"Are you going out, Gerrit?" asked Adeline.
She was surprised to see him come down the stairs, dressed, in uniform. He had spent the morning in bed, but he felt better now; and a feverish excitement acted like a spur. He said, in answer to his wife's question, that he was better, played for a moment with Gerdy, took his lunch standing and then hurried out of the house and rushed through a parade at barracks, where he was not expected. The fever, which he still felt sending shivers through his great body, drove him out of barracks again; and he walked to the Kerkhoflaan and asked Truitje if there was any news of her master or mistress, if Master Addie had had a telegram from Paris; but Truitje didn't know. Then he tore off like one possessed, first to Otto and Frances' house, where he found Frances and Louise, both sick with waiting: Otto had gone to Baarn, to break the news to Bertha.
He could not stay with the two women: Frances wandering from room to room, crying helplessly; Louise, calmer, looking after the children, the entire care of whom she had taken on herself since she had come to live with Otto and since Frances had become such an invalid. Gerrit could not possibly stay: with long strides, he flew to the Alexanderstraat, to Mamma, who was glad to see him well again after his two days' illness. He found Dorine with her; Adolphine called, followed by Cateau, all obeying an impulse not to leave the old woman alone in these days, when at any moment Van der Welcke, Constance and Emilie might arrive from Paris, bringing home the body of Henri, of whose death no one had telegraphed any details, much to the indignation of Adolphine and Cateau.
But, when Auntie Lot came in, her small eyes red and swollen with weeping, and cried, "Oh dear!...Kassian!"—an exclamation at once hushed by the children, an exclamation which Mamma, staring dimly into space, failed to understand—Gerrit could no longer endure it among all those overwrought women; and, convinced that Mamma did not even yet know that Constance and Van der Welcke had gone to Paris, convinced that the sisters had not even paved the way by telling her that Henri was seriously ill, he cleared out suddenly, without saying good-bye, and rushed into the open air, down the street, into the Woods, gasping for breath.
What was it, what could it be, hanging in the air? The clouds seemed to be bending over the town in pity, an immense, yearning pity which turned into a desperate melancholy while Gerrit hurried along with his great strides; the wintry trees lifted their crowns of branches in melancholy despair; the rooks cawed and circled in swarms; the bells of the tram-cars tinkled as though muffled in black crape; the few pedestrians walked stiffly and unnaturally; he met ague-stricken, black-clad figures with sinister, spectral faces: they passed him like so many ghosts; and all around him, in the vistas of the Woods, rose a clammy mist, in which every outline of houses, trees and people was blurred into a shadowy unreality. And it seemed to Gerrit as if he alone were real and possessed a body; and he ran and rushed through the spectral landscape, through the hollow avenues of death.
What was it in the air? Nothing, nothing extraordinary: it was winter in Holland; and the people ... the people had nothing extraordinary about them: they walked in thick coats and cloaks, with their hands in their pockets, because it was cold; and, because the mist was cold and raw, their eyes looked fixed, their lips and noses drawn and pinched and they bore themselves rigidly and spectrally when they came towards him out of the fog and passed him with those shadowy and unreal figures. And, with all sorts of fever-born images whirling before his eyes, like shining will-o'-the-wisps in that morning mist, his thoughts touched hastily on every sort of subject: he saw the barracks before him; Pauline; the Paris train and Constance and Van der Welcke in a compartment with Henri's coffin between them; Auntie Lot and Mamma; Bertha at Baarn. He saw his boyhood at Buitenzorg; the foaming river; all his bright-haired children. He saw a worm, big as a dragon, with bristles like lances sticking straight out of its dragon's back....
He was still feverish and had been unwise to get up and go out. But he could not have stayed in bed, he couldn't have done it: his feverish excitement had driven him to the barracks, to his mother and to.... Where was he going? Was he going to Scheveningen? And why was he going through the Woods like that? What was it that constantly impelled him to keep to the right, to turn up the paths on the right, as though he were making for the Nieuwe Weg? What did he want on the right?...
Suddenly, as a counteragent to his fever, he turned to the left; but, on coming to a cross-road, he wandered off to the right again, helplessly, as if he had forgotten the way.... There was the Ornamental Water, with the Nieuwe Weg behind it. There lay the ponds, like two dull, weather-worn mirrors, under the sullen pity of the skies; and the rather tame landscape of the Woods, with its wreath of dunes, became cruel, a tragic pool surrounded by all that avenue of chill death, which seemed to be creeping through the wintry air....
But what was it in the air? Why, there was nothing, nothing but the Ornamental Water, in a misty haze; the few villas around it looming vaguely out of the fog; no pedestrians at all; nothing but the familiar, everyday, usual things.... Then what impelled him to wander so aimlessly past the Ornamental Water to the Nieuwe Weg? Why were those ponds like tragic pools? Was it not as though pale faces stared out of them, out of those tragic pools, pale, white faces of women, multiplied a hundredfold by strange reflections, eddies of white, faces, with dank, plastered hair and dying eyes, which gleamed?...
Yes, yes, he was in a fever. He had been unwise to go out, in that chill morning mist. But it was rotten to be ill ... and he was never ill. He had never said that he was ill. He was a fellow who could stand some knocking about. But for all that he was feverish. Otherwise he would not have seen the Ornamental Water as a tragic pool ... with the white faces of mermaids.... Lord, how cold and shivery the mermaids must feel down there in those chilly, silent pools ... their dying eyes just gleaming up with a single spark! Were they dead or alive, the chilly mermaids? Were their eyes dying or were they ogling? How strangely they were all reflected, until they became as a thousand mermaids, until their faces blossomed like white flowers of death above the light film of ice coating the pool! Whew! How chill and cold they were, the poor, dead, ogling mermaids!...
Dead: were they dead?... Were they ogling and laughing ... with eyes of gold?... He shivered as though ice-cold water were trickling down his spine; and he wrapped himself closely in his military great-coat. He felt something hard in his breast-pocket, a square piece of cardboard. Yes, he had been carrying that about for ever so long ... and yet ... and yet he couldn't do it. It was the photograph of his children, the latest group, taken for Mamma's last birthday. For weeks he had been carrying it about in his pocket, in an envelope with an address on it ... and yet, yet he couldn't send it or hand it in at her door. The portrait of all his children:
"I expect they're charming kiddies, Gerrit?"
Gad, how could she have asked it, how could she have asked it, as though to drive him mad?... Whew, how cold it was!... He looked fearsomely at the mermaids: no, no, there was nothing, nothing but the chilly pool. He was in a high fever, that's what he was ... Gad, how could she ask such a thing?
Still ... still, it was over. She was no longer the girl she was. She was finished with, done for; she had lain in his arms like a corpse, tired of her own kisses, broken by his embrace, white as a sheet, done for.... Lord, how rotten, to be done for and still so young, a young woman!... Done for ... like a defective machine: Lord, how rotten!... No, he couldn't give that photograph ... of all his children ... to a light-o'-love.... He couldn't do it.... If she had only asked for a necklace or some such gaud ... he would have managed somehow, out of his poverty, to buy her a nice keepsake.... Whew, how raw and cold it was!... The will-o'-the-wisps of all sorts of images shone in front of him; and, through them, through the flames, the flying Paris express ... with the compartment, the coffin, Van der Welcke, Constance, two motionless figures. And yet it was bitterly, clammily cold; he was chilled to his marrow; and a great hairy dragon split its beastly maw to lick that chilled marrow with a fiery tongue. How big the filthy brute had grown! It was no longer inside him, it was all around him now: it filled the air with its wriggling body; it lifted its tail among the wintry boughs; and its tongue of fire licked at Gerrit's marrow; and under that marrow—how strange!—he was simply freezing.... Brrr, brrr!... Lord, how he was shivering, what a fever he was in!... Home ... home ... to bed!... Oh, how good to get into bed ... nice and warm, nice and warm!... Still better to be nice and warm in women's arms ... no kissing ... just sleeping, nice and warm!... Brrr, brrr!... Lord, Lord, Lord, the water pouring down his back! Never in his life had he shivered like that!... How hard that photograph of his children was! He felt it on his heart like a plank. How long had he been carrying it about with him? Brrr, brrr! He might just as well have let her have it: it was the only thing that she had asked him for.... Money he had never given her: only fifteen guilders—brrr, brrr!—fif—brrr!—teen—brrr!—guilders.... Come, why not do it now?... Just hand it in, at her door—brrr!—and then—brrr!—and then—brrr!—home, to bed ... nice and warm in bed!...
The thought suddenly took definite shape and it drove him on along the Kanaal. Here also the mist hung like a haze over the water and the meadows on the other side; and, shivering and shuddering under the fiery lick of the dragon's tongue, Gerrit hurried to the Frederikstraat. That was where she lived, that was where he had been so often lately, until that last time when she had begged him not to come back again and to give her, as a keepsake, the portrait ... the portrait of his children. He would leave it now at the door. He had taken it in his hand, because it lay like a plank an his heart; and her name was on the envelope.... Brrr!... Hand it in quickly and then—brrr!—nice and warm in bed.
The landlady opened the door.
"Would you please give this to the young lady?"
He meant to shove the envelope into the woman's hand and then—brrr, brrr!—home ... to bed ... warm ... warm....
"Don't you know, then, where the young lady is, sir?"
"Where she is?"
"Where she's gone to?"
"Has she gone?"
"She didn't come home yesterday afternoon. I don't say I'm anxious; but still she always used to come home of an evening. She owes me some money, but she hasn't run away ... for everything has been left as it was, upstairs: her clothes, her bits of jewellery...."
"Perhaps she's out of town...."
"Perhaps ... only she's taken nothing with her."
"Perhaps, all the same...."
"Yes ... it's possible.... So I'm to give her the envelope ... when she comes?"
"Yes.... Or no, no, give it to me ... I'll see to it myself.... Or no, you'd better give it her when she comes back.... No, after all, I'll see to it...."
He stuffed the envelope into his pocket, went off. Brrr! It lay on his chest like a plank.... Where could she be gone to? Where was Pauline gone to? Had she gone out of town?... Why hadn't he simply left the envelope? Well, you never knew:ifshe didn't come back, it would be there, with the photograph of his children.... She'd probably cleared out.... Yes, she had probably cleared out ... with her rich young fellow.... Well, he, whoever he was, wouldn't remember her asheremembered her in the old days.... Brrrrrr!... Lord, Lord, how he was shivering!... Oh, to be in bed!... When could Constance and Van der Welcke be back?... Oh, the express!... Oh, the coffin!... Oh, the fiery lick of the dragon, whose great, hairy body filled the whole grey sky with its wriggling!...
He turned down the Javastraat: he wanted to hurry home; his teeth were chattering; he felt as if ice-cold water was dripping from him, while the confounded brute sucked his marrow with long, fiery licks of its tongue. Near the Schelpkade, he met a little group of four or five policemen: rough words sounded loud; their words sounded so loud through the unreality of the mist that they woke him out of a walking sleep, out of his dream of the dragon-beast with the stiff bristles:
"She was quite blue," he heard one of them say. They were striding along, talking loudly, as if something startling had happened. Gerrit suddenly stood rooted to the ground:
"Who was blue?" he asked, in a hoarse bellow.
The policeman saluted:
"Sir?"
"Who was blue?" bellowed Gerrit.
"A woman, sir.... A woman who drowned herself, last night, in the Kanaal...."
"A woman?"
"Yes, sir. My mate here was the first to see the body, when it was floating with the face out of the water. Then he came and told me; and we went and fetched the drag. It was a young woman...."
"And she was quite blue, you say?..."
"Yes, sir, and all bloated: she'd swallowed a lot of water.... We took the body to the cemetery near the Woods and we're on our way to the commissary."
"To the cemetery?..."
"Yes, sir...."
The men saluted:
"Sir."
"She was quite blue," Gerrit repeated to himself.
And he hurried on at a jog-trot. Brrr, brrr! Oh, to be in bed ... he wanted to get to bed! He was as cold as that woman must have been last night, floating in the water until her face blossomed up like a phantom flower of death.... Brrr! Icy cold water: wasn't he walking beside icy cold water twenty minutes ago? Hadn't it seemed to him that the whole tame landscape, in its wreath of dunes, had melted away into a hazy unreality, with those ghostly villas and trees ... and the ponds like tragic pools, in which were mirrored the motionless, low, grey skies, full of the wriggling of his giant worm ... until the faces of mermaids, with wet, plastered hair and gold-gleaming eyes had risen up like dead flowers, water-lilies of death, and ogled him with the last quiver of their dying eyes?... Oh, the Paris express!... Oh, what a fever he was in!... He must go quick to bed now ... but, before he went, he would just call in at the Kerkhoflaan and ask if there was no telegram from Van der Welcke and Constance.... But how cold he felt and how he was shivering: brrr, brrr!...
It was as though his legs moved independently of his will, propelled by alien instincts, by energies outside himself; for his legs moved healthily, sturdily and quickly, with the click-clack of his sword knocking against his thigh, while, above those sturdy legs, his body shivered in the clutch of the monster, which licked and licked with fiery dabs of its tongue. And, above his body, towered his head, colossally large, with vertigos whirling like tangible circles around the huge head in which he seemed to be carrying a heavy lump of brains. From it there shot forth the strangest dreams; and these dreams, together with the contortions of the monster, filled the whole grey sky until everything became one great dream: all that town of unknown streets; houses; people who bowed and nodded to him; a couple of hussars, who saluted; a couple of officers whom he knew and to whom he waved:
"Bonjour!"
"Bonjour!"
And, in this singular dreaming and waking and suffering and walking, he knew things which nobody had told him, knew them for certain: knew that a woman had drowned herself last night in Paris, in the lake in the Bois; knew that Van der Welcke and Constance had gone to fetch her body and were now bringing it back to him in a rushing express-train, but a train that came rushing through the sky on whirling aerial rails, cutting through the contortions of a huge snake-thing which wriggled round the clouds and filled the whole sky. Oh, how full the sky was! For round the snake wriggled like corkscrews the whirling rails, all aslant and askew, tangled into iron spirals; and the express, in which Van der Welcke and Constance sat with a coffin between them containing a woman's blue corpse, had to follow all those turns and came rushing and puffing along them, constantly curving round its own track and covering them a thousand times, as though that aerial express were climbing and descending endless wriggling corkscrews. Then the rails and the dragon-coils were all tangled together; and the rails became dragon-coils; and the express flew and flew along the twisting dragon-thing, flew along every curve of its tail. The train became a toy-train; the dragon was enormous and filled the firmament; the town underneath was a toy-town; and Gerrit walked and walked with hurrying legs; and his head towered colossally large; and his brains became like heavy clouds: he saw his lump of brains massing in curling clouds outside him. Nevertheless he was propelled by instincts and energies of assured consciousness, for, when he turned down the Kerkhoflaan and left the Kerkhof, the cemetery, behind him, on one side, he knew quite well that there lay in it a blue woman who had been dragged out of the Kanaal by policemen; but he also knew, with equal certainty, that, up in the sky above, the express flew and flew over the body of his dragon and along its every curve; and he also knew that he was now standing outside Van der Welcke's villa: so small a house, such a toy-house that Gerrit's head stuck out above the roof of it and that his own voice sounded to him like distant thunder as he asked the person who opened the door:
"Telegram? From your master and mistress? Telegram?"
He did not at once recognize who was at the door nor at once understand the reply:
"Telegram? Telegram?" he repeated.
And the thunder of his voice sounded distant and dull compared with the rattle of the express-train right through the sky.
"What do you say?" he now repeated. "What do you say?"
"Uncle, are you ill?" asked Addie.
"Ill? Ill? No, I'm not ill, my boy. But ... telegram? Telegram?"
"Papa and Mamma will be back to-morrow morning; they're bringing Henri's body with them, Uncle; and they're bringing Emilie; and I've been to the undertaker's ... to arrange to have the body fetched at the station at once.... I've seen to everything.... And I must go to all the uncles now: to Uncle Karel and Uncle Saetzema.... I've telegraphed to Otto; I don't know if Aunt Bertha will come or not.... It's very sad, Uncle, and it'll be very sad for Grandmamma when she knows everything: Henri ... Henri was murdered; he was drunk, it seems; and...."
"He drowned himself and he was quite blue?..."
"No, Uncle, he was murdered: stabbed with a dagger.... Mamma is bearing up, Papa writes, but she is terribly overwrought ... on Emilie's account also. Emilie is quite beside herself. Papa fortunately is keeping calm: he is doing all that has to be done; he has been to the legation.... But, Uncle, you're not at all well; you're shivering; you've caught a chill. Oughtn't you to go home and get into bed?..."
"Yes, yes, I'm going home."
"Then you'll be better in the morning...."
"Yes, of course, of course.... I shall be better...."
"Then will you come to the station too, early to-morrow morning, and meet the train from Paris?"
"To-morrow morning early ... yes, certainly, certainly...."
"You oughtn't to have gone out."
"No, no ... but I'm going home now ... going to bed.... Good-bye. To-morrow morning early."
"Good-bye, Uncle."
Gerrit went away.
Above the Woods, on one side, the low sky sank lower and lower, heavy with grey clouds, such heavy grey clouds that they did not seem light enough to continue hovering there, seemed bound to fall ... and to Gerrit they were, in the dim hues of his fevered vision, like purple pieces falling from the dragon's body, which was cut up by the express. The whole sky was full of purple dragon's blood; and it now streamed down like pouring rain. The blood streamed in a violent downpour and appeared intent upon drowning everything....
Gerrit had now turned in the direction of the cemetery; and, impelled by instincts and forces outside himself, he walked in and, vaguely, asked the porter some question, he did not know what. The man seemed to understand him, however, and led the way: Gerrit followed ... brrr, brrr!... Nevertheless, it was as though his fever abated; and, in that sudden cooling, he all at once felt and knew the truth. It must be so: it wasshe. The water, the policemen,she. Who else could it be?... He walked on, following the porter....
On either side, the silent graves, with their tombstones, the lettering blurred and melancholy in the rain.... Yonder, on the left, the family-grave. Gerrit recognized it in the purple rain of dragon's blood: a sombre mausoleum of brick, like a small house; and it looked larger to him than the toy-villa of just now. What a huge building it was, that family-tomb of theirs! It was like a great palace: it would be able to contain all their dead within its walls. For the present, Papa was living alone there, quietly; but he was waiting, waiting for all of them, waiting for all of them ... until the shadows had deepened into thick darkness around all of them and they came to him, in that huge sepulchral palace.... Lord, Lord, how small he was now: he was walking like a dwarf past the tomb, which stuck its steeple into the clouds, high as a cathedral....
What was that strangeness in the air?... How long had he been walking?... Was life no longer ordinary?... Were there not, as usual, houses, people, things: the barracks ... his children ... Adeline?... Who was that man who went before and led the way?... Was it a real man, that porter?... Or was it a dead man, walking?... Wasn't everything dead here?... Was it morning or was it evening?... Was it life or death?... Was he alive or was he dead?... Brrr, how cold he felt again!... Was that the cold of death?... What was this building which they now entered?... What a huge place!... Was it a church or was it only a tomb?... Where was he and why was he alone, alone with that dead man, that ghost showing him the way?... Where on earth was Constance and where was Van der Welcke?... Hadn't they brought it back from Paris, Pauline's blue body?... Was that Pauline?...
The coffin was open, covered only with a sheet; he lifted it, the sheet.... Brrr, brrr, how cold he was!... He remembered: Paris; yes, yes, he remembered: Paris; poor fellow; poor Henri!... But this, this wasn't Henri.... Who was it, who could it be?... Wasn't it Henri the policemen found?... What had become of those policemen?... When was it he met some policemen?... It was years since he met those policemen ... and her body had turned quite blue.... What was the matter now?... What was that porter saying, hovering round him like a ghost?...
Yes, everything was dead, for the shivering cold which he felt could only be the cold shiver of death....
Blue, was she blue?... The man lifted a corner of the sheet: Gerrit saw a face, pale as that of a mermaid whose features had blossomed up out of the icy stillness of a tragic pool.... The eyes were open.... What sad golden eyes those were!.... Had they not always laughed ... with golden gleams of mockery?... Then why did he now for the first time see them weeping ... in death ... see them mournfully staring ... in death?... Had they never laughed?... Had they always gazed mournfully ... even though they gleamed golden and mocked ... or seemed to ... seemed to?... Then what was real?... Was everything ... was everything dead then?... Did he ... dead ... want to bring her his gift ... what she had asked for so strangely ... the portrait ... the portrait of his children?... He had it here: he felt it lying on his chest ... hard and heavy ... like a plank, like a plank.... He had it here....
"Gerrit, dear, are you coming?"
Who was calling him from so very far away?... Wasn't it his sister?... His favourite sister?...
"Come along, Gerrit!"
Who were those calling him away from that woman?... What were those voices, which he vaguely recognized?... Was it not the voice of his favourite sister, was it not the voice of her husband, of the two of them, who had brought Pauline's body back from Paris?... Yes, he recognized them, it was....
"Come on, Gerrit, old man, you're not well.... What are you doing here, beside this woman, beside this corpse? She's all blue, drowned in the lake in the Bois de Boulogne.... Did you know the woman?..."
Yes, yes, he had known the woman....
"Come along, old chap!"
"Gerrit, dear, won't you come?"
"Constance," whispered Gerrit, "you brought her from Paris...."
"Beg pardon, sir?" asked the porter.
"Yes, there she lies, there she lies, dead...."
"Gerrit, come away!" cried the voices.
"Lay your flowers over her now!... Constance, lay your flowers over her.... She is lying so cold and all alone ... and it is all so big here ... big as a church ... she is lying ... as if in a cold, damp church.... Lay flowers beside her...."
"What do you say, sir?"
"Yes ... lay flowers beside her ... lay flowers beside her ... Constance...."
"Won't you come away now?"
"Yes, yes, I'm coming...."
There, there she lay ... covered all over, with the sheet. She was nothing but a blue, motionless woman's shape ... under a sheet. Now ... flowers lay over the sheet: all the white flowers of his imagination. Now his fingers tore into little pieces the plank which he carried on his heart and strewed them in between the flowers: into such little, little pieces that they were as the petals of flowers ... and nothing more ... over the woman....
The voices called him.
"Yes, yes, I'm coming ... I'm coming...."
The voices lured him home, to bed; and he jogged on through the streets raining with dragon's blood....
When he reached home, Adeline at once sent for the doctor.... It was typhoid fever.
Next morning, in a mist, a drizzly mist, the relations met at the railway-station: Otto van Naghel; Karel; Van Saetzema; Uncle Ruyvenaer, just back from India; Paul; Addie. They moved about, in the waiting-room, on the platform, with gloomy faces and upturned coat-collars, waiting for the train, which was late, which would not arrive for another quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.
"Does Grandmamma know about it yet?" Uncle Ruyvenaer asked Addie.
"No, Uncle. No one liked to tell her. I believe the uncles and aunts would really prefer to keep it from her altogether."
"That's impossible."
"I think it would be very difficult, Uncle. Grandmamma might hear it from an outsider.... She has friends who call to see her."
"Is Emilie coming?"
"Yes, Uncle. She'll stay with us."
"Is Uncle Gerrit very ill?"
"Yes, Uncle, very ill indeed."
"Does Grandmamma know he's ill?"
"No."
"The children are now all out of the house, aren't they? We've got Alex and Guy with us."
"And we have Adèletje, Gerdy and Constance. The three little ones are at Otto's: Louise came and fetched them. Marietje is with Aunt Adolphine."
"Has Aunt Adeline any one to help her?"
"There are two male nurses, Uncle. Uncle Gerrit is very violent in his delirium."
"Oughtn't the train to be here soon?"
"It's overdue now."
"It's a very sad affair. And how people will talk! Yes, how people will talk! Lord, Lord, how they're going to talk!"
"Here comes the train, Uncle."
The train steamed slowly into the station, like a grey ghost of a train through the ghostly, drizzling mist; and the waiting relations saw Constance, Van der Welcke and Emilie get out, Emilie leaning heavily upon Constance. Then came the dreary, dreary task of taking possession of the coffin. The hearse was waiting outside. And it all went as in a dream, in the ghostly, drizzling mist....
"How people will talk!" Uncle Ruyvenaer whispered to Karel and Van Saetzema, with whom he was sitting in the second coach.
"Yes, it's a damned rotten business."
"It's not over-respectable...."
"Having a nephew who becomes a clown...."
"And then, it seems, goes and gets murdered in Paris...."
"For a girl?"
"Yes ... some obscure story about a girl ... in Paris."
"I thought he had committed suicide?"
"We really don't know anything. Constance wrote no particulars."
"In any case, it's not over-respectable."
"I call it a damned rotten business."
"Constance has gone on ahead with Emilie."
"Yes. What a sight Emilie looked!"
"Very odd, that sister and brother."
"Yes, it was because ofhimthat she left her husband. And now—no doubt through his own imprudence—stabbed, I suppose...?"
"Unless he committed suicide."
"Van Raven, after all, was a decent fellow."
"Van Raven? I believe you! Van Raven was averydecent fellow."
"Those young Van Naghels never had a sensible bringing-up...."
"No, I bring my boys up very differently."
"Ah, but then they're fine boys!"
"Is Van der Welcke in the first coach?"
"Yes, with Otto, Paul and Addie."
"Then why did they put us in the second coach?"
"Perhaps it was a mistake."
"I daresay, but it's not the thing. Uncle ought to be in the first coach."
"Yes; and you too, Karel."
"Yes; and you too, Saetzema, of course."
"Well ... I daresay it's a mistake. The thing wasn't arranged...."
"No; but when Van der Welcke has to arrange a thing...!"
"It was that young bounder who arranged things."
"Addie?"
"Of course."
"Oh, so that young bounder arranged things!"
"Look here, what are we to say to Mamma?"
"Well, I don't intend to mention it. For that matter, I know nothing."
"Nor I. The women had better do it."
"But they're too much upset."
"The best thing will be not to say anything."
"Yes, it's best not to say anything to Mamma."
"Lord, what a day!... And to have to ride for an hour in this weather at a foot's pace ... behind the body of an undergraduate who has been sent down from Leiden and must needs run away to Paris with his sister and become a circus-clown...."
"And go getting murdered into the bargain! But we mustn't tell anybody that. No, no, we won't speak about it. We'll merely say that he was taken ill. After all, it's a rotten incident ... for us."
"Yes, it's very rotten for us."
"Lord, Lord, how people will jabber!"
"Of course they will."
"Of course they will."
"If things con-tin-ue likethis...Ishall leave theHague," said Karel. "Ca-teau said sotoo."
He copied his wife's voice: he always copied her voice, unconsciously, when he talked about her.
"Are we nearly there?"
"No such luck!"
"Lord, what a day!..."
"How people will talk!..."
The carriage containing Constance had driven on ahead of the procession. Emilie leant against her, feebly and listlessly, without speaking or hearing. When they approached the Kerkhoflaan, Emilie said:
"Auntie ... it's just stupid chance...."
"What, dear?"
"Is this life? My life has never been anything but stupid chance! The little pleasure I had ... and the sorrow ... was all stupid chance! I am now so miserable; and it's all ... all stupid chance!... Oh, Auntie, I shall never be able to live ... not now, when Henri's death will always ... will always haunt me like an accusing ghost!... Auntie ... do other people have so much stupid chance in their lives?... If I hadn't gone to Paris!... If Henri had not ... oh, I can't say it, I can't say it! Auntie, we shall never know! It'stooawful, what happened! I can never tell you ... what I think!"
"My darling, I suspect it!"
"Oh, it's awful, awful! Uncle suspects it too ... so they do at the legation.... It's awful, awful!... He's disappeared: Eduard, I mean.... It was a mere accident: we were walking together, Henri and I, when we ... when we met Eduard.... They looked at each other.... They hated each other.... Then he walked on ... but we met him again later.... Then, in the evening, when I came home ... and found Henri ... lying in his blood...!"
She flung herself back with a scream.
"Auntie, Auntie, we know nothing!... But the suspicion willalwaysbe with me! I shall always see it like that! Oh, Auntie, Auntie, help me ... and keep me with you always, always!..."
She closed her eyes in Constance' arms, too weak to face her life, which had changed from fantastic humour into tragedy.... The carriage suddenly, stopped, in the Kerkhoflaan; Truitje opened the door; Constance made a sign to her to ask no questions. She herself, on the other hand, asked:
"How is Mr. Gerrit doing?"
"Not at all well, ma'am."
"Where are the children?"
"They're in the dining-room, ma'am, playing: it's easier there for me to keep an eye on them."
Constance opened the door of the dining-room, with her arm round Emilie. She saw Gerdy and Constant; but, just as in the drawing-room at home, they had hidden behind a sofa standing aslant, where they were quietly playing at father and mother, worshipping each other like a little husband and wife, two small birds in a little nest.
"Peek-a-boo!" said Constance, mechanically.
They were quiet at first and then burst into chuckles, crept out, kissed Auntie and Emilie:
"Auntie," asked Gerdy, "is Papa ill?"
"Yes, darling."
"Will Papa get betterverysoon?"
"Oh, yes, dear!"
"Are we staying with you long?"
"No, not very long, darling."
And Constance did not know why, but she suddenly saw the children staying on; and this vision was mingled with a vague impression of the gloomy house at Driebergen. She thought that her brain must be very tired in her head, that she was sleeping while awake, dreaming as she moved about. Everything before her was confused: that terrible day in Paris; Henri's body; the mystery about the whole affair, with the dark, half-uttered suspicions; the formalities; the legation; the journey back: oh, she was dead-tired, dead-tired!... Oh, that coffin, that coffin!... And in the middle of it all a letter from Addie: Uncle Gerrit seriously ill; the children ordered out of the house; he was taking Gerdy and Constant and giving them his room: he was sure Mamma would approve.... Oh, how dead-tired, how dead-tired she was!...
"Auntie," said Constant, "Truitje has been so kind: she made us a lovely rice-pudding...."
"But we'd rather be at home!" said Gerdy.
And the children suddenly began to cry. Constance took them in her arms, pressed them to her:
"You would be just a little in Mamma's way," she said, with a dead voice. "Mamma must look after Papa...."
And she dropped almost fainting into a chair.
"Aunt Constance!" Emilie sobbed: "Aunt Constance, let me ... let me ... stay with you!... Let me stay with you!... Where ... where could I go?"
She sobbed wildly, huddled on the floor against Constance' knees. The children were also crying. Constance had put one arm round Emilie and held the children in the other. It was very gloomy out of doors. Indoors, life's tragedy lay heavy upon them.
The gigantic beast wriggled through the sky, from end to end of the vast sky. The beast wobbled the point of its tail slowly up and down over the earth: in the room, above the bed, which had become a narrow coffin; and, commencing with that wobbling tail, the beast's body wound up and up, filling the room and the house with one mighty contortion of monstrous dragon's scales and sweeping away with its tangible reality all the dreamy unreality of the room and the house, the ceilings and roofs. With thousands of legs the beast humped its sinuous body over the chimney-stacks and church-steeples, slung itself wriggling round the church-steeples and chimney-stacks like a festoon of scales, which then turned into a long, dense chain of clouds, filling the sky with great cloud-eddies, which whirled and whirled over the town and through the sky, from end to end of the vast sky. And the monstrous beast now lifted its long crocodile's jaws out of its own winding clouds; and its eyes belched forth fire like volcanoes; and shafts of flame shot like lightning-flashes from its darting tongue: shafts darting to such a length from the very high expanse, right up there, up there, from the sky above the clouds, that they shot through the man in one second and retreated and hid themselves again in the abyss of the dragon's mouth, from such a height indeed that they shot quicker than lightning right down to his marrow, licking it until it dried up; and, after each burning lick, after each dab of fire, the lightning-quick, darting flame, the miles-long shaft withdrew to its own source and birthplace in the deep funnel of the fiery jaws. And the martyred man shivered under the dabbing lick; and in his shivering he raised himself high as though upon waves of trembling, as though his fever were a stormy sea that bore him away from his bed high above the clouds, the clouds that were the windings of the beast's body.... And, as he rose, as the man rose, the beast set up all its stiff bristles, which stuck out between its scales like trees, stuck them up and drew them in again, until the whole sky, the whole vast stretch of sky, was all the time growing full of tree-trunks, straight forests of dragon's bristles which swarmed and vanished, swarmed and vanished as the beast put them out or drew them in.... And the point of the beast's bristly, scaly tail flicked with such oppressive weight upon the chest of the man who lay in the bed which was a coffin that the man moaned and groaned and tried with both hands to lift that heavy, flicking tail from his crushed heart.... But the beast grinned with its cavernous jaws, shot fire from the volcanoes of its eyes, darted swiftly up and down the miles-long fiery trail of its all-penetrating tongue, split into myriad needles of fire, and with long voluptuous licks sucked away the man's marrow, until the man, all shivering and shaking, was scorched and roasted and shrivelled within.... The beast left him no blood, licked up his marrow and blood and poured fire into him instead. When the beast smacked its lips voluptuously, when it greedily swallowed the blood and the marrow, when the man thought that he was dying, then the beast pricked him with a needle of its fiery tongue and goaded him to shivering-point; and the man shivered and raised himself high upon the waves with his shivering, as though his fever were a stormy sea....
Thus the man lay twisting and tossing, till he put out his hands towards the demon and tried to fight the beast with human hands.... And it seemed to him as if he were flinging his hands, the hands of a brave man and a martyr and a hero, around the beast; and, while the stormy sea, the sky, which was churned into billows by the contortions of the beast, bore him up and up and up, he fought and wrestled with the ever more violently writhing and coiling beast; and the beast humped its way through the sombre universe of clouds, shooting out its thousands of feet; its head was now here, now there; its tail flicked now high, now low; the beast lashed earth and sky; the beast became one vast, dizzying whirl, with town, spires, roofs and chimney-stacks all whirling in it; the bed which was a coffin was now here, now there, now high, now low; and he fought and wrestled and twisted round the beast and the beast round him; and he would not let himself be conquered by the beast. Until the beast from out of the volcano of its eyes and the abyss of its jaws belched so much fire that the sky was a sea of blood-fire wherein a hell of faces flamed—faces of women and children: naked women with eyes of gold; bright children with flaxen hair—like a sudden flowering of tortured affections, of tortured passions, all blossoming up in the blood-fire into faces of laughing and crying children and ogling siren-mermaids; and through it all and through them all the man writhed and wrestled with the wrestling, writhing beast, which could not free itself from him, even as he could not free himself from the beast....
"Gerrit, dear Gerrit," voices sounded, soft-murmuring, earthly voices, voices from far below,
"Gerrit, dear, are you coming?"
And he answered:
"Yes ... yes ... I'm coming...."
And he, the man heaving up and down, down and up, on the mighty swaying of the storm, down and up, up and down, he, this heaving, wrestling man, one with the beast and the beast one with him, saw a woman, between the faces of children and women, saw two women, two women belonging to him: his wife and his sister. But in between them crept a third woman; and her eyes mocked like golden eyes of mockery ... until suddenly they ceased to mock and died away in sadness, in unutterable sadness, as though really they had always been sad and had never mocked or laughed.
"Gerrit ... dear Gerrit ... are you coming?"
"Yes ... yes ... I'm coming...."
"He's delirious," whispered Constance.
The room around the sick man had now become as glass, but not transparent glass. For he no longer, through the walls of the room, saw the universe and the beast: he saw nothing now save the room; but so brittle was that room, so brittle all the things which it contained that it seemed to be all of glass—the room, the bed and he—all glass, all brittle glass, which a single incautious movement might shiver into dust. Yes, now that the beast had sucked up all his marrow with that voluptuous licking, it had let him go, left him lying exhausted on his bed; and he lay, his glass body lay powerless to move; and, now that, after a long time, he had laboriously opened his eyes and saw his room around him as glass and felt himself as glass, he knew that the beast would no longer dart the fiery shafts of his tongue, because it had eaten the whole of him up. His body lay lifeless, like a glass husk; and he asked himself if he wasn't dead. He did not know for certain that he was alive. He saw that the room was very quiet; beside him, in the glass atmosphere of his room, sat a man, who also seemed made of brittle glass; and the man sat motionless: he seemed to be sitting with a book in his hand, reading in the glassy twilight that filtered through the close-drawn window-curtains....
The sick man laboriously closed his eyes again; and it seemed to him that he sank away very slowly, into a great, downy abyss, lower and lower, a very depth of down, into which he sank and went on sinking, sank and went on sinking....
"There's less fever now," said the military doctor. "He's asleep."
"Is he out of danger?" asked the pale little wife, who sat with Constance' arms around her.
"Yes.... You would be wise to take a rest, mevrouw."
"I can't ... I can't...."
"Go and get some sleep, Adeline," said Constance. "I'll stay in the room with Gerrit; and the nurse will keep a good watch."
"He looked round for a moment very peacefully, before he fell asleep," said the male nurse by Gerrit's bedside.
"Go and get some sleep, Adeline...."
How long the sick man sank and sank and sank in the downy abyss no one knew.... At last he opened his eyes again and looked into the room and saw the quiet attendant sitting on a chair at the foot of his bed, where he also saw a woman standing:
"Constance," the sick man murmured.
He tried to smile because he knew her, but he felt too weak to smile.
Another woman appeared beside the first: he knew her too, but it was as though she were dead....
"Line," murmured the sick man.
"He knows us," whispered Constance.
Gerrit made progress every day. He was now so much better that he sat in a big chair, sat dozing until he sank away in the downy abyss and fell asleep in his chair. He was now so much better that he was able to speak a few words to the two women and the doctor and the nurse; and his first question was:
"The children...?"
He had understood that they were not there and that he would not see them just yet.
He was now so much better that he remembered his recent life and asked:
"Pauline...?"
And he saw that they did not understand. Why they did not understand he failed to see, for, when he asked after the children or Mamma, they always understood and answered kindly, telling him that Mamma and the children were well.
Then he asked:
"Your husband, Constance...? Your boy...?"
And Constance answered that they were well.
Then he asked:
"Pauline...?"
And she gave a gentle, smiling nod.
Yes, of course, she understood now, told him that Pauline was well.
Yes, yes, he remembered: Mamma, the children, Pauline.... They were as ghosts in his empty memory, looming up and making him ask questions of the women around him. But, apart from that, his memory was one vast emptiness, like an empty universe, now that the beast had vanished into space ... into nothingness ... into nothingness....
He had no marrow left: the beast would not eat him up any more. There was no centipede rooting at his carcase now. Lord, Lord, how done he felt, how utterly done for!...
He now recognized his doctor:
"Ah, is that you, Alsma?"
"Well, Van Lowe, do you recognize me?"
"Yes, yes.... Didn't I recognize you before?"
"No ... once or twice you didn't know who I was.... Well, you'll soon be all right again now. You're getting better every day...."
"Yes, yes ... but...."
"What?"
"I feel very queer ... damned queer...."
"Yes, you're a bit weak still...."
"A bit weak?..."
He gave a grin. He felt his arm, thought it odd that he couldn't find his biceps:
"Where's the thing got to?" he asked. "Is it gone?..."
"No, you'll get your strength back all right.... It doesn't take long, once you're well again."
"Oh, it doesn't take long?"
"No, you'd be surprised...."
"I say, Alsma, can't I see my children ... just for once?..."
"No, it would tire you a bit.... Later on, later on...."
"I say, do you know what's so rotten? I don't know ... all sorts of things ... whether I've been dreaming ... or not...."
"Don't worry about it. That'll all come right ... bit by bit, bit by bit...."
"A lake full of white-faced mermaids: that's rot, eh?... An express-train: was I away, shortly before my illness? I wasn't, was I?... The body ... of a girl: did I see that?... A snake-thing, a great wriggling snake-thing: yes, that snake-thing was there all right; I fought the thing.... I believe it was all rot ... except the great snake-thing, which licked me up ... with its tongue...."
"You mustn't talk so much."
"... Because I always used to feel that snake-thing inside me ... always...."
"Come, Van Lowe ... keep very quiet now ... and rest ... rest...."
The sick man sank away, sank away in the downy abyss....
Gerrit made progress every day. He was now so much better that he had walked across the room, on Constance' arm, and just seen his two boys, only for a moment, because he longed for them so:
"The others too," he said.
The next day they brought Marietje and Gerdy and Constant to him; the day after that, the four others.... He had now seen them all:
"But for such a short time!" he said.
He recovered slowly. He had seen Van der Welcke and Addie; and, one pale, wintry, sunny day, he had been out for a little while, but the outside world made him giddy. Still he couldn't deny it: he was getting better. He saw his mother; and, when she saw him, she forgot that he had been ill:
"Where have you been, Gerrit?..."
"Laid up, Mamma."
"Laid up?..." The old woman nodded wisely. "You haven't been ill, have you?"
"Just a little, Mamma. It wasn't very bad...."
And he got better, he made progress. He went out walking, with his wife, with Constance, with Van der Welcke. He went out with his nephew Addie; the outside world no longer made him giddy. On his walks, he recognized brother-officers; one day, he met the hussars:
"Oh, damn it all!" he swore, without knowing why.
It was as though he suddenly saw that he would never again ride, straight-backed, clear-eyed, at the head of his squadron. But it was all rot, seeing that....
Still he was unable to resume his service. He lazed and loafed, as he said. In the evenings, always very early, he sank away into a downy abyss, dropped asleep, heavily....
And he no longer remembered things:
"I say, Constance."
"What is it, Gerrit?"
"When I saw that girl ... in the cemetery ... were you there too and did you call me?..."
"No, Gerrit. You've been dreaming."
"Oh, did I dream that?"
"Yes."
"No, no."
"Yes, Gerrit, you dreamt it."
Another time, he said to Van der Welcke:
"I say, Van der Welcke."
"What is it, Gerrit?"
"You don't know ... but I was carrying on with a girl ... one I knew in the old days.... Find out what's become of her, will you?"
"What's her name and where does she hang out?"
He reflected:
"Her name ... her name's Pauline."
"And where does she live?"
"In ... in the Frederikstraat."
Van der Welcke made enquiries, but said nothing, next time he came. The sick man remembered, however:
"I say, Van der Welcke."
"Yes, Gerrit?"
"Did you ask about that for me?"
"Yes," Van der Welcke answered, hesitatingly.
"Well?"
"The girl's dead, old chap."
"Did she drown herself?"
"Yes."
"They took the body to the cemetery?"
"Yes."
"Oh, then I wasn't dreaming! You see for yourself.... And your wife came and fetched me there...."
"No, no."
"Yes, she did."
"No, no, old chap."
The sick man reflected:
"I no longer know," he said, "what I've lived and what I've dreamed. The confounded snake-thing: that ... that was real. It had been eating me up ... eating me up since I was a boy...."
He grew very gloomy and sat for hours and hours, silently, in his chair ... until he sank into the downy abyss.
It was time that he became the old Gerrit again, bit by bit, you know, bit by bit. The weeks dragged past and the weeks became months and it was time that he became the old Gerrit again, bit by bit, you know, bit by bit. His doctor wouldn't hear yet of his resuming his service; but he saw his pals daily: the officers looked him up, fetched him for a walk; and in their company he tried to go back to his breezy, jovial tone, his rather broad jokes, all the noisy geniality which had characterized the great, yellow-haired giant that he had been. And it was all no use. He had grown thin, his cheeks were hollow, his flesh hung loosely on his bones and he was soon tired and, above all, soon giddy....
But the rottenest part of it was that he didn't remember things. No doubt he felt that, by degrees, with the diet prescribed for him, which Adeline observed so conscientiously, he would be able to strengthen his carcase a bit; he even took up his dumb-bells once, in his grief at the disappearance of those grand muscles of his; but he very soon put the heavy weights down again. Then he smacked his emaciated thighs and, despite his inner conviction, yielded to a feeling of optimism:
"Oh, well!" he thought. "That'll get right again in time!"
But the rottenest part of it was that he no longer remembered things—he was ashamed of that above all, he did not want it noticed—and that everybody noticed it. Then he would sit in a chair by the fire—it was a raw, damp January, cold without frost—and his thoughts stared out idly before him, with a thousand roaming eyes, his idle thoughts. They hung heavily in his brain, filling it, like clouds in a sky.... He would sit like that for hours, with a newspaper or an illustrated weekly: French comic picture-papers, which Van der Welcke brought him to amuse him. He hardly laughed at the jokes, only half understood them, sat reading them stupidly. And, in his turgid brain full of clouds, full of those idle thoughts, an immense, world-wide melancholy descended, a leaden twilight. The twilight descended from the sky outside and it descended from his own brain.... Then everything became chilly around him and within him; and, above all, memory was lost. Since the beast no longer held him in its clutching dragon's claws, since the thousand-legged crawling thing had devoured all his marrow with voluptuous licks, since it had perhaps sucked up his very blood: since then it had left him like an empty house, with soft muscles and flabby flesh; and he almost longed to have the beastly thing back, because the beast had given him the energy to fight against the beast: for himself, in order to conquer; for others, in order to hide himself. The beast had conquered, the beast had eaten him up. It wanted no more of him; the great dragon-worm had disappeared. It no longer wound through the skies; and nothing more hung in the skies but twilight-distilling clouds.... Oh, the creepy, chilly twilight! Oh, the all-pervading mist, dank and clammy all round him! He shivered; and the fire no longer warmed him. He crept up to it, he could have crept into it; and the glowing, open fire no longer warmed him.
"Line, ring for some wood: I want to see flames; this coke's no use to me."
Then he heaped up the logs until Adeline feared that he would set the chimney on fire.
Or else Constance would come to fetch him, wanted him to go for a walk.
"No, dear, it's too chilly for me outside."
He remained sitting in what to the others was the unendurable heat of the blazing fire. He shivered. He shivered to such an extent that he asked:
"Line, send in the children."
"But, Gerrit, they'll only tire you."
"No, no ... I'm longing to see them."
They would come in; and, when the others came home from school, he would gather them round him and try to play with them, teasing and tickling them now and again. It tired him, but they were something warm around him: more warmth radiated from a single one of them than from his glowing log-fire.
"How many have I?" he reflected, groping in his memory, which fled in front of him with winged irony.
And he counted on his fingers. He was not quite certain. Until he saw them all gathered round him and had counted them on his fingers, silently—Marie, Adèletje, Alex, Guy—he did not always remember that he had nine. The children were very sweet: Marie saw to his oatmeal, which he had to take at five in the afternoon; the cheeky boys were very attractive. But he suffered because little Gerdy, the child with such a passion for caresses, had become afraid of him. She shrank back timidly from him, thinking him strange, that thin, emaciated father whom she used to embrace in her little childish arms as a strong father, a great, big father who tossed her up in the air and caught her again and romped with her and kissed her. She had become frightened of his long, lean fingers and looked in dismay at the hands that gripped her with the fingers of a skeleton. He noticed it and no longer asked her to come to his room, now that he saw that she shuddered when she sat on his thin legs and that she disliked the big fire, which made her frown angrily and draw in her little lips. But it hurt him, though he said nothing.
But what hurt him most was ... that he did not remember things. It was as though daily the twilight deepened around him, around his soul, which shuddered in his chilly, shuddering body. One day, Constance said:
"We have good news from Nunspeet...."
But Gerrit remembered nothing about Nunspeet; still he did not wish to show it:
"Really?" he said.
Nevertheless she saw it in his blank look.
"Yes," she continued, "Ernst is a great deal better. I shall go and see him again to-morrow."
He now remembered all about Ernst and Nunspeet, but yet he was ashamed of his recent lack of memory and his hollow cheeks almost flushed....
A week later, Ernst came to see him, with Constance. He was so much improved that the doctor himself had advised him to go to the Hague for a few days; he was staying with the Van der Welckes. His hallucinations had almost vanished; and, when Gerrit saw him, it struck Gerrit that Ernst was looking better, his complexion healthier, probably through the outdoor life, his hair and beard trimmed; and his eyes were not so restless, while he himself was neatly dressed, under his sister's care.
"Well, old chap," said Gerrit, "so you've come to look me up?... That's nice of you.... I'm a bit off colour. And you...?"
"I'm much better, Gerrit."
"I'm glad of that. And those queer notions of yours: what about them?"
Ernst gave an embarrassed laugh:
"Yes," he confessed, shyly. "I did have queer notions sometimes. I don't think I have any now. But I am staying on at the doctor's. I've only come up for a day or two.... I've seen my rooms again."
"You have, have you?... And your vases?"
"Yes, my vases," said Ernst, greatly embarrassed.
"And all the voices that you used to hear, Ernst ... all the souls that used to throng round you, old chap: you don't feel them thronging now, you don't hear them any longer?"
Gerrit tried to put on his genial bellow and to poke fun at Ernst about the vases and the souls, as he used to; but it was no good. He lay back in his chair, by the big fire; and his idle thoughts stared before him.
"No," Ernst answered, quietly. "I only hear the voices now and again; and I no longer feel them thronging so much, Gerrit.... And you've been very ill, haven't you?" he added, quietly.
"Yes, old chap."
"You're getting better, eh?"
"Yes, I'm getting better now. My carcase can stand some knocking about. I'm glad you're better too...."
Constance made a sign to Ernst: he got up, good and obedient as a child. And they left Gerrit alone.
Adeline was sitting in the other room, with both doors open, because Gerrit's big fire was too much for her and also because she didn't want the children to be running in and worrying him.
"Ernst is looking well," she said, glancing up at him.
Then her hands felt for Constance' hands and she began to cry, sobbing very quietly lest Gerrit should hear.
"Hush, Adeline, hush!"
"Hewon't get better!"
"Yes, he will, he'll get quite well. Ernst is better too."
"Buthe... he's lost all his strength ... he's so weak!..."
"He'll get well and strong again...."
"What day of the week is it, Constance?..."
"It's Sunday, Adeline.... I'm going with Ernst to Mamma's for a minute or two. How glad Mamma will be to see him!... Are you coming to Mamma's this evening, Sissy?"
Adeline shook her head:
"No," she said, "I can't. I daren't leave Gerrit alone yet...."