected her thought of him with this kindlier feeling of hers, this deeper, truer vision of things around her. And, as though new, far-stretching vistas opened up before her, she suddenly seemed to be contemplating life, that life which she had never yet contemplated. A new, distant horizon lay open before her, a distant circle, a wide circle round the narrow little circle past which the eyes of her soul had never yet been able to gaze.... It was strange to her, this feeling, here in this room, in this family-circle. It was as though she suddenly saw all her relations—the Ruyvenaers had now arrived as well—sitting and talking in that room, all her relations and herself also, as very small people, who sat and talked, who moved and lived and thought in a very narrow little circle of self-interest, while outside that circle the horizon extended ever wider and wider, like a vision of great cloudy skies, under which towns rose sharply, seas billowed, bright lightning glanced. It all shot through her and in front of her very swiftly: two or three little revealing flashes, no more; swift revelations, which flashed out and then darkened again. But, swiftly though those revelationshad flashed, after that brightness the room remained small, those people remained small, she herself remained small....She herself had never lived: oh, she had so often suspected it! But those other people: had they also never, never lived? Mamma, in the narrow circle of her children’s and grandchildren’s affection; Uncle and Aunt, in their interests as sugar-planters; Karel and Cateau, in their narrow, respectable, complacent comfort; Adolphine, in her miserable struggle for social importance; and the others, Gerrit, Dorine, Ernst, Paul: had they ever, ever lived? Her husband: had he ever lived? Or was it all just a mere existence, as she herself had existed; a vegetation rooted in little thoughts and habits, in little opinions and prejudices, in little religions or philosophies; and feeling pleasant and comfortable therein and looking down upon and condemning others and considering one’s self fairly good and fairly high-minded, not so bad as others and at least far more sensible in one’s opinions and beliefs than most of one’s neighbours?... Oh, people like themselves; people in their “set,” in other sets, with their several variations of birth, religion, position, money; decent people, whom Brauws sometimes called “thebourgeois:” had they ever lived, ever looked out beyond the very narrow circle which their dogmas drew around them? What a small and insignificant merry-go-round it was! And what was the objectof whirling among one another and round one another like that?... It suddenly appeared to her that, of all these people who belonged to her and of all the others, the acquaintances, whom with a swift mental effort she grouped around them, there was not one who could send a single thought shining out far and wide, towards the wide horizons yonder, without thinking of himself, his wife and his children and clinging to his prejudices about money, position, religion and birth.... As regards money, it was almost a distinction among all of them not to have any and then to live as if they had. Position was what they strove for; and those who did not strive for it, such as Paul and Ernst, were criticized for their weakness. Religion was, with those other people, the mere acquaintances, not belonging to their circle, sometimes a matter of decency or of political interest; but, in their set, with its East-Indian leaven, it was ignored, quietly and calmly, never thought about or talked about, save that the children were just confirmed, quickly, as they might be given a dancing- or music-lesson. Birth, birth, that was everything; and even then there was that superior contempt for new titles of nobility, that respect only for old titles and a tendency to think themselves very grand, even though they were not titled, as members of a patrician Dutch-Indian family which, in addition to its original importance, had also absorbed the importance attaching to the highestofficial positions in Java.... And over it all lay the soft smile of indulgent pity and contempt for any who thought differently from themselves. It formed the basis of all their opinions, however greatly those opinions might vary according to their personal interests and views: compassion and contempt for people who had no money and lived economically; for those who did not aim at an exalted position; for those, whether Catholics or anti-revolutionaries—they themselves were all moderate liberals, with special emphasis on the “moderate”—who cherished an enthusiasm for religion; for those who were not of such patrician birth as themselves. And so on, with certain variations in these opinions.... It was as though Constance noticed the merry-go-round for the first time, whirling in that little circle. It was as though she saw it in the past, saw it whirling in their drawing-rooms, when her father was still alive, then especially. She saw it suddenly, as a child, after it is grown up, sees its parents and their house, their former life, in which it was a child, in which it grew up. She saw it now like that at her mother’s, only less vividly, because of the informality of that family-gathering. She saw it like that, dimly, in all, in every one of them, more or less. But she also saw the respect, the love for Mamma, the wish to leave her in the illusion which that love gave her.She had never seen it like that before. She herselfwas just the same as the others. And she thought herself and all of them small, so small that she said to herself:“Do we all of us live for so very little, when there is so very much beyond, stretching far and wide, under the cloudy skies of that immense horizon? Do we never stop outside this little circle in which we all, with our superior smile—because we are so distinguished and enlightened—spin round one another and ourselves, like humming-tops, like everlasting humming-tops?”And again Brauws’ figure rose before her eyes. Oh, she now for the first time understood what he had said, on that first evening when she saw and heard him, about Peace!... Peace! The pure, immaculate ideal suddenly streamed before her like a silver banner, fluttered in the wide cloudy skies! Oh, she now for the first time understood ... why he sought. He had wanted to seek ... life! He had sought ... and he had not found. But, while seeking, he had lived: he still lived! His breath came and went, his pulses throbbed, his chest heaved ... even though his sadness, because he had never “found,” bedimmed his energies. But she and all of them did not live! They did not live, they had never lived. They were born, people of distinction, with all their little cynicisms about money and religion, with all their fondness for birth and position; and they continued to spin round like that, tospin like humming-tops: moderate liberals. That they all tolerated her again, in the little circle, was that not all part of their moderate liberal attitude? Oh, to live, to live really, to live as he had lived, to live ... to live with him!She was now startled at herself. She was in a room full of people and she sat in silence next to her mother. Dear Mamma!... And she was weary of her own thinking, for swift as lightning it all flashed through her, that revelation of her thoughts, without sentences, without images, without words. It just flashed; and that was all. But that flashing made her feel weary, enervated, almost breathless in the room, which she found close.... And the very last of her thoughts, which had just for a moment appeared before her—sentence, image and word—had startled her. She had to confess it to herself: she loved, she loved him. But she inwardly pronounced that love—perhaps with the little cynical laugh which she had observed in her own people—she pronounced that love to be absurd, because so many silent, dead years lay heaped up there, because she was old, quite old. To wish to live at this time of day was absurd. To wish to dream at this stage was absurd. No, after so many years had been wasted on that meaningless existence, then she, an old woman now, must not hope to live again when it dawned too late, that life of thinking and feeling, that life from which might have sprunga life of doing and loving, of boundless love, of love for everybody and everything.... No, after so many years had been spent in living the life of a plant, until the plant became yellow and sere, then inevitably, inexorably extinction, slow extinction, was the only hope that remained....The absurdity, of being so old—forty-three—and feeling like that!... Never, she swore, would she allow anybody to perceive that absurdity. She knew quite well that it was not really absurd, that its absurdity existed only in the narrow little circle of little prejudices and little dogmas. But she also knew that she, like all of them, was small, that she herself was full of prejudice; she knew that she could not rise, could never rise above what she considered absurd, what she had been taught, from a child, in her little circle, to look upon as absurd!No, now that she was old, there was nothing for her but to turn her eyes from the radiant vision and, calmly, to grow still older ... to go towards that slow extinction which perhaps would still drag on for many long and empty years: the years of a woman of her age ... in their set....1The “Queen’s Commissary” of a Dutch province has no counterpart in England except, perhaps, the lord lieutenant of a county. His functions, however, correspond more nearly with those of a French prefect.

Chapter XIXThe winter months dragged sadly and monotonously past, with their continual rains and no frost: even such snow as fell melted at once in the raw, damp atmosphere. But the wind blew all the time, kept on blowing from some mysterious cloud-realm, carrying the clouds with it, violet clouds and grey clouds, a never-ending succession, which came sailing over the trees in the Woods as though over the sea. And Constance followed them with her eyes, vaguely and dreamily, dreaming on and on in an endless reverie. The clouds sailed everlastingly on the wind; and the wind blew everlastingly, like an everlasting storm, not always raging, but always rustling, sometimes high up above the trees, sometimes straight through the trees themselves. Constance remained mostly at home and sat by her window during those short afternoons, which she lengthened out in the dim shadows of the fire-lit room, where at three o’clock dusk was falling.... The everyday life went on, regularly and monotonously: when the weather was tolerable, Van der Welcke went bicycling; but for the rest he stayed upstairs a great deal, seldom going to the Witte or the Plaats, smoking, cursing inwardly because he was not rich enough to buy a “sewing-machine” ofhis own. Addie went to and fro between home and school; and it was he that enlivened the meals....And Constance, in her drawing-room, sat at the window and gazed at the clouds, looked out at the rain. Through the silent monotony of her short, grey days a dream began to weave itself, as with a luminous thread, so that she was not oppressed by the sombre melancholy of the rainy winter. When Van der Welcke went upstairs, cursing because it was raining again and because he had nothing to do, she settled herself in her drawing-room—in that room in which she lived and which was tinged as it were with her own personality—and looked out at the clouds, at the rain. She sat dreaming. She smiled, wide-eyed. She liked the ever louring skies, the ever drifting clouds; and, though at times the gusty squalls still made her start with that sudden catch in her throat and breast, she loved the raging and rustling winds, listened to them, content for them to blow and blow, high above her head, her house, her trees—hers—till, blowing, they lost themselves in the infinities beyond.... She had her work beside her, a book; but she did not sew, did not read: she dreamt.... She smiled, looking out, looking up at the endlessly rolling skies.... The clouds sailed by, sometimes high, sometimes low, above the houses, above the people’s heads, like passions disdaining mankind: dank, monstrous passions riding arrogantly by upon the passion of the winds,from a far-off land of sheer passion, sullen and tempestuous; and the threatening cohorts rolled on, great and majestic, like Olympian deities towering above the petty human strife hidden under the roofs over which they passed, ever opening their mighty flood-gates.... When Constance looked up at them, the vast, phantom monsters, coming she knew not whence and going she knew not whither, just shadowing across her life and followed by new monsters, no less vast and no less big with mystery, she was not afraid or sad, for she felt safe in her dream. The sombre skies had always attracted her, even in the old days, though they used to frighten her then, she did not know why; but now, now for the first time she smiled, because she felt safe. A soft radiance shone from her eyes, which gazed up at the phantom monsters. When the wind whistled, soughed, moaned and bellowed round the house, like a giant soul in pain, she remained as it were looking up at the wind, let her soul swell softly in unison with its dirges, like something that surrenders itself, small and weak but peaceful, to a mighty force. In her little house, as she gazed out at the dreary road, on these winter days, especially when it grew dark of an afternoon, the wind and the rain round about her seemed almost one element, vast and sad as life, which came from over the sea, which drifted away over the town and which continued to hold her and her house in its embrace....She looked outside, she smiled. Sometimes she heard her husband’s step in the passages, as he went through the house, grumbling, muttering, cursing, because he wanted to go out.... Then she would think for a moment:“He hasn’t seen Marianne for days.”But then she would think no more about either of them; and her dream shone out before her again. The dream shone softly and unfalteringly, like a gentle, steady ray: a path of soft light that issued as it were from her eyes to the sombre, frowning clouds out yonder. Over the soft-shining path something seemed to be wafted from her outwards, upwards, far and wide and then back again, to where she sat.... It was so strange that she smiled at it, closed her eyes; and, when she opened them, it was once more as though she saw her dream, that path of light, always.... Her dream took no more definite shape and remained thus, a gentle, kindly glow, a pale, soft ray from her to the sombre skies.... It was dusk now and she sat on, quite lost in the misty, shadowy darkness all around her, quite invisible in the black room; and her eyes continued to stare outside, at the last wan streaks in the darkening heavens.... The road outside was black.... A street-lamp shone out, throwing its harsh light upon a puddle....Then she covered her face with her hands, ashamed because she had sat musing so long,ashamed especially because she had allowed herself to wander along that luminous thread, the path of her dream.... She rang, had the lamps lit and waited for Addie, who would soon be home.But those were the lonely afternoons.... Sometimes in those wet, dull afternoons when it grew dark so early, she sawhisfigure pass the window, heard him ring. It was Brauws. She did not move and she heard him go upstairs first, when Van der Welcke was in. But, since he had recommenced his visits to their house, he had got into the way of saying to Van der Welcke, in half an hour or so:“Now I’ll go and pay my respects to your wife.”The first few times, Van der Welcke had gone with him to the drawing-room; but, now that Brauws had taken to calling in a more informal fashion, Van der Welcke stayed upstairs, let him go his own way. And, after the first shock which Brauws’ ideas had produced in their house, his friendship became something cheering and comforting which both Van der Welcke and Constance continued to appreciate for their own and each other’s sakes. He and Van Vreeswijck were now the only friends whom they both really liked, the two regular visitors to their otherwise lonely house. And for that reason Van der Welcke let Brauws go to Constance alone, staying away, never entering his wife’s drawing-room unnecessarily ... except when he heard the little bells of Marianne’s voice and laugh.Constance’ heart beat when she heard Brauws’ voice on the stairs:“Now I’ll go and pay my respects to your wife. She’s at home, isn’t she?”“Sure to be, in this beastly weather.”She heard Brauws’ step, which made the stairs creak as it came down them. Then she felt a violent emotion, of which she was secretly ashamed, ashamed for herself. For she was severe with herself: she was afraid of becoming ridiculous in her own eyes. When she felt her emotion grow too violent, she at once conjured up Addie’s image: he was fourteen now. The mother of a son of fourteen! Then a smile of ironic indulgence would curve the dimples by her lips; and it was with the greatest composure that she welcomed Brauws:“Isn’t it dark early? But it’s only half-past three and really too soon to light the lamp.”“There are times when twilight upsets me,” he said, “and times when it makes me feel very calm and peaceful.”He sat down near her, contentedly, and his broad figure loomed darkly in the little room, among the other shadows. The street-lamps were already lighted outside, glittering harshly on the wet road.“It’s been awful weather lately.”“Yes, so I prefer to stay indoors.”“You’re too much indoors.”“I go out whenever it’s fine.”“You don’t care for going out ‘in all weathers.’”“I like looking at the weather from here. It’s a different sky every day....”Then they talked on all sorts of subjects. He often spoke of Addie, with a sort of enthusiasm which he had conceived for the lad. Her face would glow with pride as she listened. And, almost involuntarily, she told him how the boy had always been a comfort to them, to Van der Welcke as well as to her. And, when she mentioned her husband’s name, he often answered, as though with a touch of reproach:“I’m very fond of Hans. He is a child; and still I’m fond of him....”Then she would feel ashamed, because she had just had a wordy dispute with Van der Welcke—about nothing at all—and she would veer round and say:“It can’t be helped. We cannotget on. We endure each other as well as we can. To separate would be too silly ... and also very sad for Addie. He is fond of both of us.”And their conversation again turned on the boy. Then she had to tell him about Brussels and even about Rome.“It’s strange,” he said. “When you were in Brussels ... I was living at Schaerbeek.”“And we never met.”“No, never. And, when you and Hans went to the Riviera, I was there in the same year.”“Did you come often to Monte Carlo?”“Once or twice, at any rate. Attracted by just that vivid contrast between the atmosphere out there, where money has no value, and my own ideas. It was a sort of self-inflicted torture. And we never saw each other there.... And, when you were here, in the Hague, as a girl, I used often to come to the Hague and I even remember often passing your parents’ house, where your mother still lives, in the Alexanderstraat, and reading your name on the door: Van Lowe....”“We were destined never to meet,” she said, trying to laugh softly; and in spite of herself her voice broke, as though sadly.“No,” he said, quietly, “we were destined not to meet.”“The fatality of meeting is sometimes very strange,” she said.“There are thousands and millions, in our lives....”“Don’t you think that we often, day after day, for months on end, pass quite close to somebody....”“Somebody who, if we met him or her, would influence our lives?...”“Yes, that’s what I mean.”“I’m certain of it.”“It’s curious to think of.... In the street, sometimes, one’s always meeting the same people, without knowing them.”“Yes, I know what you mean. In New York, when I was a tram-driver, there was a woman who always got into my car; and, without being in love with her, I used to think I should like to speak to her, to know her, to meet her....”“And how often it is the other way round! I have met thousands of people and forgotten their names and what they said to me. They were like ghosts. That is how we meet people in society.”“Yes, it’s all so futile....”“You exchange names, exchange a few sentences ... and nothing remains, not the slightest recollection....”“Yes, it all vanishes.”“I was so often tired ... of so many people, so many ghosts.... I couldn’t live like that now.”“Yet you have remained a society-woman.”“Oh, no, I am no longer that!”And she told him how she had once thought of making her reappearance in Hague society; she told him about Van Naghel and Bertha.“Are you on bad terms with your sister now?”“Not on bad terms....”“He died suddenly...?”“Yes, quite suddenly. They had just had a dinner-party.... It was a terrible blow for my sister. And I hear there are serious financial difficulties. It is all very sad.... But this doesn’t interest you. Tell me about yourself.”“Again?”“It interests me.”“Tell me about your own life.”“I’ve just been telling you.”“Yes, about Rome and Brussels. Now tell me about Buitenzorg.”“Why about that?”“The childhood of my friends—I hope I may number you among my friends?—always interests me.”“About Buitenzorg? I don’t remember anything.... I was a little girl.... There was nothing in particular....”“Your brother Gerrit....”She turned pale, but he did not see it, in the dim room.“What has he been saying?”“Your brother Gerrit remembers it all. The other night, after your dinner here, he told me about it while we were smoking.”“Gerrit?” she said, anxiously.“Yes: how prettily you used to play on the great boulders in the river....”She flushed scarlet, in the friendly dusk:“He’s mad!” she said, harshly. “What does he want to talk about that for?”He laughed:“Mayn’t he? He idolizes you ... and he idolized you at that time....”“He’s always teasing me with those reminiscences.... They’re ridiculous now.”“Why?”“Because I’m old. Those memories are pretty enough when you are young.... When you grow older, you let them sleep ... in the dead, silent years. For, when you’re old, they become ridiculous.”Her voice sounded hard. He was silent.“Don’t you think I’m right?” she asked.“Perhaps,” he said, very gently. “Perhaps you are right. But it is a pity.”“Why?” she forced herself to ask.He gave a very deep sigh:“Because it reminds us of all that we lose as we grow older ... even the right to our memories.”“The right to our memories,” she echoed almost under her breath. And, in a firmer voice, she repeated, severely, “Certainly. When we grow older, we lose our right.... There are memories to which we lose our right as we grow old....”“Tell me,” he said, “is it hard for a woman to grow old?”“I don’t know,” she answered, softly. “I believe that I shall grow old, that I am growing old as it is, without finding it hard.”“But you’re not old,” he said.“I am forty-three,” she replied, “and my son is fourteen.”She was determined to show herself no mercy.“And now tell me about yourself,” she went on.“Why should I?” he asked, almost dejectedly. “You would never understand me, however long I spoke. No, I can’t speak about myself to-day.”“It’s not only to-day: it’s very often.”“Yes, very often. The idea suddenly comes to me ... that everything has been of no use. That I have done nothing that was worth while. That my life ought to have been quite different ... to be worth while.”“What do you mean by worth while?”“Worth while for people, for humanity. It always obsessed me, after my games in the woods. You remember my telling you how I used to play in the woods?”“Yes,” she said, very softly.“Tell me,” he suddenly broke in. “Are those memories to which I have no right?”“You are a man,” said she.“Have I more right to memories, as a man?”“Why not ... to these?” she said, softly. “They do not make your years ridiculous ... as mine do mine.”“Are you so much afraid ... of ridicule?”“Yes,” she said, frankly. “I am as unwilling to be ashamed in my own eyes ... as in those of the world.”“So you abdicate....”“My youth,” she said, gently.He was silent. Then he said:“I interrupted myself just now. I meant to tell you that, after my games as a child, it was always my obsession ... to be something. To be somebody. To be a man. To be a man among men. That was when I was a boy of sixteen or seventeen. Afterwards, at the university, I was amazed at the childishness of Hans and Van Vreeswijck and the others. They never thought; I was always thinking.... I worked hard, I wanted to know everything. When I knew a good deal, I said to myself, ‘Why go on learning all this that others have thought out? Think things out for yourself!’ ... Then I had a feeling of utter helplessness.... But I’m boring you.”“No,” she said, impatiently.“I felt utterly helpless.... Then I said to myself, ‘If you can’t think things out,dosomething. Be somebody. Be a man. Work!’ ... Then I read Marx, Fourier, Saint-Simon: do you know them?”“I’ve never read them,” said she, “but I’ve heard their names often enough to follow you. Go on.”“When I had read them, I started thinking, I thought a great deal ... and then I wanted to work. As a labourer. So as to understand all those who were destitute.... God, how difficult words are! I simply can’t speak to you about myself.”“And about Peace you speak ... as if you were inspired!”“About Peace ... perhaps, but not about myself. I went to America, I became a workman. But the terrible thing was that I felt I wasnota workman. I had money. I gave it all to the poor ... nearly. But I kept just enough never to be hungry, to live a little more comfortably than my mates, to take a day’s rest when I was tired, to buy meat and wine and medicines when I wanted them ... to go to the theatre dressed as a gentleman. Do you understand? I was a Sunday workman. I was an amateur labourer. I remained a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I come of a good middle-class family: well, over there, in America, while I was a workman, I remained—I became even more than I had been—an aristocrat. I felt that I was far above my fellow-workmen. I knew more than they, I knew a great deal: they could tell it by listening to me. I was finer-grained, more delicately constituted than they: they could tell it by looking at me. They regarded me as a wastrel who had been kicked out of doors, who had ‘seen better days;’ but they continued to think me a gentleman and I myself felt a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I never became a proper workman. I should have liked to, so as to understand the workman thoroughly and afterwards, in the light of my knowledge, to work for his welfare, back in my own country, in my own station of life. But,though I was living among working people, I did not understand them. I shuddered involuntarily at their jokes, their oaths, their drinking, their friendship even. I remained a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I remained of a different blood and a different culture. My ideas and my theories would have had me resemble my mates; but all my former life—my birth, my upbringing, my education—all my own and my parents’ past, all my inherited instincts were against it. I simply could not fraternize with them. I kept on trying something different, thinking it was that that was amiss: a different sort of work, a different occupation. Nothing made any difference. I remained a harmless, inquisitive amateur; and just that settled conviction, that I could leave off at any time if I wished, was the reason why my life never became the profoundly serious thing which I would have had it. It remained amateurish. It became almost a mockery of the life of my mates. I was free and they were slaves. I was vigorous and they were worked to death. To me, after my brain-work, that manual and muscular labour came as a tonic. If I was overtired, I rested, left my job, looked for something else after a few weeks. The others would be sweated, right up to their old age, till they had yielded the last ounce of their working-power. I should work just as long as I took pleasure in it. I looked healthy and well, even though my face and hands became rough. I ate in proportionto the hardness of my work. And I thought: if they could all eat as I do, it would be all right. Then I felt ashamed of myself, distributed all my money, secretly, among the poor and lived solely on my wages ... until I fell ill ... and cured myself with my money. It became absurd. And never more so than when I, habitually well-fed, looked down upon my mates because their unalterable ideal appeared to be ... to eat beef every day! Do they long for nothing better and higher and nobler, I thought, than to eat beef? It was easy for me to think like that and look down on them, I who ate beef whenever I wanted to! Well-fed, even though tired with my work, I could think of nobler things than beef. And yet ... and yet, though I felt all this at the time, I still continued to despise them for their base ideal. That was because of my blood and my birth, but especially because of my superior training and education. And then I became very despondent and thought, ‘I shall never feel myself their brother; I shall remain a gentleman, a “toff;” it is not my fault: it is the fault of everything, of all my past life.’ ... Then, suddenly, without any transition, I went back to Europe. I have lectured here ... on Peace. In a year’s time, perhaps, I shall be lecturing on War. I am still seeking. I no longer know anything. Properly speaking, I never did know anything. I seek and seek.... But why have I talked to you at such length about myself? Iam ashamed of myself, I am ashamed. Perhaps I have no right to go on seeking. A man seeks when he is young, does he not? When he has come to my age, which is the same as yours, he ought to have found and he has no right to go on seeking. And, if he hasn’t found, then he looks back upon his life as one colossal failure, as one huge mistake—mistake upon mistake—and then things become hopeless, hopeless, hopeless....”She was silent....She thought of her own life, her small feminine life—the life of a small soul that had not thought and had not felt, that was only just beginning to feel and only just beginning at rare intervals to think—and she saw her own small life also wasting the years in mistake upon mistake.“Oh,” he said, in a voice filled with longing, “to have found what one might have gone on seeking for years! To have found, when young, happiness ... for one’s self ... and for others! Oh, to be young, to be once more young!... And then to seek ... and then to find when young ... and tomeetwhen young ... and to be happy when young and to make others—everybody!—happy!... To be young, oh, to be young!”“But you are not old,” she said. “You are in the prime of life.”“I hate that phrase,” he said, gloomily. “The prime of life occurs at my age in people who do notseek, but who have quietly travelled a definite, known path. Those are the people who, when they are my age, are in the prime of life. I am not: I have sought; I have never found. I now feel all the sadness of my wasted efforts; I now feel ... old. I feel old. What more can I do now? Think a little more; try to keep abreast of modern thought and modern conditions; seek a little, like a blind man. And,” with a bitter laugh, “I have even lost that right: the right to seek. You seek only when you are very young, or else it becomes absurd.”“You are echoing me,” she said, in gentle reproach.“But you were right, you were right. It is so. There is nothing left, at our age; not even our memories....”“Our memories,” she murmured, very softly.“The memories of our childhood....”“Of our childhood,” she repeated.“Not even that.”“Not even that,” she repeated, as though hypnotized.“No, there is nothing left ... for us....”The door opened suddenly: they started.“Mamma, are you there?”It was Addie.“Yes, my boy....”“I can’t see you. It is quite dark.”“And here is Mr. Brauws.”“I can see nothing and nobody. May I light one of the lamps?”“Yes, do.”He bustled through the room, hunted for matches, lit a lamp in the corner:“That’s it. Now at least I can see you.”He came nearer: a young, handsome, bright boy, with his good-looking, healthy face and his serious, blue eyes; broad and strong, shedding a note of joy in the melancholy room, which lit up softly with the glow of its one lamp, behind Constance. She smiled at him, drew him down beside her, put her arms round him while he kissed her:“Heis left!” she said, softly, with a glance at Brauws, referring to the last words which he had spoken.He understood:“Yes,” he answered—and his gloom seemed suddenly to brighten into a sort of rueful gladness, a yearning hope that all was not yet lost, that his dreams might be realized not by myself, but by another, by Addie—and he repeated her own, radiant words, “Yes, yes,heis left!”The boy did not understand, looked at them both by turns and smiled enquiringly, receiving only their smiles in answer....

Chapter XIX

The winter months dragged sadly and monotonously past, with their continual rains and no frost: even such snow as fell melted at once in the raw, damp atmosphere. But the wind blew all the time, kept on blowing from some mysterious cloud-realm, carrying the clouds with it, violet clouds and grey clouds, a never-ending succession, which came sailing over the trees in the Woods as though over the sea. And Constance followed them with her eyes, vaguely and dreamily, dreaming on and on in an endless reverie. The clouds sailed everlastingly on the wind; and the wind blew everlastingly, like an everlasting storm, not always raging, but always rustling, sometimes high up above the trees, sometimes straight through the trees themselves. Constance remained mostly at home and sat by her window during those short afternoons, which she lengthened out in the dim shadows of the fire-lit room, where at three o’clock dusk was falling.... The everyday life went on, regularly and monotonously: when the weather was tolerable, Van der Welcke went bicycling; but for the rest he stayed upstairs a great deal, seldom going to the Witte or the Plaats, smoking, cursing inwardly because he was not rich enough to buy a “sewing-machine” ofhis own. Addie went to and fro between home and school; and it was he that enlivened the meals....And Constance, in her drawing-room, sat at the window and gazed at the clouds, looked out at the rain. Through the silent monotony of her short, grey days a dream began to weave itself, as with a luminous thread, so that she was not oppressed by the sombre melancholy of the rainy winter. When Van der Welcke went upstairs, cursing because it was raining again and because he had nothing to do, she settled herself in her drawing-room—in that room in which she lived and which was tinged as it were with her own personality—and looked out at the clouds, at the rain. She sat dreaming. She smiled, wide-eyed. She liked the ever louring skies, the ever drifting clouds; and, though at times the gusty squalls still made her start with that sudden catch in her throat and breast, she loved the raging and rustling winds, listened to them, content for them to blow and blow, high above her head, her house, her trees—hers—till, blowing, they lost themselves in the infinities beyond.... She had her work beside her, a book; but she did not sew, did not read: she dreamt.... She smiled, looking out, looking up at the endlessly rolling skies.... The clouds sailed by, sometimes high, sometimes low, above the houses, above the people’s heads, like passions disdaining mankind: dank, monstrous passions riding arrogantly by upon the passion of the winds,from a far-off land of sheer passion, sullen and tempestuous; and the threatening cohorts rolled on, great and majestic, like Olympian deities towering above the petty human strife hidden under the roofs over which they passed, ever opening their mighty flood-gates.... When Constance looked up at them, the vast, phantom monsters, coming she knew not whence and going she knew not whither, just shadowing across her life and followed by new monsters, no less vast and no less big with mystery, she was not afraid or sad, for she felt safe in her dream. The sombre skies had always attracted her, even in the old days, though they used to frighten her then, she did not know why; but now, now for the first time she smiled, because she felt safe. A soft radiance shone from her eyes, which gazed up at the phantom monsters. When the wind whistled, soughed, moaned and bellowed round the house, like a giant soul in pain, she remained as it were looking up at the wind, let her soul swell softly in unison with its dirges, like something that surrenders itself, small and weak but peaceful, to a mighty force. In her little house, as she gazed out at the dreary road, on these winter days, especially when it grew dark of an afternoon, the wind and the rain round about her seemed almost one element, vast and sad as life, which came from over the sea, which drifted away over the town and which continued to hold her and her house in its embrace....She looked outside, she smiled. Sometimes she heard her husband’s step in the passages, as he went through the house, grumbling, muttering, cursing, because he wanted to go out.... Then she would think for a moment:“He hasn’t seen Marianne for days.”But then she would think no more about either of them; and her dream shone out before her again. The dream shone softly and unfalteringly, like a gentle, steady ray: a path of soft light that issued as it were from her eyes to the sombre, frowning clouds out yonder. Over the soft-shining path something seemed to be wafted from her outwards, upwards, far and wide and then back again, to where she sat.... It was so strange that she smiled at it, closed her eyes; and, when she opened them, it was once more as though she saw her dream, that path of light, always.... Her dream took no more definite shape and remained thus, a gentle, kindly glow, a pale, soft ray from her to the sombre skies.... It was dusk now and she sat on, quite lost in the misty, shadowy darkness all around her, quite invisible in the black room; and her eyes continued to stare outside, at the last wan streaks in the darkening heavens.... The road outside was black.... A street-lamp shone out, throwing its harsh light upon a puddle....Then she covered her face with her hands, ashamed because she had sat musing so long,ashamed especially because she had allowed herself to wander along that luminous thread, the path of her dream.... She rang, had the lamps lit and waited for Addie, who would soon be home.But those were the lonely afternoons.... Sometimes in those wet, dull afternoons when it grew dark so early, she sawhisfigure pass the window, heard him ring. It was Brauws. She did not move and she heard him go upstairs first, when Van der Welcke was in. But, since he had recommenced his visits to their house, he had got into the way of saying to Van der Welcke, in half an hour or so:“Now I’ll go and pay my respects to your wife.”The first few times, Van der Welcke had gone with him to the drawing-room; but, now that Brauws had taken to calling in a more informal fashion, Van der Welcke stayed upstairs, let him go his own way. And, after the first shock which Brauws’ ideas had produced in their house, his friendship became something cheering and comforting which both Van der Welcke and Constance continued to appreciate for their own and each other’s sakes. He and Van Vreeswijck were now the only friends whom they both really liked, the two regular visitors to their otherwise lonely house. And for that reason Van der Welcke let Brauws go to Constance alone, staying away, never entering his wife’s drawing-room unnecessarily ... except when he heard the little bells of Marianne’s voice and laugh.Constance’ heart beat when she heard Brauws’ voice on the stairs:“Now I’ll go and pay my respects to your wife. She’s at home, isn’t she?”“Sure to be, in this beastly weather.”She heard Brauws’ step, which made the stairs creak as it came down them. Then she felt a violent emotion, of which she was secretly ashamed, ashamed for herself. For she was severe with herself: she was afraid of becoming ridiculous in her own eyes. When she felt her emotion grow too violent, she at once conjured up Addie’s image: he was fourteen now. The mother of a son of fourteen! Then a smile of ironic indulgence would curve the dimples by her lips; and it was with the greatest composure that she welcomed Brauws:“Isn’t it dark early? But it’s only half-past three and really too soon to light the lamp.”“There are times when twilight upsets me,” he said, “and times when it makes me feel very calm and peaceful.”He sat down near her, contentedly, and his broad figure loomed darkly in the little room, among the other shadows. The street-lamps were already lighted outside, glittering harshly on the wet road.“It’s been awful weather lately.”“Yes, so I prefer to stay indoors.”“You’re too much indoors.”“I go out whenever it’s fine.”“You don’t care for going out ‘in all weathers.’”“I like looking at the weather from here. It’s a different sky every day....”Then they talked on all sorts of subjects. He often spoke of Addie, with a sort of enthusiasm which he had conceived for the lad. Her face would glow with pride as she listened. And, almost involuntarily, she told him how the boy had always been a comfort to them, to Van der Welcke as well as to her. And, when she mentioned her husband’s name, he often answered, as though with a touch of reproach:“I’m very fond of Hans. He is a child; and still I’m fond of him....”Then she would feel ashamed, because she had just had a wordy dispute with Van der Welcke—about nothing at all—and she would veer round and say:“It can’t be helped. We cannotget on. We endure each other as well as we can. To separate would be too silly ... and also very sad for Addie. He is fond of both of us.”And their conversation again turned on the boy. Then she had to tell him about Brussels and even about Rome.“It’s strange,” he said. “When you were in Brussels ... I was living at Schaerbeek.”“And we never met.”“No, never. And, when you and Hans went to the Riviera, I was there in the same year.”“Did you come often to Monte Carlo?”“Once or twice, at any rate. Attracted by just that vivid contrast between the atmosphere out there, where money has no value, and my own ideas. It was a sort of self-inflicted torture. And we never saw each other there.... And, when you were here, in the Hague, as a girl, I used often to come to the Hague and I even remember often passing your parents’ house, where your mother still lives, in the Alexanderstraat, and reading your name on the door: Van Lowe....”“We were destined never to meet,” she said, trying to laugh softly; and in spite of herself her voice broke, as though sadly.“No,” he said, quietly, “we were destined not to meet.”“The fatality of meeting is sometimes very strange,” she said.“There are thousands and millions, in our lives....”“Don’t you think that we often, day after day, for months on end, pass quite close to somebody....”“Somebody who, if we met him or her, would influence our lives?...”“Yes, that’s what I mean.”“I’m certain of it.”“It’s curious to think of.... In the street, sometimes, one’s always meeting the same people, without knowing them.”“Yes, I know what you mean. In New York, when I was a tram-driver, there was a woman who always got into my car; and, without being in love with her, I used to think I should like to speak to her, to know her, to meet her....”“And how often it is the other way round! I have met thousands of people and forgotten their names and what they said to me. They were like ghosts. That is how we meet people in society.”“Yes, it’s all so futile....”“You exchange names, exchange a few sentences ... and nothing remains, not the slightest recollection....”“Yes, it all vanishes.”“I was so often tired ... of so many people, so many ghosts.... I couldn’t live like that now.”“Yet you have remained a society-woman.”“Oh, no, I am no longer that!”And she told him how she had once thought of making her reappearance in Hague society; she told him about Van Naghel and Bertha.“Are you on bad terms with your sister now?”“Not on bad terms....”“He died suddenly...?”“Yes, quite suddenly. They had just had a dinner-party.... It was a terrible blow for my sister. And I hear there are serious financial difficulties. It is all very sad.... But this doesn’t interest you. Tell me about yourself.”“Again?”“It interests me.”“Tell me about your own life.”“I’ve just been telling you.”“Yes, about Rome and Brussels. Now tell me about Buitenzorg.”“Why about that?”“The childhood of my friends—I hope I may number you among my friends?—always interests me.”“About Buitenzorg? I don’t remember anything.... I was a little girl.... There was nothing in particular....”“Your brother Gerrit....”She turned pale, but he did not see it, in the dim room.“What has he been saying?”“Your brother Gerrit remembers it all. The other night, after your dinner here, he told me about it while we were smoking.”“Gerrit?” she said, anxiously.“Yes: how prettily you used to play on the great boulders in the river....”She flushed scarlet, in the friendly dusk:“He’s mad!” she said, harshly. “What does he want to talk about that for?”He laughed:“Mayn’t he? He idolizes you ... and he idolized you at that time....”“He’s always teasing me with those reminiscences.... They’re ridiculous now.”“Why?”“Because I’m old. Those memories are pretty enough when you are young.... When you grow older, you let them sleep ... in the dead, silent years. For, when you’re old, they become ridiculous.”Her voice sounded hard. He was silent.“Don’t you think I’m right?” she asked.“Perhaps,” he said, very gently. “Perhaps you are right. But it is a pity.”“Why?” she forced herself to ask.He gave a very deep sigh:“Because it reminds us of all that we lose as we grow older ... even the right to our memories.”“The right to our memories,” she echoed almost under her breath. And, in a firmer voice, she repeated, severely, “Certainly. When we grow older, we lose our right.... There are memories to which we lose our right as we grow old....”“Tell me,” he said, “is it hard for a woman to grow old?”“I don’t know,” she answered, softly. “I believe that I shall grow old, that I am growing old as it is, without finding it hard.”“But you’re not old,” he said.“I am forty-three,” she replied, “and my son is fourteen.”She was determined to show herself no mercy.“And now tell me about yourself,” she went on.“Why should I?” he asked, almost dejectedly. “You would never understand me, however long I spoke. No, I can’t speak about myself to-day.”“It’s not only to-day: it’s very often.”“Yes, very often. The idea suddenly comes to me ... that everything has been of no use. That I have done nothing that was worth while. That my life ought to have been quite different ... to be worth while.”“What do you mean by worth while?”“Worth while for people, for humanity. It always obsessed me, after my games in the woods. You remember my telling you how I used to play in the woods?”“Yes,” she said, very softly.“Tell me,” he suddenly broke in. “Are those memories to which I have no right?”“You are a man,” said she.“Have I more right to memories, as a man?”“Why not ... to these?” she said, softly. “They do not make your years ridiculous ... as mine do mine.”“Are you so much afraid ... of ridicule?”“Yes,” she said, frankly. “I am as unwilling to be ashamed in my own eyes ... as in those of the world.”“So you abdicate....”“My youth,” she said, gently.He was silent. Then he said:“I interrupted myself just now. I meant to tell you that, after my games as a child, it was always my obsession ... to be something. To be somebody. To be a man. To be a man among men. That was when I was a boy of sixteen or seventeen. Afterwards, at the university, I was amazed at the childishness of Hans and Van Vreeswijck and the others. They never thought; I was always thinking.... I worked hard, I wanted to know everything. When I knew a good deal, I said to myself, ‘Why go on learning all this that others have thought out? Think things out for yourself!’ ... Then I had a feeling of utter helplessness.... But I’m boring you.”“No,” she said, impatiently.“I felt utterly helpless.... Then I said to myself, ‘If you can’t think things out,dosomething. Be somebody. Be a man. Work!’ ... Then I read Marx, Fourier, Saint-Simon: do you know them?”“I’ve never read them,” said she, “but I’ve heard their names often enough to follow you. Go on.”“When I had read them, I started thinking, I thought a great deal ... and then I wanted to work. As a labourer. So as to understand all those who were destitute.... God, how difficult words are! I simply can’t speak to you about myself.”“And about Peace you speak ... as if you were inspired!”“About Peace ... perhaps, but not about myself. I went to America, I became a workman. But the terrible thing was that I felt I wasnota workman. I had money. I gave it all to the poor ... nearly. But I kept just enough never to be hungry, to live a little more comfortably than my mates, to take a day’s rest when I was tired, to buy meat and wine and medicines when I wanted them ... to go to the theatre dressed as a gentleman. Do you understand? I was a Sunday workman. I was an amateur labourer. I remained a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I come of a good middle-class family: well, over there, in America, while I was a workman, I remained—I became even more than I had been—an aristocrat. I felt that I was far above my fellow-workmen. I knew more than they, I knew a great deal: they could tell it by listening to me. I was finer-grained, more delicately constituted than they: they could tell it by looking at me. They regarded me as a wastrel who had been kicked out of doors, who had ‘seen better days;’ but they continued to think me a gentleman and I myself felt a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I never became a proper workman. I should have liked to, so as to understand the workman thoroughly and afterwards, in the light of my knowledge, to work for his welfare, back in my own country, in my own station of life. But,though I was living among working people, I did not understand them. I shuddered involuntarily at their jokes, their oaths, their drinking, their friendship even. I remained a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I remained of a different blood and a different culture. My ideas and my theories would have had me resemble my mates; but all my former life—my birth, my upbringing, my education—all my own and my parents’ past, all my inherited instincts were against it. I simply could not fraternize with them. I kept on trying something different, thinking it was that that was amiss: a different sort of work, a different occupation. Nothing made any difference. I remained a harmless, inquisitive amateur; and just that settled conviction, that I could leave off at any time if I wished, was the reason why my life never became the profoundly serious thing which I would have had it. It remained amateurish. It became almost a mockery of the life of my mates. I was free and they were slaves. I was vigorous and they were worked to death. To me, after my brain-work, that manual and muscular labour came as a tonic. If I was overtired, I rested, left my job, looked for something else after a few weeks. The others would be sweated, right up to their old age, till they had yielded the last ounce of their working-power. I should work just as long as I took pleasure in it. I looked healthy and well, even though my face and hands became rough. I ate in proportionto the hardness of my work. And I thought: if they could all eat as I do, it would be all right. Then I felt ashamed of myself, distributed all my money, secretly, among the poor and lived solely on my wages ... until I fell ill ... and cured myself with my money. It became absurd. And never more so than when I, habitually well-fed, looked down upon my mates because their unalterable ideal appeared to be ... to eat beef every day! Do they long for nothing better and higher and nobler, I thought, than to eat beef? It was easy for me to think like that and look down on them, I who ate beef whenever I wanted to! Well-fed, even though tired with my work, I could think of nobler things than beef. And yet ... and yet, though I felt all this at the time, I still continued to despise them for their base ideal. That was because of my blood and my birth, but especially because of my superior training and education. And then I became very despondent and thought, ‘I shall never feel myself their brother; I shall remain a gentleman, a “toff;” it is not my fault: it is the fault of everything, of all my past life.’ ... Then, suddenly, without any transition, I went back to Europe. I have lectured here ... on Peace. In a year’s time, perhaps, I shall be lecturing on War. I am still seeking. I no longer know anything. Properly speaking, I never did know anything. I seek and seek.... But why have I talked to you at such length about myself? Iam ashamed of myself, I am ashamed. Perhaps I have no right to go on seeking. A man seeks when he is young, does he not? When he has come to my age, which is the same as yours, he ought to have found and he has no right to go on seeking. And, if he hasn’t found, then he looks back upon his life as one colossal failure, as one huge mistake—mistake upon mistake—and then things become hopeless, hopeless, hopeless....”She was silent....She thought of her own life, her small feminine life—the life of a small soul that had not thought and had not felt, that was only just beginning to feel and only just beginning at rare intervals to think—and she saw her own small life also wasting the years in mistake upon mistake.“Oh,” he said, in a voice filled with longing, “to have found what one might have gone on seeking for years! To have found, when young, happiness ... for one’s self ... and for others! Oh, to be young, to be once more young!... And then to seek ... and then to find when young ... and tomeetwhen young ... and to be happy when young and to make others—everybody!—happy!... To be young, oh, to be young!”“But you are not old,” she said. “You are in the prime of life.”“I hate that phrase,” he said, gloomily. “The prime of life occurs at my age in people who do notseek, but who have quietly travelled a definite, known path. Those are the people who, when they are my age, are in the prime of life. I am not: I have sought; I have never found. I now feel all the sadness of my wasted efforts; I now feel ... old. I feel old. What more can I do now? Think a little more; try to keep abreast of modern thought and modern conditions; seek a little, like a blind man. And,” with a bitter laugh, “I have even lost that right: the right to seek. You seek only when you are very young, or else it becomes absurd.”“You are echoing me,” she said, in gentle reproach.“But you were right, you were right. It is so. There is nothing left, at our age; not even our memories....”“Our memories,” she murmured, very softly.“The memories of our childhood....”“Of our childhood,” she repeated.“Not even that.”“Not even that,” she repeated, as though hypnotized.“No, there is nothing left ... for us....”The door opened suddenly: they started.“Mamma, are you there?”It was Addie.“Yes, my boy....”“I can’t see you. It is quite dark.”“And here is Mr. Brauws.”“I can see nothing and nobody. May I light one of the lamps?”“Yes, do.”He bustled through the room, hunted for matches, lit a lamp in the corner:“That’s it. Now at least I can see you.”He came nearer: a young, handsome, bright boy, with his good-looking, healthy face and his serious, blue eyes; broad and strong, shedding a note of joy in the melancholy room, which lit up softly with the glow of its one lamp, behind Constance. She smiled at him, drew him down beside her, put her arms round him while he kissed her:“Heis left!” she said, softly, with a glance at Brauws, referring to the last words which he had spoken.He understood:“Yes,” he answered—and his gloom seemed suddenly to brighten into a sort of rueful gladness, a yearning hope that all was not yet lost, that his dreams might be realized not by myself, but by another, by Addie—and he repeated her own, radiant words, “Yes, yes,heis left!”The boy did not understand, looked at them both by turns and smiled enquiringly, receiving only their smiles in answer....

The winter months dragged sadly and monotonously past, with their continual rains and no frost: even such snow as fell melted at once in the raw, damp atmosphere. But the wind blew all the time, kept on blowing from some mysterious cloud-realm, carrying the clouds with it, violet clouds and grey clouds, a never-ending succession, which came sailing over the trees in the Woods as though over the sea. And Constance followed them with her eyes, vaguely and dreamily, dreaming on and on in an endless reverie. The clouds sailed everlastingly on the wind; and the wind blew everlastingly, like an everlasting storm, not always raging, but always rustling, sometimes high up above the trees, sometimes straight through the trees themselves. Constance remained mostly at home and sat by her window during those short afternoons, which she lengthened out in the dim shadows of the fire-lit room, where at three o’clock dusk was falling.... The everyday life went on, regularly and monotonously: when the weather was tolerable, Van der Welcke went bicycling; but for the rest he stayed upstairs a great deal, seldom going to the Witte or the Plaats, smoking, cursing inwardly because he was not rich enough to buy a “sewing-machine” ofhis own. Addie went to and fro between home and school; and it was he that enlivened the meals....

And Constance, in her drawing-room, sat at the window and gazed at the clouds, looked out at the rain. Through the silent monotony of her short, grey days a dream began to weave itself, as with a luminous thread, so that she was not oppressed by the sombre melancholy of the rainy winter. When Van der Welcke went upstairs, cursing because it was raining again and because he had nothing to do, she settled herself in her drawing-room—in that room in which she lived and which was tinged as it were with her own personality—and looked out at the clouds, at the rain. She sat dreaming. She smiled, wide-eyed. She liked the ever louring skies, the ever drifting clouds; and, though at times the gusty squalls still made her start with that sudden catch in her throat and breast, she loved the raging and rustling winds, listened to them, content for them to blow and blow, high above her head, her house, her trees—hers—till, blowing, they lost themselves in the infinities beyond.... She had her work beside her, a book; but she did not sew, did not read: she dreamt.... She smiled, looking out, looking up at the endlessly rolling skies.... The clouds sailed by, sometimes high, sometimes low, above the houses, above the people’s heads, like passions disdaining mankind: dank, monstrous passions riding arrogantly by upon the passion of the winds,from a far-off land of sheer passion, sullen and tempestuous; and the threatening cohorts rolled on, great and majestic, like Olympian deities towering above the petty human strife hidden under the roofs over which they passed, ever opening their mighty flood-gates.... When Constance looked up at them, the vast, phantom monsters, coming she knew not whence and going she knew not whither, just shadowing across her life and followed by new monsters, no less vast and no less big with mystery, she was not afraid or sad, for she felt safe in her dream. The sombre skies had always attracted her, even in the old days, though they used to frighten her then, she did not know why; but now, now for the first time she smiled, because she felt safe. A soft radiance shone from her eyes, which gazed up at the phantom monsters. When the wind whistled, soughed, moaned and bellowed round the house, like a giant soul in pain, she remained as it were looking up at the wind, let her soul swell softly in unison with its dirges, like something that surrenders itself, small and weak but peaceful, to a mighty force. In her little house, as she gazed out at the dreary road, on these winter days, especially when it grew dark of an afternoon, the wind and the rain round about her seemed almost one element, vast and sad as life, which came from over the sea, which drifted away over the town and which continued to hold her and her house in its embrace....

She looked outside, she smiled. Sometimes she heard her husband’s step in the passages, as he went through the house, grumbling, muttering, cursing, because he wanted to go out.... Then she would think for a moment:

“He hasn’t seen Marianne for days.”

But then she would think no more about either of them; and her dream shone out before her again. The dream shone softly and unfalteringly, like a gentle, steady ray: a path of soft light that issued as it were from her eyes to the sombre, frowning clouds out yonder. Over the soft-shining path something seemed to be wafted from her outwards, upwards, far and wide and then back again, to where she sat.... It was so strange that she smiled at it, closed her eyes; and, when she opened them, it was once more as though she saw her dream, that path of light, always.... Her dream took no more definite shape and remained thus, a gentle, kindly glow, a pale, soft ray from her to the sombre skies.... It was dusk now and she sat on, quite lost in the misty, shadowy darkness all around her, quite invisible in the black room; and her eyes continued to stare outside, at the last wan streaks in the darkening heavens.... The road outside was black.... A street-lamp shone out, throwing its harsh light upon a puddle....

Then she covered her face with her hands, ashamed because she had sat musing so long,ashamed especially because she had allowed herself to wander along that luminous thread, the path of her dream.... She rang, had the lamps lit and waited for Addie, who would soon be home.

But those were the lonely afternoons.... Sometimes in those wet, dull afternoons when it grew dark so early, she sawhisfigure pass the window, heard him ring. It was Brauws. She did not move and she heard him go upstairs first, when Van der Welcke was in. But, since he had recommenced his visits to their house, he had got into the way of saying to Van der Welcke, in half an hour or so:

“Now I’ll go and pay my respects to your wife.”

The first few times, Van der Welcke had gone with him to the drawing-room; but, now that Brauws had taken to calling in a more informal fashion, Van der Welcke stayed upstairs, let him go his own way. And, after the first shock which Brauws’ ideas had produced in their house, his friendship became something cheering and comforting which both Van der Welcke and Constance continued to appreciate for their own and each other’s sakes. He and Van Vreeswijck were now the only friends whom they both really liked, the two regular visitors to their otherwise lonely house. And for that reason Van der Welcke let Brauws go to Constance alone, staying away, never entering his wife’s drawing-room unnecessarily ... except when he heard the little bells of Marianne’s voice and laugh.

Constance’ heart beat when she heard Brauws’ voice on the stairs:

“Now I’ll go and pay my respects to your wife. She’s at home, isn’t she?”

“Sure to be, in this beastly weather.”

She heard Brauws’ step, which made the stairs creak as it came down them. Then she felt a violent emotion, of which she was secretly ashamed, ashamed for herself. For she was severe with herself: she was afraid of becoming ridiculous in her own eyes. When she felt her emotion grow too violent, she at once conjured up Addie’s image: he was fourteen now. The mother of a son of fourteen! Then a smile of ironic indulgence would curve the dimples by her lips; and it was with the greatest composure that she welcomed Brauws:

“Isn’t it dark early? But it’s only half-past three and really too soon to light the lamp.”

“There are times when twilight upsets me,” he said, “and times when it makes me feel very calm and peaceful.”

He sat down near her, contentedly, and his broad figure loomed darkly in the little room, among the other shadows. The street-lamps were already lighted outside, glittering harshly on the wet road.

“It’s been awful weather lately.”

“Yes, so I prefer to stay indoors.”

“You’re too much indoors.”

“I go out whenever it’s fine.”

“You don’t care for going out ‘in all weathers.’”

“I like looking at the weather from here. It’s a different sky every day....”

Then they talked on all sorts of subjects. He often spoke of Addie, with a sort of enthusiasm which he had conceived for the lad. Her face would glow with pride as she listened. And, almost involuntarily, she told him how the boy had always been a comfort to them, to Van der Welcke as well as to her. And, when she mentioned her husband’s name, he often answered, as though with a touch of reproach:

“I’m very fond of Hans. He is a child; and still I’m fond of him....”

Then she would feel ashamed, because she had just had a wordy dispute with Van der Welcke—about nothing at all—and she would veer round and say:

“It can’t be helped. We cannotget on. We endure each other as well as we can. To separate would be too silly ... and also very sad for Addie. He is fond of both of us.”

And their conversation again turned on the boy. Then she had to tell him about Brussels and even about Rome.

“It’s strange,” he said. “When you were in Brussels ... I was living at Schaerbeek.”

“And we never met.”

“No, never. And, when you and Hans went to the Riviera, I was there in the same year.”

“Did you come often to Monte Carlo?”

“Once or twice, at any rate. Attracted by just that vivid contrast between the atmosphere out there, where money has no value, and my own ideas. It was a sort of self-inflicted torture. And we never saw each other there.... And, when you were here, in the Hague, as a girl, I used often to come to the Hague and I even remember often passing your parents’ house, where your mother still lives, in the Alexanderstraat, and reading your name on the door: Van Lowe....”

“We were destined never to meet,” she said, trying to laugh softly; and in spite of herself her voice broke, as though sadly.

“No,” he said, quietly, “we were destined not to meet.”

“The fatality of meeting is sometimes very strange,” she said.

“There are thousands and millions, in our lives....”

“Don’t you think that we often, day after day, for months on end, pass quite close to somebody....”

“Somebody who, if we met him or her, would influence our lives?...”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

“I’m certain of it.”

“It’s curious to think of.... In the street, sometimes, one’s always meeting the same people, without knowing them.”

“Yes, I know what you mean. In New York, when I was a tram-driver, there was a woman who always got into my car; and, without being in love with her, I used to think I should like to speak to her, to know her, to meet her....”

“And how often it is the other way round! I have met thousands of people and forgotten their names and what they said to me. They were like ghosts. That is how we meet people in society.”

“Yes, it’s all so futile....”

“You exchange names, exchange a few sentences ... and nothing remains, not the slightest recollection....”

“Yes, it all vanishes.”

“I was so often tired ... of so many people, so many ghosts.... I couldn’t live like that now.”

“Yet you have remained a society-woman.”

“Oh, no, I am no longer that!”

And she told him how she had once thought of making her reappearance in Hague society; she told him about Van Naghel and Bertha.

“Are you on bad terms with your sister now?”

“Not on bad terms....”

“He died suddenly...?”

“Yes, quite suddenly. They had just had a dinner-party.... It was a terrible blow for my sister. And I hear there are serious financial difficulties. It is all very sad.... But this doesn’t interest you. Tell me about yourself.”

“Again?”

“It interests me.”

“Tell me about your own life.”

“I’ve just been telling you.”

“Yes, about Rome and Brussels. Now tell me about Buitenzorg.”

“Why about that?”

“The childhood of my friends—I hope I may number you among my friends?—always interests me.”

“About Buitenzorg? I don’t remember anything.... I was a little girl.... There was nothing in particular....”

“Your brother Gerrit....”

She turned pale, but he did not see it, in the dim room.

“What has he been saying?”

“Your brother Gerrit remembers it all. The other night, after your dinner here, he told me about it while we were smoking.”

“Gerrit?” she said, anxiously.

“Yes: how prettily you used to play on the great boulders in the river....”

She flushed scarlet, in the friendly dusk:

“He’s mad!” she said, harshly. “What does he want to talk about that for?”

He laughed:

“Mayn’t he? He idolizes you ... and he idolized you at that time....”

“He’s always teasing me with those reminiscences.... They’re ridiculous now.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m old. Those memories are pretty enough when you are young.... When you grow older, you let them sleep ... in the dead, silent years. For, when you’re old, they become ridiculous.”

Her voice sounded hard. He was silent.

“Don’t you think I’m right?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” he said, very gently. “Perhaps you are right. But it is a pity.”

“Why?” she forced herself to ask.

He gave a very deep sigh:

“Because it reminds us of all that we lose as we grow older ... even the right to our memories.”

“The right to our memories,” she echoed almost under her breath. And, in a firmer voice, she repeated, severely, “Certainly. When we grow older, we lose our right.... There are memories to which we lose our right as we grow old....”

“Tell me,” he said, “is it hard for a woman to grow old?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, softly. “I believe that I shall grow old, that I am growing old as it is, without finding it hard.”

“But you’re not old,” he said.

“I am forty-three,” she replied, “and my son is fourteen.”

She was determined to show herself no mercy.

“And now tell me about yourself,” she went on.

“Why should I?” he asked, almost dejectedly. “You would never understand me, however long I spoke. No, I can’t speak about myself to-day.”

“It’s not only to-day: it’s very often.”

“Yes, very often. The idea suddenly comes to me ... that everything has been of no use. That I have done nothing that was worth while. That my life ought to have been quite different ... to be worth while.”

“What do you mean by worth while?”

“Worth while for people, for humanity. It always obsessed me, after my games in the woods. You remember my telling you how I used to play in the woods?”

“Yes,” she said, very softly.

“Tell me,” he suddenly broke in. “Are those memories to which I have no right?”

“You are a man,” said she.

“Have I more right to memories, as a man?”

“Why not ... to these?” she said, softly. “They do not make your years ridiculous ... as mine do mine.”

“Are you so much afraid ... of ridicule?”

“Yes,” she said, frankly. “I am as unwilling to be ashamed in my own eyes ... as in those of the world.”

“So you abdicate....”

“My youth,” she said, gently.

He was silent. Then he said:

“I interrupted myself just now. I meant to tell you that, after my games as a child, it was always my obsession ... to be something. To be somebody. To be a man. To be a man among men. That was when I was a boy of sixteen or seventeen. Afterwards, at the university, I was amazed at the childishness of Hans and Van Vreeswijck and the others. They never thought; I was always thinking.... I worked hard, I wanted to know everything. When I knew a good deal, I said to myself, ‘Why go on learning all this that others have thought out? Think things out for yourself!’ ... Then I had a feeling of utter helplessness.... But I’m boring you.”

“No,” she said, impatiently.

“I felt utterly helpless.... Then I said to myself, ‘If you can’t think things out,dosomething. Be somebody. Be a man. Work!’ ... Then I read Marx, Fourier, Saint-Simon: do you know them?”

“I’ve never read them,” said she, “but I’ve heard their names often enough to follow you. Go on.”

“When I had read them, I started thinking, I thought a great deal ... and then I wanted to work. As a labourer. So as to understand all those who were destitute.... God, how difficult words are! I simply can’t speak to you about myself.”

“And about Peace you speak ... as if you were inspired!”

“About Peace ... perhaps, but not about myself. I went to America, I became a workman. But the terrible thing was that I felt I wasnota workman. I had money. I gave it all to the poor ... nearly. But I kept just enough never to be hungry, to live a little more comfortably than my mates, to take a day’s rest when I was tired, to buy meat and wine and medicines when I wanted them ... to go to the theatre dressed as a gentleman. Do you understand? I was a Sunday workman. I was an amateur labourer. I remained a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I come of a good middle-class family: well, over there, in America, while I was a workman, I remained—I became even more than I had been—an aristocrat. I felt that I was far above my fellow-workmen. I knew more than they, I knew a great deal: they could tell it by listening to me. I was finer-grained, more delicately constituted than they: they could tell it by looking at me. They regarded me as a wastrel who had been kicked out of doors, who had ‘seen better days;’ but they continued to think me a gentleman and I myself felt a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I never became a proper workman. I should have liked to, so as to understand the workman thoroughly and afterwards, in the light of my knowledge, to work for his welfare, back in my own country, in my own station of life. But,though I was living among working people, I did not understand them. I shuddered involuntarily at their jokes, their oaths, their drinking, their friendship even. I remained a gentleman, a ‘toff.’ I remained of a different blood and a different culture. My ideas and my theories would have had me resemble my mates; but all my former life—my birth, my upbringing, my education—all my own and my parents’ past, all my inherited instincts were against it. I simply could not fraternize with them. I kept on trying something different, thinking it was that that was amiss: a different sort of work, a different occupation. Nothing made any difference. I remained a harmless, inquisitive amateur; and just that settled conviction, that I could leave off at any time if I wished, was the reason why my life never became the profoundly serious thing which I would have had it. It remained amateurish. It became almost a mockery of the life of my mates. I was free and they were slaves. I was vigorous and they were worked to death. To me, after my brain-work, that manual and muscular labour came as a tonic. If I was overtired, I rested, left my job, looked for something else after a few weeks. The others would be sweated, right up to their old age, till they had yielded the last ounce of their working-power. I should work just as long as I took pleasure in it. I looked healthy and well, even though my face and hands became rough. I ate in proportionto the hardness of my work. And I thought: if they could all eat as I do, it would be all right. Then I felt ashamed of myself, distributed all my money, secretly, among the poor and lived solely on my wages ... until I fell ill ... and cured myself with my money. It became absurd. And never more so than when I, habitually well-fed, looked down upon my mates because their unalterable ideal appeared to be ... to eat beef every day! Do they long for nothing better and higher and nobler, I thought, than to eat beef? It was easy for me to think like that and look down on them, I who ate beef whenever I wanted to! Well-fed, even though tired with my work, I could think of nobler things than beef. And yet ... and yet, though I felt all this at the time, I still continued to despise them for their base ideal. That was because of my blood and my birth, but especially because of my superior training and education. And then I became very despondent and thought, ‘I shall never feel myself their brother; I shall remain a gentleman, a “toff;” it is not my fault: it is the fault of everything, of all my past life.’ ... Then, suddenly, without any transition, I went back to Europe. I have lectured here ... on Peace. In a year’s time, perhaps, I shall be lecturing on War. I am still seeking. I no longer know anything. Properly speaking, I never did know anything. I seek and seek.... But why have I talked to you at such length about myself? Iam ashamed of myself, I am ashamed. Perhaps I have no right to go on seeking. A man seeks when he is young, does he not? When he has come to my age, which is the same as yours, he ought to have found and he has no right to go on seeking. And, if he hasn’t found, then he looks back upon his life as one colossal failure, as one huge mistake—mistake upon mistake—and then things become hopeless, hopeless, hopeless....”

She was silent....

She thought of her own life, her small feminine life—the life of a small soul that had not thought and had not felt, that was only just beginning to feel and only just beginning at rare intervals to think—and she saw her own small life also wasting the years in mistake upon mistake.

“Oh,” he said, in a voice filled with longing, “to have found what one might have gone on seeking for years! To have found, when young, happiness ... for one’s self ... and for others! Oh, to be young, to be once more young!... And then to seek ... and then to find when young ... and tomeetwhen young ... and to be happy when young and to make others—everybody!—happy!... To be young, oh, to be young!”

“But you are not old,” she said. “You are in the prime of life.”

“I hate that phrase,” he said, gloomily. “The prime of life occurs at my age in people who do notseek, but who have quietly travelled a definite, known path. Those are the people who, when they are my age, are in the prime of life. I am not: I have sought; I have never found. I now feel all the sadness of my wasted efforts; I now feel ... old. I feel old. What more can I do now? Think a little more; try to keep abreast of modern thought and modern conditions; seek a little, like a blind man. And,” with a bitter laugh, “I have even lost that right: the right to seek. You seek only when you are very young, or else it becomes absurd.”

“You are echoing me,” she said, in gentle reproach.

“But you were right, you were right. It is so. There is nothing left, at our age; not even our memories....”

“Our memories,” she murmured, very softly.

“The memories of our childhood....”

“Of our childhood,” she repeated.

“Not even that.”

“Not even that,” she repeated, as though hypnotized.

“No, there is nothing left ... for us....”

The door opened suddenly: they started.

“Mamma, are you there?”

It was Addie.

“Yes, my boy....”

“I can’t see you. It is quite dark.”

“And here is Mr. Brauws.”

“I can see nothing and nobody. May I light one of the lamps?”

“Yes, do.”

He bustled through the room, hunted for matches, lit a lamp in the corner:

“That’s it. Now at least I can see you.”

He came nearer: a young, handsome, bright boy, with his good-looking, healthy face and his serious, blue eyes; broad and strong, shedding a note of joy in the melancholy room, which lit up softly with the glow of its one lamp, behind Constance. She smiled at him, drew him down beside her, put her arms round him while he kissed her:

“Heis left!” she said, softly, with a glance at Brauws, referring to the last words which he had spoken.

He understood:

“Yes,” he answered—and his gloom seemed suddenly to brighten into a sort of rueful gladness, a yearning hope that all was not yet lost, that his dreams might be realized not by myself, but by another, by Addie—and he repeated her own, radiant words, “Yes, yes,heis left!”

The boy did not understand, looked at them both by turns and smiled enquiringly, receiving only their smiles in answer....

Chapter XXFor a long time, Constance had not been to Mamma van Lowe’s Sunday-evenings; and at first Mamma had not insisted. Now, however, one afternoon, she said, gently:“Are you never coming again on a Sunday, Constance?”She saw that her mother had suddenly become very nervous and she was sorry that she had not made an effort and overcome her reluctance to attend the family-gatherings after that terrible evening.“Yes, Mamma,” she said, without hesitation, “I will come. This is Saturday: I will come to-morrow.”The old woman leant back wearily in her chair, nodded her head up and down, as though she knew all sorts of sad things:“It is so sad ... about Van Naghel,” she said. “Bertha is going through a lot of trouble.”It seemed as if Mamma wished to talk about it; but Constance, with an affected indifference to her relations’ affairs, asked no questions.The next evening, Constance and Addie were ready to start for the Alexanderstraat.“Aren’t you coming?” she asked Van der Welcke.He hesitated. He would rather not go, feeling unfriendly towards the whole family, but he would have liked to see Marianne. Still he said:“No, I think not.”He was afraid that his refusal would cause a scene; but latterly, even though anger welled up inside her, she had shown a forbearance which surprised him; and she merely said:“Mamma would like us all to come again.”He was really fond of the old lady: she had always been kind to him.“Who will be there?” he asked.“Why, all of them!” she said. “As usual.”“Surely not Bertha ... and her children...?”“I think so,” she said, gently, feeling that he was sounding her to see if Marianne would be there. “Why shouldn’t they go, though they are in mourning? It’s not a party: there will be no one but the family.”“Perhaps I’ll come on later,” he said, still hesitating.She did not insist, went off on foot with Addie. It was curious, but now, whenever she went to her mother’s house, nice though her mother always was to her, she felt as if she were going there as a stranger, not as a daughter. It was because of the others that she felt like a stranger, because of Bertha, Adolphine, Karel, Cateau and Dorine. Gerrit and Paul were the only ones whom she still looked uponas brothers; and she was very fond of Adeline.This evening again, as she entered the room, she felt like that, like a stranger. The old aunts were sitting in their usual places, doing their crochet-work mechanically. Mamma, as Constance knew, had had an angry scene with the two old things, to explain to them that they mustn’t talk scandal and, above all, that they mustn’t do so out loud, a scene which had thoroughly upset Mamma herself and which the old aunts had not even seemed to understand, for they merely nodded a vague consent, nodded yes, yes, no doubt Marie was right. Yet Constance suspected that Auntie Rine had understood at least something of it, for she was now looking at Constance askance, with a frightened look. Constance could not bring herself to speak to the old aunts: she walked past them; and Auntie Tine whispered to Auntie Rine:“There she is again!”“Who?” screamed Auntie Rine, aloud.But Auntie Tine dared not whisper anything more, because of their sister Marie, who had flown into such a passion; and she pinched Auntie Rine’s withered hand, whereupon Auntie Rine glared at her angrily. Then they cackled together for a moment, bad-temperedly. The three young Saetzemas, playing their cards in a corner of the conservatory, sat bursting with laughter at the bickering of the two old aunts.Constance sat down quietly by Mamma. And shefelt, now that Addie spoke to Marietje—Adolphine’s Marietje—but did not go to the boys in the conservatory, that there was no harmony among them all and that they only met for the sake of Mamma, of Grandmamma. Poor Mamma! And yet she did not seem to notice it, was glad that the children and grandchildren came to her Sundays, to her “family-group.”Adolphine and Cateau sat talking in a corner; and Constance caught what they said:“So Ber-tha isnot... keep-ing on the house?”“I should think not, indeed! They have nothing but debts.”“Is it their bro-ther-in-law who is see-ing to things and ad-min-istering the es-tate?”“Yes, the commissary in Overijssel.”1“So they arenotwelloff?”“No, they haven’t a farthing.”“Yes, as I al-ways used to say to Ka-rel, they al-ways lived on much toolargeascale.”“They squandered all they had.”“Well, that’s not very pleas-ant for the children!”“No. And there’s Emilie, who wants a divorce. But don’t mention that to Mamma: she doesn’t know about it.”“Ve-ry well.... Yes, that’s most unfor-tunate. Your Floor-tje, Phine, is bet-ter off than that with Dij-kerhof.”“At least, they’re not thinking of getting divorced. I always look upon a divorce as a scandal. We’ve one divorce in the family as it is; and I consider that one too many.”Constance turned pale and felt that Adolphine was speaking loud on purpose, though it was behind her back.... Dear Mamma noticed nothing!... She had been much upset on that one Sunday, that terrible evening, but had not really understood the truth: the terrible thing to her was merely that the old sisters had talked so loud and so spitefully about her poor Constance, like the cross-grained, spiteful old women that they were; but what happened besides she had really never quite known.... And this, now that Constance was gradually drawing farther away from her brothers and sisters, suddenly struck her as rather fine. Whatever happened, they kept Mamma out of it as far as they could, in a general filial affection for Mamma, in a filial conspiracy to leave Mamma her happiness and her illusion about the family; and it seemed as if the brothers and sisters also impressed this on their children; it appeared that Adolphine even taught it to her loutish boys, for, to her sudden surprise, she saw Chris and Piet go up to Addie and ask him to join in their game. Addie refused, coldly; and nowConstance was almost ashamed that she herself had not pointed out to Addie that Grandmamma must always be spared and left in her fond illusion that all was harmony. But fortunately Addie of his own accord always knew what was the right thing to do; for, when Adolphine’s Marietje also came up with a smile and asked him to come and play cards in the conservatory, he went with her at once. She smiled because of it all: no, there was no mutual sympathy, but there was a general affection for Mamma. A general affection, for Mamma, was something rather touching after all; and really she had never before seen it in that light, as something fine, that strong and really unanimous feeling among all those different members of a family whose interests and inclinations in the natural course of things were divided. Yes, now that she was standing farther away from her brothers and sisters, she saw for the first time this one feature which was good in them. Yes, it was really something very good, something lovable; and even Adolphine had it.... It was as though a softer mood came over Constance, no longer one of criticism and resentment, but rather of sympathy and understanding, in which bitterness had given place to kindliness; and in that softer mood there was still indeed sadness, but no anger, as if everything could not well be other than it was, in their circle of small people, of very small people, whose eyes saw only a little way beyond themselves, whosehearts were sensitive only a little way beyond themselves, not farther than the narrow circle of their children and perhaps their children’s children.... She did not know why, but, in the vague sadness of this new, softer mood, she thought of Brauws. And, though not able at once to explain why, she connected her thought of him with this kindlier feeling of hers, this deeper, truer vision of things around her. And, as though new, far-stretching vistas opened up before her, she suddenly seemed to be contemplating life, that life which she had never yet contemplated. A new, distant horizon lay open before her, a distant circle, a wide circle round the narrow little circle past which the eyes of her soul had never yet been able to gaze.... It was strange to her, this feeling, here in this room, in this family-circle. It was as though she suddenly saw all her relations—the Ruyvenaers had now arrived as well—sitting and talking in that room, all her relations and herself also, as very small people, who sat and talked, who moved and lived and thought in a very narrow little circle of self-interest, while outside that circle the horizon extended ever wider and wider, like a vision of great cloudy skies, under which towns rose sharply, seas billowed, bright lightning glanced. It all shot through her and in front of her very swiftly: two or three little revealing flashes, no more; swift revelations, which flashed out and then darkened again. But, swiftly though those revelationshad flashed, after that brightness the room remained small, those people remained small, she herself remained small....She herself had never lived: oh, she had so often suspected it! But those other people: had they also never, never lived? Mamma, in the narrow circle of her children’s and grandchildren’s affection; Uncle and Aunt, in their interests as sugar-planters; Karel and Cateau, in their narrow, respectable, complacent comfort; Adolphine, in her miserable struggle for social importance; and the others, Gerrit, Dorine, Ernst, Paul: had they ever, ever lived? Her husband: had he ever lived? Or was it all just a mere existence, as she herself had existed; a vegetation rooted in little thoughts and habits, in little opinions and prejudices, in little religions or philosophies; and feeling pleasant and comfortable therein and looking down upon and condemning others and considering one’s self fairly good and fairly high-minded, not so bad as others and at least far more sensible in one’s opinions and beliefs than most of one’s neighbours?... Oh, people like themselves; people in their “set,” in other sets, with their several variations of birth, religion, position, money; decent people, whom Brauws sometimes called “thebourgeois:” had they ever lived, ever looked out beyond the very narrow circle which their dogmas drew around them? What a small and insignificant merry-go-round it was! And what was the objectof whirling among one another and round one another like that?... It suddenly appeared to her that, of all these people who belonged to her and of all the others, the acquaintances, whom with a swift mental effort she grouped around them, there was not one who could send a single thought shining out far and wide, towards the wide horizons yonder, without thinking of himself, his wife and his children and clinging to his prejudices about money, position, religion and birth.... As regards money, it was almost a distinction among all of them not to have any and then to live as if they had. Position was what they strove for; and those who did not strive for it, such as Paul and Ernst, were criticized for their weakness. Religion was, with those other people, the mere acquaintances, not belonging to their circle, sometimes a matter of decency or of political interest; but, in their set, with its East-Indian leaven, it was ignored, quietly and calmly, never thought about or talked about, save that the children were just confirmed, quickly, as they might be given a dancing- or music-lesson. Birth, birth, that was everything; and even then there was that superior contempt for new titles of nobility, that respect only for old titles and a tendency to think themselves very grand, even though they were not titled, as members of a patrician Dutch-Indian family which, in addition to its original importance, had also absorbed the importance attaching to the highestofficial positions in Java.... And over it all lay the soft smile of indulgent pity and contempt for any who thought differently from themselves. It formed the basis of all their opinions, however greatly those opinions might vary according to their personal interests and views: compassion and contempt for people who had no money and lived economically; for those who did not aim at an exalted position; for those, whether Catholics or anti-revolutionaries—they themselves were all moderate liberals, with special emphasis on the “moderate”—who cherished an enthusiasm for religion; for those who were not of such patrician birth as themselves. And so on, with certain variations in these opinions.... It was as though Constance noticed the merry-go-round for the first time, whirling in that little circle. It was as though she saw it in the past, saw it whirling in their drawing-rooms, when her father was still alive, then especially. She saw it suddenly, as a child, after it is grown up, sees its parents and their house, their former life, in which it was a child, in which it grew up. She saw it now like that at her mother’s, only less vividly, because of the informality of that family-gathering. She saw it like that, dimly, in all, in every one of them, more or less. But she also saw the respect, the love for Mamma, the wish to leave her in the illusion which that love gave her.She had never seen it like that before. She herselfwas just the same as the others. And she thought herself and all of them small, so small that she said to herself:“Do we all of us live for so very little, when there is so very much beyond, stretching far and wide, under the cloudy skies of that immense horizon? Do we never stop outside this little circle in which we all, with our superior smile—because we are so distinguished and enlightened—spin round one another and ourselves, like humming-tops, like everlasting humming-tops?”And again Brauws’ figure rose before her eyes. Oh, she now for the first time understood what he had said, on that first evening when she saw and heard him, about Peace!... Peace! The pure, immaculate ideal suddenly streamed before her like a silver banner, fluttered in the wide cloudy skies! Oh, she now for the first time understood ... why he sought. He had wanted to seek ... life! He had sought ... and he had not found. But, while seeking, he had lived: he still lived! His breath came and went, his pulses throbbed, his chest heaved ... even though his sadness, because he had never “found,” bedimmed his energies. But she and all of them did not live! They did not live, they had never lived. They were born, people of distinction, with all their little cynicisms about money and religion, with all their fondness for birth and position; and they continued to spin round like that, tospin like humming-tops: moderate liberals. That they all tolerated her again, in the little circle, was that not all part of their moderate liberal attitude? Oh, to live, to live really, to live as he had lived, to live ... to live with him!She was now startled at herself. She was in a room full of people and she sat in silence next to her mother. Dear Mamma!... And she was weary of her own thinking, for swift as lightning it all flashed through her, that revelation of her thoughts, without sentences, without images, without words. It just flashed; and that was all. But that flashing made her feel weary, enervated, almost breathless in the room, which she found close.... And the very last of her thoughts, which had just for a moment appeared before her—sentence, image and word—had startled her. She had to confess it to herself: she loved, she loved him. But she inwardly pronounced that love—perhaps with the little cynical laugh which she had observed in her own people—she pronounced that love to be absurd, because so many silent, dead years lay heaped up there, because she was old, quite old. To wish to live at this time of day was absurd. To wish to dream at this stage was absurd. No, after so many years had been wasted on that meaningless existence, then she, an old woman now, must not hope to live again when it dawned too late, that life of thinking and feeling, that life from which might have sprunga life of doing and loving, of boundless love, of love for everybody and everything.... No, after so many years had been spent in living the life of a plant, until the plant became yellow and sere, then inevitably, inexorably extinction, slow extinction, was the only hope that remained....The absurdity, of being so old—forty-three—and feeling like that!... Never, she swore, would she allow anybody to perceive that absurdity. She knew quite well that it was not really absurd, that its absurdity existed only in the narrow little circle of little prejudices and little dogmas. But she also knew that she, like all of them, was small, that she herself was full of prejudice; she knew that she could not rise, could never rise above what she considered absurd, what she had been taught, from a child, in her little circle, to look upon as absurd!No, now that she was old, there was nothing for her but to turn her eyes from the radiant vision and, calmly, to grow still older ... to go towards that slow extinction which perhaps would still drag on for many long and empty years: the years of a woman of her age ... in their set....1The “Queen’s Commissary” of a Dutch province has no counterpart in England except, perhaps, the lord lieutenant of a county. His functions, however, correspond more nearly with those of a French prefect.

Chapter XX

For a long time, Constance had not been to Mamma van Lowe’s Sunday-evenings; and at first Mamma had not insisted. Now, however, one afternoon, she said, gently:“Are you never coming again on a Sunday, Constance?”She saw that her mother had suddenly become very nervous and she was sorry that she had not made an effort and overcome her reluctance to attend the family-gatherings after that terrible evening.“Yes, Mamma,” she said, without hesitation, “I will come. This is Saturday: I will come to-morrow.”The old woman leant back wearily in her chair, nodded her head up and down, as though she knew all sorts of sad things:“It is so sad ... about Van Naghel,” she said. “Bertha is going through a lot of trouble.”It seemed as if Mamma wished to talk about it; but Constance, with an affected indifference to her relations’ affairs, asked no questions.The next evening, Constance and Addie were ready to start for the Alexanderstraat.“Aren’t you coming?” she asked Van der Welcke.He hesitated. He would rather not go, feeling unfriendly towards the whole family, but he would have liked to see Marianne. Still he said:“No, I think not.”He was afraid that his refusal would cause a scene; but latterly, even though anger welled up inside her, she had shown a forbearance which surprised him; and she merely said:“Mamma would like us all to come again.”He was really fond of the old lady: she had always been kind to him.“Who will be there?” he asked.“Why, all of them!” she said. “As usual.”“Surely not Bertha ... and her children...?”“I think so,” she said, gently, feeling that he was sounding her to see if Marianne would be there. “Why shouldn’t they go, though they are in mourning? It’s not a party: there will be no one but the family.”“Perhaps I’ll come on later,” he said, still hesitating.She did not insist, went off on foot with Addie. It was curious, but now, whenever she went to her mother’s house, nice though her mother always was to her, she felt as if she were going there as a stranger, not as a daughter. It was because of the others that she felt like a stranger, because of Bertha, Adolphine, Karel, Cateau and Dorine. Gerrit and Paul were the only ones whom she still looked uponas brothers; and she was very fond of Adeline.This evening again, as she entered the room, she felt like that, like a stranger. The old aunts were sitting in their usual places, doing their crochet-work mechanically. Mamma, as Constance knew, had had an angry scene with the two old things, to explain to them that they mustn’t talk scandal and, above all, that they mustn’t do so out loud, a scene which had thoroughly upset Mamma herself and which the old aunts had not even seemed to understand, for they merely nodded a vague consent, nodded yes, yes, no doubt Marie was right. Yet Constance suspected that Auntie Rine had understood at least something of it, for she was now looking at Constance askance, with a frightened look. Constance could not bring herself to speak to the old aunts: she walked past them; and Auntie Tine whispered to Auntie Rine:“There she is again!”“Who?” screamed Auntie Rine, aloud.But Auntie Tine dared not whisper anything more, because of their sister Marie, who had flown into such a passion; and she pinched Auntie Rine’s withered hand, whereupon Auntie Rine glared at her angrily. Then they cackled together for a moment, bad-temperedly. The three young Saetzemas, playing their cards in a corner of the conservatory, sat bursting with laughter at the bickering of the two old aunts.Constance sat down quietly by Mamma. And shefelt, now that Addie spoke to Marietje—Adolphine’s Marietje—but did not go to the boys in the conservatory, that there was no harmony among them all and that they only met for the sake of Mamma, of Grandmamma. Poor Mamma! And yet she did not seem to notice it, was glad that the children and grandchildren came to her Sundays, to her “family-group.”Adolphine and Cateau sat talking in a corner; and Constance caught what they said:“So Ber-tha isnot... keep-ing on the house?”“I should think not, indeed! They have nothing but debts.”“Is it their bro-ther-in-law who is see-ing to things and ad-min-istering the es-tate?”“Yes, the commissary in Overijssel.”1“So they arenotwelloff?”“No, they haven’t a farthing.”“Yes, as I al-ways used to say to Ka-rel, they al-ways lived on much toolargeascale.”“They squandered all they had.”“Well, that’s not very pleas-ant for the children!”“No. And there’s Emilie, who wants a divorce. But don’t mention that to Mamma: she doesn’t know about it.”“Ve-ry well.... Yes, that’s most unfor-tunate. Your Floor-tje, Phine, is bet-ter off than that with Dij-kerhof.”“At least, they’re not thinking of getting divorced. I always look upon a divorce as a scandal. We’ve one divorce in the family as it is; and I consider that one too many.”Constance turned pale and felt that Adolphine was speaking loud on purpose, though it was behind her back.... Dear Mamma noticed nothing!... She had been much upset on that one Sunday, that terrible evening, but had not really understood the truth: the terrible thing to her was merely that the old sisters had talked so loud and so spitefully about her poor Constance, like the cross-grained, spiteful old women that they were; but what happened besides she had really never quite known.... And this, now that Constance was gradually drawing farther away from her brothers and sisters, suddenly struck her as rather fine. Whatever happened, they kept Mamma out of it as far as they could, in a general filial affection for Mamma, in a filial conspiracy to leave Mamma her happiness and her illusion about the family; and it seemed as if the brothers and sisters also impressed this on their children; it appeared that Adolphine even taught it to her loutish boys, for, to her sudden surprise, she saw Chris and Piet go up to Addie and ask him to join in their game. Addie refused, coldly; and nowConstance was almost ashamed that she herself had not pointed out to Addie that Grandmamma must always be spared and left in her fond illusion that all was harmony. But fortunately Addie of his own accord always knew what was the right thing to do; for, when Adolphine’s Marietje also came up with a smile and asked him to come and play cards in the conservatory, he went with her at once. She smiled because of it all: no, there was no mutual sympathy, but there was a general affection for Mamma. A general affection, for Mamma, was something rather touching after all; and really she had never before seen it in that light, as something fine, that strong and really unanimous feeling among all those different members of a family whose interests and inclinations in the natural course of things were divided. Yes, now that she was standing farther away from her brothers and sisters, she saw for the first time this one feature which was good in them. Yes, it was really something very good, something lovable; and even Adolphine had it.... It was as though a softer mood came over Constance, no longer one of criticism and resentment, but rather of sympathy and understanding, in which bitterness had given place to kindliness; and in that softer mood there was still indeed sadness, but no anger, as if everything could not well be other than it was, in their circle of small people, of very small people, whose eyes saw only a little way beyond themselves, whosehearts were sensitive only a little way beyond themselves, not farther than the narrow circle of their children and perhaps their children’s children.... She did not know why, but, in the vague sadness of this new, softer mood, she thought of Brauws. And, though not able at once to explain why, she connected her thought of him with this kindlier feeling of hers, this deeper, truer vision of things around her. And, as though new, far-stretching vistas opened up before her, she suddenly seemed to be contemplating life, that life which she had never yet contemplated. A new, distant horizon lay open before her, a distant circle, a wide circle round the narrow little circle past which the eyes of her soul had never yet been able to gaze.... It was strange to her, this feeling, here in this room, in this family-circle. It was as though she suddenly saw all her relations—the Ruyvenaers had now arrived as well—sitting and talking in that room, all her relations and herself also, as very small people, who sat and talked, who moved and lived and thought in a very narrow little circle of self-interest, while outside that circle the horizon extended ever wider and wider, like a vision of great cloudy skies, under which towns rose sharply, seas billowed, bright lightning glanced. It all shot through her and in front of her very swiftly: two or three little revealing flashes, no more; swift revelations, which flashed out and then darkened again. But, swiftly though those revelationshad flashed, after that brightness the room remained small, those people remained small, she herself remained small....She herself had never lived: oh, she had so often suspected it! But those other people: had they also never, never lived? Mamma, in the narrow circle of her children’s and grandchildren’s affection; Uncle and Aunt, in their interests as sugar-planters; Karel and Cateau, in their narrow, respectable, complacent comfort; Adolphine, in her miserable struggle for social importance; and the others, Gerrit, Dorine, Ernst, Paul: had they ever, ever lived? Her husband: had he ever lived? Or was it all just a mere existence, as she herself had existed; a vegetation rooted in little thoughts and habits, in little opinions and prejudices, in little religions or philosophies; and feeling pleasant and comfortable therein and looking down upon and condemning others and considering one’s self fairly good and fairly high-minded, not so bad as others and at least far more sensible in one’s opinions and beliefs than most of one’s neighbours?... Oh, people like themselves; people in their “set,” in other sets, with their several variations of birth, religion, position, money; decent people, whom Brauws sometimes called “thebourgeois:” had they ever lived, ever looked out beyond the very narrow circle which their dogmas drew around them? What a small and insignificant merry-go-round it was! And what was the objectof whirling among one another and round one another like that?... It suddenly appeared to her that, of all these people who belonged to her and of all the others, the acquaintances, whom with a swift mental effort she grouped around them, there was not one who could send a single thought shining out far and wide, towards the wide horizons yonder, without thinking of himself, his wife and his children and clinging to his prejudices about money, position, religion and birth.... As regards money, it was almost a distinction among all of them not to have any and then to live as if they had. Position was what they strove for; and those who did not strive for it, such as Paul and Ernst, were criticized for their weakness. Religion was, with those other people, the mere acquaintances, not belonging to their circle, sometimes a matter of decency or of political interest; but, in their set, with its East-Indian leaven, it was ignored, quietly and calmly, never thought about or talked about, save that the children were just confirmed, quickly, as they might be given a dancing- or music-lesson. Birth, birth, that was everything; and even then there was that superior contempt for new titles of nobility, that respect only for old titles and a tendency to think themselves very grand, even though they were not titled, as members of a patrician Dutch-Indian family which, in addition to its original importance, had also absorbed the importance attaching to the highestofficial positions in Java.... And over it all lay the soft smile of indulgent pity and contempt for any who thought differently from themselves. It formed the basis of all their opinions, however greatly those opinions might vary according to their personal interests and views: compassion and contempt for people who had no money and lived economically; for those who did not aim at an exalted position; for those, whether Catholics or anti-revolutionaries—they themselves were all moderate liberals, with special emphasis on the “moderate”—who cherished an enthusiasm for religion; for those who were not of such patrician birth as themselves. And so on, with certain variations in these opinions.... It was as though Constance noticed the merry-go-round for the first time, whirling in that little circle. It was as though she saw it in the past, saw it whirling in their drawing-rooms, when her father was still alive, then especially. She saw it suddenly, as a child, after it is grown up, sees its parents and their house, their former life, in which it was a child, in which it grew up. She saw it now like that at her mother’s, only less vividly, because of the informality of that family-gathering. She saw it like that, dimly, in all, in every one of them, more or less. But she also saw the respect, the love for Mamma, the wish to leave her in the illusion which that love gave her.She had never seen it like that before. She herselfwas just the same as the others. And she thought herself and all of them small, so small that she said to herself:“Do we all of us live for so very little, when there is so very much beyond, stretching far and wide, under the cloudy skies of that immense horizon? Do we never stop outside this little circle in which we all, with our superior smile—because we are so distinguished and enlightened—spin round one another and ourselves, like humming-tops, like everlasting humming-tops?”And again Brauws’ figure rose before her eyes. Oh, she now for the first time understood what he had said, on that first evening when she saw and heard him, about Peace!... Peace! The pure, immaculate ideal suddenly streamed before her like a silver banner, fluttered in the wide cloudy skies! Oh, she now for the first time understood ... why he sought. He had wanted to seek ... life! He had sought ... and he had not found. But, while seeking, he had lived: he still lived! His breath came and went, his pulses throbbed, his chest heaved ... even though his sadness, because he had never “found,” bedimmed his energies. But she and all of them did not live! They did not live, they had never lived. They were born, people of distinction, with all their little cynicisms about money and religion, with all their fondness for birth and position; and they continued to spin round like that, tospin like humming-tops: moderate liberals. That they all tolerated her again, in the little circle, was that not all part of their moderate liberal attitude? Oh, to live, to live really, to live as he had lived, to live ... to live with him!She was now startled at herself. She was in a room full of people and she sat in silence next to her mother. Dear Mamma!... And she was weary of her own thinking, for swift as lightning it all flashed through her, that revelation of her thoughts, without sentences, without images, without words. It just flashed; and that was all. But that flashing made her feel weary, enervated, almost breathless in the room, which she found close.... And the very last of her thoughts, which had just for a moment appeared before her—sentence, image and word—had startled her. She had to confess it to herself: she loved, she loved him. But she inwardly pronounced that love—perhaps with the little cynical laugh which she had observed in her own people—she pronounced that love to be absurd, because so many silent, dead years lay heaped up there, because she was old, quite old. To wish to live at this time of day was absurd. To wish to dream at this stage was absurd. No, after so many years had been wasted on that meaningless existence, then she, an old woman now, must not hope to live again when it dawned too late, that life of thinking and feeling, that life from which might have sprunga life of doing and loving, of boundless love, of love for everybody and everything.... No, after so many years had been spent in living the life of a plant, until the plant became yellow and sere, then inevitably, inexorably extinction, slow extinction, was the only hope that remained....The absurdity, of being so old—forty-three—and feeling like that!... Never, she swore, would she allow anybody to perceive that absurdity. She knew quite well that it was not really absurd, that its absurdity existed only in the narrow little circle of little prejudices and little dogmas. But she also knew that she, like all of them, was small, that she herself was full of prejudice; she knew that she could not rise, could never rise above what she considered absurd, what she had been taught, from a child, in her little circle, to look upon as absurd!No, now that she was old, there was nothing for her but to turn her eyes from the radiant vision and, calmly, to grow still older ... to go towards that slow extinction which perhaps would still drag on for many long and empty years: the years of a woman of her age ... in their set....

For a long time, Constance had not been to Mamma van Lowe’s Sunday-evenings; and at first Mamma had not insisted. Now, however, one afternoon, she said, gently:

“Are you never coming again on a Sunday, Constance?”

She saw that her mother had suddenly become very nervous and she was sorry that she had not made an effort and overcome her reluctance to attend the family-gatherings after that terrible evening.

“Yes, Mamma,” she said, without hesitation, “I will come. This is Saturday: I will come to-morrow.”

The old woman leant back wearily in her chair, nodded her head up and down, as though she knew all sorts of sad things:

“It is so sad ... about Van Naghel,” she said. “Bertha is going through a lot of trouble.”

It seemed as if Mamma wished to talk about it; but Constance, with an affected indifference to her relations’ affairs, asked no questions.

The next evening, Constance and Addie were ready to start for the Alexanderstraat.

“Aren’t you coming?” she asked Van der Welcke.

He hesitated. He would rather not go, feeling unfriendly towards the whole family, but he would have liked to see Marianne. Still he said:

“No, I think not.”

He was afraid that his refusal would cause a scene; but latterly, even though anger welled up inside her, she had shown a forbearance which surprised him; and she merely said:

“Mamma would like us all to come again.”

He was really fond of the old lady: she had always been kind to him.

“Who will be there?” he asked.

“Why, all of them!” she said. “As usual.”

“Surely not Bertha ... and her children...?”

“I think so,” she said, gently, feeling that he was sounding her to see if Marianne would be there. “Why shouldn’t they go, though they are in mourning? It’s not a party: there will be no one but the family.”

“Perhaps I’ll come on later,” he said, still hesitating.

She did not insist, went off on foot with Addie. It was curious, but now, whenever she went to her mother’s house, nice though her mother always was to her, she felt as if she were going there as a stranger, not as a daughter. It was because of the others that she felt like a stranger, because of Bertha, Adolphine, Karel, Cateau and Dorine. Gerrit and Paul were the only ones whom she still looked uponas brothers; and she was very fond of Adeline.

This evening again, as she entered the room, she felt like that, like a stranger. The old aunts were sitting in their usual places, doing their crochet-work mechanically. Mamma, as Constance knew, had had an angry scene with the two old things, to explain to them that they mustn’t talk scandal and, above all, that they mustn’t do so out loud, a scene which had thoroughly upset Mamma herself and which the old aunts had not even seemed to understand, for they merely nodded a vague consent, nodded yes, yes, no doubt Marie was right. Yet Constance suspected that Auntie Rine had understood at least something of it, for she was now looking at Constance askance, with a frightened look. Constance could not bring herself to speak to the old aunts: she walked past them; and Auntie Tine whispered to Auntie Rine:

“There she is again!”

“Who?” screamed Auntie Rine, aloud.

But Auntie Tine dared not whisper anything more, because of their sister Marie, who had flown into such a passion; and she pinched Auntie Rine’s withered hand, whereupon Auntie Rine glared at her angrily. Then they cackled together for a moment, bad-temperedly. The three young Saetzemas, playing their cards in a corner of the conservatory, sat bursting with laughter at the bickering of the two old aunts.

Constance sat down quietly by Mamma. And shefelt, now that Addie spoke to Marietje—Adolphine’s Marietje—but did not go to the boys in the conservatory, that there was no harmony among them all and that they only met for the sake of Mamma, of Grandmamma. Poor Mamma! And yet she did not seem to notice it, was glad that the children and grandchildren came to her Sundays, to her “family-group.”

Adolphine and Cateau sat talking in a corner; and Constance caught what they said:

“So Ber-tha isnot... keep-ing on the house?”

“I should think not, indeed! They have nothing but debts.”

“Is it their bro-ther-in-law who is see-ing to things and ad-min-istering the es-tate?”

“Yes, the commissary in Overijssel.”1

“So they arenotwelloff?”

“No, they haven’t a farthing.”

“Yes, as I al-ways used to say to Ka-rel, they al-ways lived on much toolargeascale.”

“They squandered all they had.”

“Well, that’s not very pleas-ant for the children!”

“No. And there’s Emilie, who wants a divorce. But don’t mention that to Mamma: she doesn’t know about it.”

“Ve-ry well.... Yes, that’s most unfor-tunate. Your Floor-tje, Phine, is bet-ter off than that with Dij-kerhof.”

“At least, they’re not thinking of getting divorced. I always look upon a divorce as a scandal. We’ve one divorce in the family as it is; and I consider that one too many.”

Constance turned pale and felt that Adolphine was speaking loud on purpose, though it was behind her back.... Dear Mamma noticed nothing!... She had been much upset on that one Sunday, that terrible evening, but had not really understood the truth: the terrible thing to her was merely that the old sisters had talked so loud and so spitefully about her poor Constance, like the cross-grained, spiteful old women that they were; but what happened besides she had really never quite known.... And this, now that Constance was gradually drawing farther away from her brothers and sisters, suddenly struck her as rather fine. Whatever happened, they kept Mamma out of it as far as they could, in a general filial affection for Mamma, in a filial conspiracy to leave Mamma her happiness and her illusion about the family; and it seemed as if the brothers and sisters also impressed this on their children; it appeared that Adolphine even taught it to her loutish boys, for, to her sudden surprise, she saw Chris and Piet go up to Addie and ask him to join in their game. Addie refused, coldly; and nowConstance was almost ashamed that she herself had not pointed out to Addie that Grandmamma must always be spared and left in her fond illusion that all was harmony. But fortunately Addie of his own accord always knew what was the right thing to do; for, when Adolphine’s Marietje also came up with a smile and asked him to come and play cards in the conservatory, he went with her at once. She smiled because of it all: no, there was no mutual sympathy, but there was a general affection for Mamma. A general affection, for Mamma, was something rather touching after all; and really she had never before seen it in that light, as something fine, that strong and really unanimous feeling among all those different members of a family whose interests and inclinations in the natural course of things were divided. Yes, now that she was standing farther away from her brothers and sisters, she saw for the first time this one feature which was good in them. Yes, it was really something very good, something lovable; and even Adolphine had it.... It was as though a softer mood came over Constance, no longer one of criticism and resentment, but rather of sympathy and understanding, in which bitterness had given place to kindliness; and in that softer mood there was still indeed sadness, but no anger, as if everything could not well be other than it was, in their circle of small people, of very small people, whose eyes saw only a little way beyond themselves, whosehearts were sensitive only a little way beyond themselves, not farther than the narrow circle of their children and perhaps their children’s children.... She did not know why, but, in the vague sadness of this new, softer mood, she thought of Brauws. And, though not able at once to explain why, she connected her thought of him with this kindlier feeling of hers, this deeper, truer vision of things around her. And, as though new, far-stretching vistas opened up before her, she suddenly seemed to be contemplating life, that life which she had never yet contemplated. A new, distant horizon lay open before her, a distant circle, a wide circle round the narrow little circle past which the eyes of her soul had never yet been able to gaze.... It was strange to her, this feeling, here in this room, in this family-circle. It was as though she suddenly saw all her relations—the Ruyvenaers had now arrived as well—sitting and talking in that room, all her relations and herself also, as very small people, who sat and talked, who moved and lived and thought in a very narrow little circle of self-interest, while outside that circle the horizon extended ever wider and wider, like a vision of great cloudy skies, under which towns rose sharply, seas billowed, bright lightning glanced. It all shot through her and in front of her very swiftly: two or three little revealing flashes, no more; swift revelations, which flashed out and then darkened again. But, swiftly though those revelationshad flashed, after that brightness the room remained small, those people remained small, she herself remained small....

She herself had never lived: oh, she had so often suspected it! But those other people: had they also never, never lived? Mamma, in the narrow circle of her children’s and grandchildren’s affection; Uncle and Aunt, in their interests as sugar-planters; Karel and Cateau, in their narrow, respectable, complacent comfort; Adolphine, in her miserable struggle for social importance; and the others, Gerrit, Dorine, Ernst, Paul: had they ever, ever lived? Her husband: had he ever lived? Or was it all just a mere existence, as she herself had existed; a vegetation rooted in little thoughts and habits, in little opinions and prejudices, in little religions or philosophies; and feeling pleasant and comfortable therein and looking down upon and condemning others and considering one’s self fairly good and fairly high-minded, not so bad as others and at least far more sensible in one’s opinions and beliefs than most of one’s neighbours?... Oh, people like themselves; people in their “set,” in other sets, with their several variations of birth, religion, position, money; decent people, whom Brauws sometimes called “thebourgeois:” had they ever lived, ever looked out beyond the very narrow circle which their dogmas drew around them? What a small and insignificant merry-go-round it was! And what was the objectof whirling among one another and round one another like that?... It suddenly appeared to her that, of all these people who belonged to her and of all the others, the acquaintances, whom with a swift mental effort she grouped around them, there was not one who could send a single thought shining out far and wide, towards the wide horizons yonder, without thinking of himself, his wife and his children and clinging to his prejudices about money, position, religion and birth.... As regards money, it was almost a distinction among all of them not to have any and then to live as if they had. Position was what they strove for; and those who did not strive for it, such as Paul and Ernst, were criticized for their weakness. Religion was, with those other people, the mere acquaintances, not belonging to their circle, sometimes a matter of decency or of political interest; but, in their set, with its East-Indian leaven, it was ignored, quietly and calmly, never thought about or talked about, save that the children were just confirmed, quickly, as they might be given a dancing- or music-lesson. Birth, birth, that was everything; and even then there was that superior contempt for new titles of nobility, that respect only for old titles and a tendency to think themselves very grand, even though they were not titled, as members of a patrician Dutch-Indian family which, in addition to its original importance, had also absorbed the importance attaching to the highestofficial positions in Java.... And over it all lay the soft smile of indulgent pity and contempt for any who thought differently from themselves. It formed the basis of all their opinions, however greatly those opinions might vary according to their personal interests and views: compassion and contempt for people who had no money and lived economically; for those who did not aim at an exalted position; for those, whether Catholics or anti-revolutionaries—they themselves were all moderate liberals, with special emphasis on the “moderate”—who cherished an enthusiasm for religion; for those who were not of such patrician birth as themselves. And so on, with certain variations in these opinions.... It was as though Constance noticed the merry-go-round for the first time, whirling in that little circle. It was as though she saw it in the past, saw it whirling in their drawing-rooms, when her father was still alive, then especially. She saw it suddenly, as a child, after it is grown up, sees its parents and their house, their former life, in which it was a child, in which it grew up. She saw it now like that at her mother’s, only less vividly, because of the informality of that family-gathering. She saw it like that, dimly, in all, in every one of them, more or less. But she also saw the respect, the love for Mamma, the wish to leave her in the illusion which that love gave her.

She had never seen it like that before. She herselfwas just the same as the others. And she thought herself and all of them small, so small that she said to herself:

“Do we all of us live for so very little, when there is so very much beyond, stretching far and wide, under the cloudy skies of that immense horizon? Do we never stop outside this little circle in which we all, with our superior smile—because we are so distinguished and enlightened—spin round one another and ourselves, like humming-tops, like everlasting humming-tops?”

And again Brauws’ figure rose before her eyes. Oh, she now for the first time understood what he had said, on that first evening when she saw and heard him, about Peace!... Peace! The pure, immaculate ideal suddenly streamed before her like a silver banner, fluttered in the wide cloudy skies! Oh, she now for the first time understood ... why he sought. He had wanted to seek ... life! He had sought ... and he had not found. But, while seeking, he had lived: he still lived! His breath came and went, his pulses throbbed, his chest heaved ... even though his sadness, because he had never “found,” bedimmed his energies. But she and all of them did not live! They did not live, they had never lived. They were born, people of distinction, with all their little cynicisms about money and religion, with all their fondness for birth and position; and they continued to spin round like that, tospin like humming-tops: moderate liberals. That they all tolerated her again, in the little circle, was that not all part of their moderate liberal attitude? Oh, to live, to live really, to live as he had lived, to live ... to live with him!

She was now startled at herself. She was in a room full of people and she sat in silence next to her mother. Dear Mamma!... And she was weary of her own thinking, for swift as lightning it all flashed through her, that revelation of her thoughts, without sentences, without images, without words. It just flashed; and that was all. But that flashing made her feel weary, enervated, almost breathless in the room, which she found close.... And the very last of her thoughts, which had just for a moment appeared before her—sentence, image and word—had startled her. She had to confess it to herself: she loved, she loved him. But she inwardly pronounced that love—perhaps with the little cynical laugh which she had observed in her own people—she pronounced that love to be absurd, because so many silent, dead years lay heaped up there, because she was old, quite old. To wish to live at this time of day was absurd. To wish to dream at this stage was absurd. No, after so many years had been wasted on that meaningless existence, then she, an old woman now, must not hope to live again when it dawned too late, that life of thinking and feeling, that life from which might have sprunga life of doing and loving, of boundless love, of love for everybody and everything.... No, after so many years had been spent in living the life of a plant, until the plant became yellow and sere, then inevitably, inexorably extinction, slow extinction, was the only hope that remained....

The absurdity, of being so old—forty-three—and feeling like that!... Never, she swore, would she allow anybody to perceive that absurdity. She knew quite well that it was not really absurd, that its absurdity existed only in the narrow little circle of little prejudices and little dogmas. But she also knew that she, like all of them, was small, that she herself was full of prejudice; she knew that she could not rise, could never rise above what she considered absurd, what she had been taught, from a child, in her little circle, to look upon as absurd!

No, now that she was old, there was nothing for her but to turn her eyes from the radiant vision and, calmly, to grow still older ... to go towards that slow extinction which perhaps would still drag on for many long and empty years: the years of a woman of her age ... in their set....

1The “Queen’s Commissary” of a Dutch province has no counterpart in England except, perhaps, the lord lieutenant of a county. His functions, however, correspond more nearly with those of a French prefect.

1The “Queen’s Commissary” of a Dutch province has no counterpart in England except, perhaps, the lord lieutenant of a county. His functions, however, correspond more nearly with those of a French prefect.

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