Classic Audiobook Collection - Dr. Adriaan by Louis Couperus ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Dr. Adriaan by Louis Couperus audiobook. Genre: drama Set a decade after the earlier novels in Louis Couperus' Small Souls cycle, Dr. Adriaan returns to the dwindling Van Lowe clan as they try to build a livable future inside a dark, overfull country house at Driebergen. Constance van der Welcke and her husband Henri preside over a household crowded with dependents and memories: the aging Mamma van Lowe, restless younger relatives, and Mathilde, whose remarriage has brought a new center of gravity into the family. Everyone awaits the arrival of Mathilde's husband Addie, now Dr. Adriaan - a handsome, fashionable physician with a demanding practice and an unnerving talent for probing the mind as well as the body. As Adriaan moves between sickrooms and drawing rooms, he becomes confidant, healer, and catalyst, drawing out the quiet despairs and unspoken longings that good breeding insists be hidden. The novel follows marriages under strain, children on the cusp of adulthood, and a young womans fragile nerves, all against the wintery stillness of a society edging into a new century. With psychological intensity and social precision, Couperus asks what it costs to be respectable, and what it means to be well - in love, in family, and in soul. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:00:49) Chapter 2 (01:01:07) Chapter 3 (01:18:06) Chapter 4 (01:32:17) Chapter 5 (01:43:06) Chapter 6 (02:05:26) Chapter 7 (02:13:54) Chapter 8 (02:26:40) Chapter 9 (02:37:26) Chapter 10 (03:11:13) Chapter 11 (03:38:00) Chapter 12 (03:53:11) Chapter 13 (04:22:20) Chapter 14 (04:45:17) Chapter 15 (05:01:50) Chapter 16 (05:12:17) Chapter 17 (05:29:14) Chapter 18 (05:44:40) Chapter 19 (06:04:10) Chapter 20 (06:20:40) Chapter 21 (06:28:18) Chapter 22 (06:43:27) Chapter 23 (06:57:34) Chapter 24 (07:02:39) Chapter 25 (07:35:02) Chapter 26 (07:56:36) Chapter 27 (08:08:31) Chapter 28 (08:18:29) Chapter 29 (08:29:08) Chapter 30 (08:42:28) Chapter 31 (09:09:25) Chapter 32 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Translator's note to Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. Dr. Adrian is the fourth and last of the volumes forming the books of the small souls. In it, the reader renews his acquaintance with all the characters that survive from small souls, the later life and the twilight of the souls. Alexander Tischer de Matos Chelsea, 30th of March, 1918.

End of translator's note. Chapter 1 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The afternoon's sky was full of thick, dark clouds, drifting ponderously grey over almost black violet. Clouds so dark, heavy and thick that they seem to creep laboriously upon the east wind for all that it was blowing hard.

In its breath, the clouds now and again changed their watery outline before their time came to pour down in heavy straight streaks of rain. The stiff pine woods quivered, erect and anxious along the road. The tops of the trees lost themselves in a silver-gray air, hardly lighter than the clouds, and dissolving far and wide under all that massive grey-violet and purple-black, which seemed so close and low. The road ran near and went winding past, lonely, deserted and sad.

It was as though it came winding out of low horizons and went on towards low horizons, dipping humbly under very low skies, and only the pine trees still stood up, pointed proud and straight, when everything else was stooping. The modest villa residence, the smaller poor dwellings here

and there stooped under the heavy sky and the gusty wind. The shrubs dipped along the roadside, and the few people who went along, an old gentleman, a peasant woman, two poor children carrying a basket, and followed by a melancholy big, rough-coated dog, seemed to hang their heads low under the solemn weight of the clouds, and the fierce mastery of the wind, which had months ago blown the smile from the now humble, frowning, pensive landscape. The soul of that landscape appeared small and all forlorn in the watery mists of the dreary winter.

The wind came howling along, chill and cold, like an angry spite that was all mouth and breath, and at a leecher, hanging on her aunt's arm, huddled into herself, for the wind blew chill in her sleeves and on her back. Are you cold, dear? "'No, Auntie,' said Adelaucher, softly shivering. Constance smiled and pressed Adelaich's arm close to her.

"'Let's walk a little faster, dear. It'll warm you. And besides, I'm afraid it's going to rain. It's quite a long way to the old ladies and back again. I fear I've tired you. No, Auntie. You see, I didn't want to take the carriage. This way, we do the thing by ourselves, and otherwise everybody would know of it at once. and you must promise me not to talk about it. No, Auntie, I won't.

Not to anybody. Otherwise, there'll be all sorts of remarks, and it's no concern of other people's what we do. The poor old thing was very happy, Auntie, the beef tea and the wine and chicken. Poor little old woman. And so well-mannered and so discreet. Auntie, will Addy be back soon?

He's sure to telegraph. It's very nice. of him to take such pains for Alex. We all of us give Addy a lot of trouble. When do you think he'll come back? I don't know. Tomorrow or the next day. Aren't he? You've been very fidgety lately. My dear, I haven't. Yes, you have. Tell me, has anything happened with Matilda? Has there? No, child. But do keep your little mouth shut now. I'm frightened. The wind's so cold. They walked on in silence, Adelaidecée accommodating her step by Aunt Constance's regular pace. Constance was a good walker, and Addy always said that, leading the outdoor life she did,

Mama grew no older. They had now been living for ten years at Trebergen, in the big old gloomy house, which seemed to be lighted only by themselves, by their affection for one another, but to which Constance had never brought herself to light. hard though she tried. Ten years! How often! Oh, how often she saw them speed before her in retrospect! Ten years! Was it really ten years? How quickly they had passed! They had been full and busy years, and Constance was satisfied with the years that had fleeted by, only she was so distressed that it all went so fast, and that she would be old before. But the wind was blowing too fiercely, and Adelaidea was hanging heavily on her arm. Poor child! She was shivering, how cold she must be. And Constance could

not follow her thoughts. Before, before, well, if she died, there would be Addy, only, no, she couldn't think now, and besides they would be home presently. They would be home, home. "'Home, the word seemed strange to her, and she did not think that right, "'and yet struggle against the singular emotion as she would, "'she could not cure herself of thinking that big house gloomy "'and regretting the little villa in the Kerkof-Lahn at the Hague, "'even though she had never known any great domestic happiness there. "'Still, still one loves the thing that one has grown used to,

"'and was it not funny, but she had grown so fond of that, little house, where she had lived four years, and been disconsolate when, after the old man's death, Van der Velka and Addy too had insisted on moving to the big somber villa at Dreebergen. Fortunately, it was at once lighted by all of them, by their affection for one another. If she had not the consoling brightness of mutual love, oh, it would have been impossible for her to go and live in that dark, gloomy, cavernous villa. the house, among the eternally rustling trees, under the eternally lowering skies. The house was dear to Van der Velka and Addy, because of a strange sympathy, a sense that

their home was there and nowhere else. The father was born in the house and had played there as a child, and the son, strangely enough, cherished the exact same feeling of attraction towards it. Had they not almost forced her to move into the house? Vendavelaela, crying for it like a child, first going there for a few days at a time, and living there with nobody but the decrepit old charwoman who made his bed for him. And then, Addy, following his father's example, fitting up a room for himself, and making constant pretexts that he must go down and have a look among his papers, that he must run down for a book, seizing any excuse that offered.

Then they left her alone, in her house in the Kirchoflarn. That had trees round it too and skies overhead, but it was strange, among those trees in the Hague woods. Under those clouds which came drifting from Schaveningen, she had felt at home, though their little villa was only a house hired on a five-year's lease, taken at the time under Addy's deciding influence. He, quite a small boy then, had gone and seen the fattest estate agent. Oh, how the years, how the years hurried past! To think that it was all so long ago.

Strange, in that lease-old house she had felt at home, at the Hague, among her relations, under familiar skies and among familiar people and things, unyielding though both things and people had often proved. Whereas here, in this house, in this great cavernous, gloomy villa residence, and she had lived in it since the old man's death fully ten years ago, she had always felt, though the house belonged to them as their inheritance, as their family residence, a stranger, an intruder, one who had come there by accident along with her husband and son. She could never shake off this feeling. It pursued her, even to her own sitting-room, which, with its bit of furniture from the Kirkhoflan, was almost exactly the same as her little drawing-room at the Hague.

Oh, how the wind blew, and how Adelaidea was shivering against her. If only the poor child did not fall ill from that long walk. There came the first drops of rain, thick and big like tears of despair. She put up her umbrella and had a leacher pushed still closer, walked right up against her, under the same shelter, so as to feel safe and warm.

The lane now ran straight into the high road, and there, before you, lay the house. It stood in its own big garden, nearly a park, with a pool at the back, like a square melancholy block, dreary and massive. and she could not understand why Van der Velka and Addy clung to it so. Or rather, she did understand now, but she, No, she did not care for the house.

It never smiled to her, always frowned as it stood there, broad and severe, as though imperishable, behind the front garden, with the dwarf rose bushes and standard roses wound in straw, awaiting the spring days. It looked down upon her with its full, front of six upper windows, as with stern eyes which suffered but never forgave her. It was like the old man himself, who had died without forgiving. Oh, she could never have lived there if she had not always remembered the old woman's forgiveness,

that last hour of gentleness by her bedside, the reconciliation, in complete understanding and knowledge, almost articulate, offered at the moment of departure for ever. Then it seemed to her as if she heard the old woman's breaking voice, speak softly to her, and say, Forgive, even though he never forgives, but he will never forgive. And it seemed to her as if she heard that voice, rustling with soft encouragement in the wind, in the trees,

now that she was passing through the garden, while the implacable house looked down upon her with that everlasting, cold frown. It was a strange feeling which always sent a shudder through her for just two or three seconds every time that she went past the roses in their straw wrappings to the great front door, the feeling which had sent a shudder through her the very first time when she alighted from the carriage, after being disowned for years, as a disgrace hidden away in a corner. It was only for two or three seconds. The rain was now splashing down. She closed her umbrella as Troucher opened the door with a glad laugh that my frau had got home before it absolutely poured. And now she was in the long

hall. Oh, what a gloomy hall it was, with the oak doors on either side, the Delph Jugs on the antique cabinet, the engravings and family portraits, and then, at the far end, the one door gloomier than the others, that door which led simply to a small inner staircase for the servants, so that they should not constantly be using the main staircase. But she had not known this until she moved in, and, yielding to an impulse, ran to the somber door which had always stared at her from the far end of that typical Dutch interior as an eternally sealed mystery. Pluckily, playing the mistress of the house who was looking into things, while her husband, heart beat with terror, she had opened the door and seen the staircase, the little staircase

winding up in the dark, to the bedroom floor. And the old charwoman had told her that it was very handy for carrying up water, because there was no water laid on upstairs, a decided fault in the house. Then she had shut the door again and known all about it. A little back stair for the maids, and nothing more. But why had she never opened the door since, never touched the handle? No doubt because there was no need to, because she felt sure that the maids would scrub the small staircase, as well as the big one, on the days set aside for cleaning stairs and passages. Why should she have opened the gloomy door? And she had never opened it since. Once and once only she had seen it open, old Mia had forgotten to shut it, and she had grumbled, had told Troucher that it looked slovenly to leave the door open like that.

She had then seen the little staircase winding up in the dark, its steps just marked with brown stripes against the black of the shadow. But the door went closed, stared at her. She had never told anyone, but the door stared at her, like the front of the house. Yes, in the garden behind the back windows also stared at her, as with eyes, but more gently, sadly, and almost laughingly, with an encouraging and more winsome look, amid the livelier green of the lime-trees which, in summer, surrounded her with their heavy fragrance. Summer, it was November now, with its incessant wind and rain, raging all around and against the house, and rattling on the window-panes until they were, and incessant wind and rain, raging all around and against the house, and rattling on the window-panes, and till they were, shivered. It was a strange feeling, ever and always, though it did last for only two or three seconds. But she could not feel at home there, and yet, during those ten years, her life had sped and sped and sped and sped, it sped on without resting. She was always busy. She had sent Adelaide upstairs to change her things at once, and opened the door of the drawing-room. It felt a little

chilly, she thought, and while she saw her mother sitting quietly in the conservatory, peering out of doors from her usual seat, she went to the stove, moved the cinder drawer to and fro to send the ashes to the bottom, and make the fire glow up behind the mica doors. Aren't you cold out there, mummy? The old woman looked round at the sound of her voice. Constance went into the conservatory and again asked, aren't you cold, mummy? The old woman heard her this time, and Constance stooped over her

and kissed the waxen forehead. It's blowing, said the old woman. Yes, it's blowing like anything, said Constance. You don't feel cold. The old woman smiled with her eyes in her daughters. Won't you rather come and sit inside, Mama? But the old woman only smiled and said, "'The trees are waving from side to side,

"'and just now a branch fell, right in front of the window. "'Yes, Harmel have plenty of work tomorrow. "'There are branches lying all over the place. "'It's blowing,' said the old woman. "'Constance went in, took a shawl, and put it over her mother's shoulders. "'You'll come in, won't you, Mama, if you feel cold?' and she went back to the drawing-room, intending to go upstairs. But voices sounded from the hall and the door was opened.

It was Hedy and Guy. Are you in, Auntie? Are you back at last? Where have you been all the afternoon? Have you been walking with Adel? Come, Auntie, said Guy. Give an account of yourself. He was a well set up, Fairhead boy of 19, tall and broad with a firmest. stash, and she spoilt him because he was like his father. Really, she spoilt them all, each for a

different reason, but Guy could do anything that he pleased with her. He now caught her in his arms, and asked once more, now, auntie, where have you been? And she blushed like a child. She did not mean to say where she had been, but she had not reckoned on his attacking her like this. "'Why, nowhere,' she said, defending herself. "'I've been walking with Adel.' "'No,' said Guy firmly. "'You've been to the little old ladies.' "'Oh, no.'

"'Oh, yes.' "'Come, boy, let me be. "'I want to go up and change. "'Where's Mama?' "'Mama's upstairs,' said Echardy. "'Are you coming down soon again, Auntie? "'Shall I get tea ready? "'Shall I light the lamp?

"'It's jolly, having tea. in a storm like this. All right, dear, do. Will you cab down soon? Yes, yes, at once. She went upstairs, up the wide winding oak staircase. Why did she think, each time the wind blew, of that evening when she had gone up like that,

across the passage, through the rooms, to the great dark bedstead in which the one face of the dying woman showed palely on the pillow. Then, as now, the heavy rain rattled against the windows, and the tall cabinets in the dark passage creaked with those sudden sounds which old wood makes, and which sometimes moaned and reverberated through the house. But one scarcely heard them now, because the house was no longer silent,

because now there were always voices buzzing, and young feet, hurrying in the rooms and along the passages, thanks to all the new life that had entered the house. Ten years, thought Constance, while she put on the light in her room before dressing. Was it really ten years? Immediately after the death of her poor brother, Gerrit, poor Adeline and the children had moved from their house to a cheap pension,

came the death of old Mr. van der Velka, just as she, van der Velka and Adi, going through Gerrit's papers, had come upon this letter. "'Addy, I recommend my children to your care. "'My wife, I recommend to yours, Constance.' "'It was the letter of a sick man, "'mentally and physically sick, "'who already saw death's wings beating before his eyes.

"'And even in that shabby pension, "'Addy had taken charge of the children, "'as though he were their own young father. "'But when the old gentleman died, "'and both van der Velker and Addy insisted on moving to Dribergen, then the boy had stepped forward, boldly, as the protector of those nine children, as the protector of that poor woman, distraught, and utterly crushed by the blow. Even now, while hurriedly changing her dress, so as not to keep them waiting too long downstairs,

Constance still heard her boy say in his calm, confident voice, "'Papa, Mama, we have a big house now, a very big house, we are rich now, we are rich now.' and Aunt Adeline has nothing. The children have only a couple of thousand guilders apiece. They must all come to us now, mustn't they? All come and live with us at Driberen, mustn't they, papa, and mamma? He said nothing beyond those few simple words, and his confident voice was as quiet as though his proposal spoke for itself,

as though it were quite commonplace. What is there to make a fuss about? He had asked, with wide-open eyes. when she fell upon his neck, with tears of emotion and kissed him, her heart swelling with happiness in her child. She had just looked round anxiously at her husband, anxious what he would wish, what he would say to his son's words. There were fewer scenes between them, it was true, much fewer, but still she had thought to herself, what would he say to this? But he had only laughed, burst out laughing with his young laugh like a great boy's,

laughed at all his son's great family, a wife and nine children, whom Addy, at 16, was quietly taking on to himself because his people had money now, at a big house. Since that time, Van der Velker had always chaffed the boy about his nine children, and Addy answered his father's chaff with that placid smile in his eyes and on his lips, as though he were thinking, "'Have your joke, Daddy.

You're a good chap, after all.' And Addy had interested himself in his nine children as calmly as if they were not the least trouble. Then came the move to Dribergen, but Addy remained at the Hague, staying with Aunt's lots for the two years that he still went to school. He came down each weekend, however, by the husband's train.

Van der Velka said, chaffingly, to join his wife and children, and he took a hand in everything in the profitable investment and saving of their two thousand guilders apiece, in their schooling, in the choice of a governess for the girls. He saved Aunt Adeline all responsibility,

his Saturday afternoons and Sundays were filled with all sorts of cares. He considered and discussed and decided. Moreover, Granny, who was now lonely and fallen into her dotage, could no longer be left to live in her big house with no one to look after her, and Constance had easily managed for old Mama to accompany them to Dreebergen. But the old woman had hardly noticed the change. She thought that she was still living in the Alexander Strat sometimes. In the summer she would be living at Boutenzoch in the Vicerigal Palace,

and the children round her went about and talked vivaciously, as she had always known them to do. Emily had refused to leave Constance, and though she sometimes went to stay at Barn, she really lived with them. Emily, so grievously shattered in her young life, so unable to forget Henry's death, that she was as a shadow of her former self, pale and silent, mostly pining in her room, until, from sheer loneliness she went to join the family circle downstairs. Ten years. Ten years had sped like this, sped like fleeting shadows of time, and yet how much had happened. The children growing up, blossoming into young girls and sturdy lads,

Addie studying medicine at Amsterdam, walking the hospitals, until, after passing his examination, the young foster-father at last settled down among them all as a doctor in the great house. at Dreybergen, and then that immense change in their lives, his marriage, his dreadfully premature marriage. Oh, that marriage of her sons! She had had to summon all her deeper wisdom and to clutch it with convulsive hands in order to approve, to approve, and not for a single moment to let herself be dragged along by all the prejudices of the old days, the prejudices of the narrow little circle which she had learnt to scorn in her later life, the life which had become permanent. Now he was really a husband, now he was really a father.

Aunt Constance, do come! It was Gerdie's voice, and it fidgeted her. They were all very nice, certainly, but also they were all very restless, and she was really a woman for loneliness and dreams, had become so, and sometimes felt a need to be able to. quite alone, quite alone, in her room, to lie on her sofa and think, above all things, to think herself back into the years which had sped and sped and sped and sped as fleeting shadows of time. A tripping step came hastening up the stairs, followed by a tapping at the door. "'A auntie, Aunt Constance, I've made tea, that if you don't come it'll be too strong.' She would have liked to tell Gerdi

that she did not care for all that calling out all over the house and through the passages. It always jarred upon her, as though the clear girlish voice profaned that brown indoor atmosphere of the somber old house, which was so full of the past, as though the old people were still living there and might be shocked by all that youthful carelessness and presumption.

But she never did tell her. "'Yes, darling, I'm coming.' She was ready now and turned out the gas. Gerdi ran downstairs again, and Constance found the lamps lit in the drawing room, and Geri very busy with the teapot and teacups. And Constance smiled, for there was a sort of homely piece in this room,

a piece almost of happiness, the lesser happiness which people sometimes find for a brief moment. Maricha, the eldest of the girls, a motherly little soul from childhood, had coaxed Grandma Mar into leaving the conservatory, which was really too cold, had installed her in the back drawing room where the old woman now sat with her shawl round her, her toes on the foot-warmer, her hands trembling in her lap, and her head nodding as though she knew all sorts of things for certain.

Always she sat like that and scarcely spoke, only a few words, quietly living away the last few years of her life, and already looking at the rest in panorama, but quite unconscious of her surroundings. In front of the fire, close together, sat Adeline and Emily, both silent but filled with the strange peace that reigned in both of them, because things around them were so youthful and so bright. For at this hour, all the young people were gathered in the drawing room, all Gerrit's children, except Constant who was 17 and at a boarding school near Arnhem. To Heard is great regret, for she and he had always been together, two good little fair-haired children. Maricha was 22 now, had not grown up pretty, was tall and lank,

fair-haired, really an unattractive girl, though she had a certain lovableness from always caring for others, especially for grandmamma. She had acquired this very early, as the eldest sister, because her mother had at once, and as a matter of course, entrusted her with the care of her little brothers and sisters. Adelaature too was plain, and in addition ailing, and anything but strong with her narrow, shrunk chest, and Constance often wondered that the two elders had become like that, because she remembered them as the two pretty little fair-haired children that they used to be. "'Frail it is true, but rosy-cheeked, sweet little children.'

"'Alex was also there, and he too often surprised Constance, "'when she remembered the naughty rascal that he was, "'now a boy of twenty, pale and sallow, "'with frightened blue eyes, shy, reserved, "'with a trick of giving a sudden glance of terror which made her anxious. "'She did not know why. "'She recognised her brother, Gerrit's most, in Guy, who was tall, fair and broad, as Geritz had been,

but who had always been unmanageable, with not one serious thought in his head. He was 19 years old now, and as undecided about his future as Alex himself. That was Constance's great care, and not only hers, but Addis as well. And van der Velker often chaffed his son that it was not an unmixed joy to be the father of nine children.

If Alex was gloomy now, with that strange look, sometimes of sudden fright in his eyes, Guy was undoubtedly attractive, was genial, pleasant, cheerful, foolish, a great baby and the favourite nephew of Vandeveldca, with whom he went cycling, as Addy never had time now. Adi, the serious man, the young doctor with an increasing practice. Guy called Vandevelka Papa, they got on so well, almost too well together. Fandavelka, who had remained a child for all his 51 years,

delighted in that tall, fair-haired adopted son of Addis, and, jealous as he was of all the earnestness, the labour and care displayed by Adi, who had hardly a moment nowadays to give to his father, he was glad to have found Guy, as though to show Adi. I've got another friend, you know, and I can do without you sometimes. after Guy came Heady, the beauty of the family, an exquisitely pretty girl of 18,

who, with Guy, was the light and laughter of the house. Next, constant, away at boarding school. The two younger boys, Jan and Pete, were fortunately doing well at their lessons, whereas little Clarsha, 12 years old, had remained very backward, and might have been a child of eight, at one time dull and silent, at another wanton, but so silly that she was not yet able to read. Yes, she had all of them there, all Gerrit's children,

she and Adi looked after them, and poor Adeline had come to take it as a matter of course, and never decided anything for herself, and consulted Constance and Addy about everything. The wind outside roared, and a violent rain beat down upon the windows, as though tapping at them with furious, angry fingers.

The drawn blinds, the closed curtains, the lighted lamps, Reddy pouring out the tea with her pretty little ways. It all gave Constance, though she felt tired and would gladly have been alone for once, a caress of soft, homely satisfaction, a velvety sense of being in utter harmony with all around her, even though there was so much trouble, not only with the children, but also sometimes, no little difficulty and misunderstanding with Matilda had his wife. Where was Matilda now? Where were the two children? Gerdie, fussy and fidgety, pretending to be very busy, with a light clatter of her tea things,

had pushed an easy chair nearer to the fireplace, where tongs of flame were darting. She now gave Constance her cup of tea, handed a plate of cakes, and Constance asked, Where's Matilda? Matilda? I don't know, but shall I go and look good. for her. No, never mind, where are the children? In the nursery I expect, shall I send for them to come down? No, dear, it doesn't matter, and Gerdi did not insist. With the wind and rain raging out of doors, it was still and peaceful inside, and, fidgety though Gerdi was, she felt that peaceful stillness and valued it, valued it as they all did. In her heart she hoped that Matilda would not come down before dinner, because whenever Matilda did come down at tea time, something happened,

as though an imp were creeping in between Gerdi's nervous little fingers. She would break a cup, or upset things. Once indeed, she had nearly set the house on fire, because she had tried to blow out the methylated spirit with a furious blast from her exce. sightable little pouting lips. It was very cosy now, if only Matilda would remain upstairs a little longer. And while the wind and the rain raged outside, indoors, there was but the sound of a few gentle phrases uttered in the yellow circles of the lamps which Gerdi had placed so that they shone with an intimate and pleasant coziness.

Old Granny, over in her corner, sat quietly in her great armchair, which she had placed, was like a throne. She did not move, did not speak, but was nevertheless in the picture, thought Gerdi. That waxen face of a very old lady, framed in white hair, the woolen shawl over the shoulders, the motionless dark lines of the gown, and, in the lap, the fine detail of the fingers, quivering fingers, but for which she would have seemed devoid of all motion. Near the fire, Constance was talking with Mama and Emily, and Gerdi did not know why, but something about those three, as they sat talking together, made her feel as if she could suddenly have cried for no reason, because of a touch of melancholy that just grazed against her, like a trouble dating back to former years

and things that were long past. Then Geri made an unnecessary clatter with her teacups and spoons, had could not understand why she was so sensitive. Marie was doing some needlework, and Alex was gloomily reading a book. But Guy was playing backgammon with Adelaicha, making constant jokes in between. The dice were rattled in the boxes and dumped into the board. The men moved with a hard wooden sound over the black and white points.

The dice were rattled again and dumped down again. Five-three. Double six, double four. One more, two, three. And Clasher had come and sat by Aunt Constance, almost creeping into her dress with a very babyish picture book in her hand. She pressed her fair-haired little head comfortably in Aunt's skirts, against Auntie's lap, and had silently taken Auntie's arm and laid it round her neck. Her self, unobserved, she noticed every single thing that's happened, Guy and Adele's backgammon. "'Herdie's fussing with the tea-things,

"'and she listened to Auntie, Mama, and Emily, "'but all the time it was as though she were outside that circle of homeliness, "'as though she were far away from it, "'as though she were hearing and seeing through a haze, "'unconsciously in her slowly awakening little brains, "'the brains of a backward child. "'And so as not to be too far away, "'she too Kant Constance's hand,

"'opened the palm with her fingers, "'and pushed her little. head under it. That made it seem as if she were much nearer. Suddenly the door opened, and everybody gave a little start, soon recovering, however. Matilda had entered, and only Grandmama yonder, more in the background in her dark corner, had remained motionless, with quivering fingers in her lap, white and waxen, trembling in the dark shadow of her dress. But near the fire, Constance Adeline and Emily were silent and remained sitting stiffly, Adeline and Emily without moving. Constance alone forced herself to look round at Matilda. Alex read on,

nervously hunching his shoulders, but Guy rattled his dice, and Adelaicha had a sudden flush on her cheek and turned pale, and Kherdi was the most nervous of all. She suddenly ducked down in front of the fire and began poking it desperately. Do be careful, Grady, said Adeline. You'll set us on fire. The sparks are flying all over the place. Matilda had sat down in the armchair next to Constance, which made Little Clasher feel a bit squeezed,

in between Antie and Matilda, and Matilda's shadow fell across the child's book and prevented her from seeing the pictures, causing such a sudden outburst of temper that before anyone could stop her, she put out both arms convulsively, pushed with her hands against Matilda's chair and cried, Go away! So much enmity was apparent in the child's voice that they all started again, only grandmama in her corner noticed nothing. But Constance recovered herself at once. For shame, Clasher, she said in a chiding tone, you mustn't do that, you know, what makes you

so naughty. But the child pushed against the chair with such force that she pushed it aside with Matilda in it. Go away, she repeated, pale in the face, with wide eyes starting from her head in hatred. Glasha, cried Constance. Stop that at once. Her voice rang harsh and loud through the room. The child looked at her in alarm, understood merely that auntie was angry and burst into loud sobs. Oh, very well, I'll go and sit somewhere else, said Matilda, pretending indifference. She got up and sat beside Emily. Haven't you been out? asked Emily, gently, for the sake of saying something.

Out, in this horrible weather. Where would you have me go? asked Matilda coldly. No, I've had two hours sleep. Hedy, have you any tea left for me? "'Yes, certainly,' said Kherdie, in a forced voice. She poked to the fire once more fiercely. "'But, Kherdie, mind what you're doing,' cried Adeline, terrified, "'for the sparks were flying out of the half. "'Herdie bobbed up from among her skirts

"'and began clattering with her tea-tray. "'Clasha had ceased crying, "'had stopped to the moments that Matilda had moved, "'and was now looking up at Aunt Aunt Constance, and trying to take her hand again. "'No,' said Constance. "'You're naughty.' "'No,' whined the little girl, like a very small child.

"'I'm not naughty.' "'Yes, you are. "'It's not at all nice of you to push Matilda away. "'You must never do that again. "'Do you hear?' "'Oh, let a child be, Mama,' said Matilda wearily. "'The child looked up at Constance "'with such an unhappy expression.

in her face that Constance put her hand on her head again, and at once, forgetting everything, Clasha now looked at her book, and even hummed softly as she showed herself the pictures. Gerdie was pouring out Matilda's tea. There it was again. She had spilt the milk. The tea tray was one white puddle. However, she mopped it up with a tea cloth and now handed the cup to Matilda. Matilda tasted it. Did you put it? Did you put it? any sugar in? Yes, one lump. I never take sugar. Oh, shall I give you another cup? No thanks. Your tea is weak. Gerdi's tea was her pride, always. Tea gets bitter after standing three-quarters of an hour, she said aggressively. Or if you pour water on it, it gets weak. Then I must always

come three-quarters of an hour late, but your tea is always either bitter or weak. They'd make your own tea. But Heddy saw Aunt Constance looking at her and said nothing more. Mama, asked Matilda, do you know when Addy is coming back? No, dear, tomorrow I expect, or the next day. Haven't you had a card from him? No, dear. Oh, I thought he would have written to you.

I might really have gone with him to Amsterdam. He had business to attend to. Well, I shouldn't have hindered him. in his business. She sat silent now and indifferent, and looked at her watch, regretting that she had come down too early. She thought that it was six, and that they would be having dinner at once, and it was not even half-past five yet. Should she go upstairs again for a bit? No, she was there now, and she would stay. She had slept too long that afternoon. She felt heavy and angry. What a place! What a place! What a place!

Drebachen in November, but a soul to talk to, except three or four anti-deluvian families. When was she likely to see the Hague again? The children would be looked after all right? They were busy bodies enough in the house for that. And she remained sitting beside Emily without moving or speaking, weary, indifferent and heavy after her long sleep. She knew it. As usual, her entrance at her entrance at her.

caused friction. That odious idiot child, pushing her chair away with its, gave away, she could have boxed its ears. But she had controlled herself. Didn't she always control herself? Was it she always being insulted by her husband's relatives? Why on earth had she married him? Couldn't she have married anybody at the Hague? In her weary, heavy indifference, mingled with spiteful rancour, she felt herself a martyr. Wasn't she a very handsome woman? Couldn't she have married anybody, though her father was a penniless naval officer,

though there was no money on her mother's side either. She was a handsome girl, and from the time when she was quite young, her one thought had been to make a good match. First and foremost a good match, and to get away from the poverty and the vulgar crew that gathered in papas and mamma, house. Oh yes, she was very fond of her husband, but now it was all his fault. He, he was neglecting

her. Wasn't she a martyr? Deep down within herself, no doubt, she knew that she had not married him for himself alone, that she had certainly thought it's heavenly. She, a smate, plain Matilda smate, to marry Baron van der Velka. Plenty of money, a smart match, even though the family no longer lived in the Hague. Baroness van der Velka on her cards, Baroness van der Velke, a coronet on her handkerchiefs, a coat of arms on her notepaper.

Oh, how delicious, how delicious! What a joy at last to order the gowns in Brussels, to get out of the poverty of her parents' home, which reeked of rancid butter and spilt paraffin, to shake it from her, to plunge and drown it, in the past, that poverty, who'd drown a mangy dog

in a pond. Dreebergen, well, yes, but it wouldn't always be Dreebergen. She would back herself to coax her husband out of that patriarchy, to coax him to the Hague, where he would be the young, fashionable doctor, a fine house,

smart acquaintances, a box at the opera, presentation at court, Baron van de Velke. She had two children now, a boy and a girl. It was irresistible, and yet she knew that she must take care and not let the nurse have too much of it. "'Kerche, have you washed the Yonker's hands?'

"'Kercha, I want the Frula to wear her white frock today.' For she had noticed that the others never used the words in speaking to Kherche or to the maids, never said Yonka or Frule, always just simply, Constance or Henrietta, or even Stan and Yet. And so, when the others were there, she copied them and said Stan and yet. But oh, the joy as soon as they were gone, of once more blurting out the titles to Chercha, the warm rapture of feeling that she was not only a baroness,

but the mother of a frule and a yonker. Checha, as Frula Henrietta had her milk? Checha, let the yonker wear his new shoes today. No, she simply could not keep from it, and yet she had sense enough to know and perception enough to feel that the others thwarted a mark of bad breeding in her to refer to her babies of one year old and two as Furula and Yonka. That was the worst of it, that she had married not only her husband, but his whole family into the bargain, his grandmamma, his parents, and Aunt Adeline with her troops of children, whom Adi, so silly of him, because he was so young, regarded as his own, for whom it was his duty to care. That was the worst of it, and oh, if she had known everything, known what a martyr she would be in this house, where she never felt herself the mistress.

A victim to the idiot child's rude ways, a victim to Gerdi, who gave her sugar in her tea. If she had known everything, she might have thought twice before marrying him at a time, all. And yet, she was wonderfully fond of Addy, might still be very happy with him if he would only come back to her and not neglect her over and over again for all that crew of so-called adopted children with which he had burdened himself. Oh, to get him out of it, out of that suffocating family circle, and then to the Hague. Her husband, a young smart doctor, she at court, and then see all the old friends again, and Papa and Mama's relations,

that perhaps leave cards on them sweetly, Baron van de Velke. She was not all vanity, she had plenty of common sense besides, and no small portion of clear and penetrating in sight. She saw her own vanity indeed, but preferred not to see it. She would rather look upon herself as a martyr than as vain,

and therefore saw herself in that light, deliberately thrusting aside her common sense. And then, sometimes in an unhappy mood, she would weep over her own misfortunes. Her only consolation at such times was that she was handsome, a young, handsome woman, and healthy, and the mother of two pretty little children, a yonker and a frule.

She now sat wearily with very few words passing among them all. The dice in Adel and Guy's boxes rattled loudly and worked on Matilda's nerves. Gerdi could stand it no longer. She had run out into the hall and almost bumped against Van der Velka, who was just going to the drawing room. Hello, kiddie, he exclaimed. Oh, I beg your pardon, uncle. Where are you rushing off to?

She laughed. No way, uncle, I don't know. I'm going to wash my hands. I upsets the milk. There's no tea left, Uncle. That's all right, kiddie. I don't want any tea. Shall we be having dinner soon? It's not six yet. Anything from Addie? No, Uncle. Has Matilda come down? Yes, Uncle.

I see. Well, I think I'll go upstairs again for a bit. Oh, don't, Uncle. I may as well. No, don't. Why should you? You're always putting her on us. and clearing out yourself. I, but I have nothing to do with her. She's your daughter-in-law? I dare say, but I can't help that. Yes, you can.

How do you mean? How can I help it? Why, if you had stopped Addy at the time, had forbidden it as his father. You young baggage, do you imagine that I can forbid Addy anything? I've never been able to prevent he's doing a thing. He's always done what he wanted to

from the time when he was a child. You can help it. Can I? Well, whether I can help it or not, I'm going upstairs. No, Uncle, you're not too. You must come in. Do be nice.

Come along for our sake. You're fond of us, aren't you? You love all Addy's adopted children, Uncle, don't you? Yes, kiddie. I'm fond of you all, though I've lost Addy altogether through you. No, Uncle.

not altogether. Well, what's the use of sharing him with the pack of you? But you can afford to share him a little bit. Tell me, you are fond of us. Of course I am. You're a dear, jolly lot, but to Matilda.

What about, Matilda, uncle? He bent over her and bit each word separately into her ear. I can't stand her. I hate her, as I've never hated anybody. But uncle, that's overdoing it, said Gerdi, lapsing into reasonableness. Overdoing it?

Yes, she's not so bad as all that. She can be very nice. You think her nice, do you? Well, she's like a spectre to me. No, no, you mustn't say that. She's at his wife and the mother of his children. Look here, kiddie. Don't be putting on such wise airs.

They don't suit you. But she is the mother of his children, and you're not to be so jealous. Am I jealous? Yes, you're jealous, of Matilda and of us. Very likely. I never see Addy, if I hadn't got Guy. Well, you've got Guy, and you've got Addie as well. No, I haven't. Do you know when he's coming back? No, I don't, uncle. And now, come along in. She drew Van der Velka into the room with her,

and as usual he went up to the old woman seated silently in her corner, rubbing his hands, trying to speak a few words to her. She recognised him and smiled. The wind outside raged with a deeper note. The branches of the trees swished along the windows, the twigs tapped at them as with fingertips, and amid the eeriness of it all, Constance suddenly felt it very strange that they were all of them there,

all strangers in the old gloomy house, which had once belonged to Henry's stern parents. The old woman had forgiven her, but the old man had never forgiven. He had died, his heart filled with rancour, and now they were all there, all strangers except the son, except the grandson, and he was not there at the moment. They were all strangers, her mother, in her second childhood, imagining herself at the Hague, and very often at Boutenzoch. She herself and Echertz widow and their children, Emily, all, all strangers, all with their manifold life and ceaseless bustle, filling the once silent and serious house. And Matilda, a stranger, and, so strange, even Matilda and Addy's children,

Little Constance and Yetja, were two little strangers, though they bore the family, name. Why did she feel this? Perhaps because she still considered that the great gloomy house belonged to the old man. It was as though he lived there still, as though he still walked outside in the garden. It was as though the great gloomy house was still filled with his rancour towards her and hers. Yes, she had been living here for ten years, but the old man still bore rancour because she was there, and because so many of hers had come with her to the house, in which they had no business, in which she herself was an intruder, as were all who had intruded themselves along with her. It was a feeling which had so often oppressed her during those ten years,

and which would always oppress her, and she would not utter it to anybody, for van der Velka had given Addy free leave to bring the troop with him, and he himself loved the troop. Oh, how the angles between her and her husband had been rubbed smooth with the years, whether they passed slow or fast, how they had learned to put up with each other. They were growing old, she, 56, he a little younger. It was true, no affection had come between them, but so much softening of all that had once been sharp and unkind between them,

so that they had been able to go unliving, in this house, and together with their child, performing the task that seemed to be laid upon them, looking after Herdit's children. And Adeline took it as quite natural, but yet, how grateful she was to them, how often she told them that she could never have brought up the children alone, that she would have had neither the strength for it nor the money. Chedit's death had broken her. She had always quietly done her little duties as a wife and mother, but Gerrit's death had broken her. She had remained among all her children as one who no longer knows. It was as if the simplicity of her life had become shrouded in a darkness wherein she wandered and sought, groping with outstretched

hands. Ah, if Constance and Addie had not led her! And Constance in her turn was grateful to van der Velka, for was it not his house in which she lived with her nephews and nieces? Was it not with his money, for a great part, that she brought up those children? Oh, if the old man would only cease spreading that rancour around them, filling the whole great somber house with it, because they had intruded, because they were living there on his money, though that money now belonged to his heir. At every gilder that Constance spent on her swollen household, she felt the old man's rancor,

and it made her thriftier than she had ever been at the time when she and Henry, though their needs were far from small, had had to live on a few thousand guilders a year. Though she now lived in this big house, though twelve and often fifteen of them sat down to table, she was comparatively thriftier in her whole mode of life than she had ever been in her little house with her husband and child. It was the old man's money, a large fortune, and it was Henry's money now, of course, but it was first and foremost, the old man's money. The curtains in the drawing room were sadly faded, but she would not buy new, though Vandervalca himself had begged her at least to buy some for the front room. Her everyday table was very simple, simpler than she had ever

been accustomed to, and this gave her the remorse that she was feeding Henry, now that he was growing older, more simply than she had in his younger days, and she urged him daily to buy a motor car. He was sensible, refused to do anything of the kind, buying the sewing machine. Well, yes, that was one big initial outlay, but the most expensive part of it was the upkeep of it, the chauffeur, the excursions. He feared that. He feared that. once he possessed the machine, it would become a very costly joke, and all those ten years, though he had often thought of a car, he had never bought the old sewing machine.

Then Constance felt so violently self-reproachful at using Henry's money for her brother's children that she discussed it with Addy. Those discussions about the motor had recurred regularly every year. Addy thought that Papa was right, that it was not the initial outlay that was so burdensome, but all the further expenses. Then again, motorcars were being so much improved yearly, that, when once Papa had caught the fever,

he would get rid of his sewing machine yearly to buy a new and more modern one. No, it would be a very expensive story, and Vanda Velker had never bought his sewing machine, had barely, once in a way, hired one. Constance felt a lasting self-reproach because of it. They were rich now, and yet, what was their fortune with so many burdens? Burdens, moreover, which were not even the natural burdens of one's own children growing up, burdens of Gerrit's children.

And so she economised more and more, wearing her gowns till they became shiny, till Addy said that Mama was losing all her daintiness in her. her old age. He had always known his mother as a well-dressed woman, and now she went about in blouses that shone like looking-glasses. He used to tease her. There was one which he always called the looking-glass blouse. Constance laughed gaily, said she no longer cares so much about clothes. Well off, though she now was, she spent upon her dress, not half of what she used to in the old days. And a Matilda, who sprang from a poverty reeking of paraffin and rancid butter, Batilda, who would have liked to be surrounded with luxury at every moment, Matilda thought

her mother-in-law, above all things stingy, decided that stinginess was the outstanding feature of her character. Translator's note, Yonka is the title born by the sons of Dutch noblemen until they come of age, when, as a rule they bear the same title as their father. Frula is the title of all unmarried daughters. Boutenzoch, the Governor-General's house near Batavia. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus.

This Librivox recording is in the public domain. It was 6 o'clock. Constance and Morica had taken Grandmama upstairs, for she no longer had her meals with the rest, but went to bed very early in the evening, and they were now in the dining room sitting at the great dinner table, a table Constance considered of strangers.

Her brother's children gathered round her husband, who alone had any right to live there in the old man's house, and to sit at his table. And yet it seemed quite natural that Emily should be sitting there, that Adoline should be sitting there with her four girls,

Maricha, Ade, Cres, and Clasher, and her two big boys Alex and Guy. It seemed quite natural that, after the soup, the parlour-maid should set the great piece of beef in front of Guy for Guy to carve, one of the few things he did well, as Vandeveldca told him, without thinking, for there was some truth in the jib. It was the same simple fare daily, a soup, a joint, green potatoes, vegetables and a sweet, so that Vandavelka sometimes said,

"'But, Constance, how dutch you've grown in your taste.' "'Well, if there's anything you fancy, you have only to say so,' she would answer gently. "'And yet she was afraid that he would name something, some game or paltry, "'that would be much too expensive for so large a table and such appetites as the children's. "'Wasn't she spending more than enough as it was, with that good, simple, homeliness, "'and wasn't the butcher's bill absurdly how? high, month after month. And Guy carved the beef

in fine heavy slices, falling neatly and smoothly one on top of the other, with a dexterity which he remembered learning when quite a small boy from his father, when he recollected very well indeed carving the meat in that little dining room in the banker strart.

That was Guy's duty, to carve the meat neatly, and he would have gone on carving till it all lay in neat slices on the dish if Constance had not warned him, that ought to do, Guy. The boy was just handing the dish to the maid for her to take round when a carriage drove into the front garden. Listen, said Constance.

That must be Addy! exclaimed Hurdy, joyously. It's Addy, it's Adi! cried Clasher. Yes, it must be Adi, said Van der Velka. There was a loud ring at the bell, and at the same time a key grated in the latch. "'It's Addy!' they now all cried, with cheerful expectant faces, rejoicing that he was back. And Gerdi, in her restless way, got up. Batilda would have got up too, but finding Heardy before her, she remained sitting.

Gerdi's clear voice rang in the hall. "'Addy, you're back, you're back. Oh, but how cold and windy it is!' The maids likewise glad, fussed about three of them to one handbag. "'Herdie had left the door open, and the draft penetrated to the dinner-table, "'but Addy was now in the room, and all their radiant faces were raised to his. "'They had done without him for five days. "'They had missed him for five days. "'Good evening, everybody!'

"'He flung off his wet great-coat. "'Troucher caught it and took it out of the room. "'He gave a nod here and there, but kissed nobody, and shook hands with nobody. He looked tired, and his collar was limp with the rain. "'Won't you go and change first, Addy?' asked Constance, smiling with content, because he was there. "'No, Mama, I'd rather not. I'm hungry. Give me a glass of wine.' They saw at once what was the matter. He was out of humour. All their radiant faces fell immediately, and they were silent. Guy who was nearest to him poured him out a glass of wine without a word.

Addy drank down the wine. His eyes glanced up wearily from under their lashes. His gestures were nervous and jerky. When Addy was out of humour they were silent, subduing the sound of their voices and the light in their eyes. Nobody knew what to say, and it cost Constance an effort to ask, How were things in Amsterdam? All right, he answered coldly, as though begging her to ask no more questions about Amsterdam. "'Nobody else asked anything. "'He would be sure to tell what there was to tell later.' "'They began to talk among one another in constrained tones. "'They were sorry that Addy was out of humour, "'but they did not take it to miss in him. "'He must be tired.

"'He had had a busy time. "'Yes, he must be tired. "'It was not only his collar, "'his coat also hung limp from his shoulders. "'His grey-blue eyes were dull. "'Oh, how serious his eyes. had become now that he was a man of 26. How serious his forehead was with those two wrinkles above the nose, which seemed to unite with the tawny eyebrows. In face and figure alike

he was older than his years, almost too old, as though bowed down with premature cares. He stooped over his plate, and they were all struck by his air of weary exhaustion. What was it that had overstrained him so? He did not speak. He did not speak. He was he. He was he, but ate on in silence and drank rather more wine than was his want. Alex looked at him for a long time with a touch of anxious surprise. And at last, glancing almost an alarm at their faces, he suddenly perceived how forced and confused they all were in their attitudes, sitting and staring in front of them or into their plates,

even his father, even his mother, and he understood that they sat and stared like that because he had not returned in a cheerful mood after his five days' absence. He had a feeling of remorse, did violence to his fatigue and his ill humour, steadied his nerves. He smiled, a tired smile, at his mother, asked his wife, How are the children, Matilda? It was at once evident to them all, from his tone of addressing Matilda, that he was making an effort and no longer wished to be out of humour and tired.

They were thankful that he was making this obvious effort, because, with Adi Gloomy, a gloom fell over all. Even Alex seemed to breathe again, and they could none of them bear it when Matilda just answered coolly. All right. Nevertheless, his endeavour succeeded. He now spoke to his father, and Van der Velka answered with a jest. There was a laugh at last.

Heardy led the outburst about nothing. The voices broke into it. a hum. After dinner, Adi went upstairs, and when he had changed his things, he found Matilda in her own sitting-room. Constantine and Yetcha had gone to bed. Out of doors, the night seemed to be wilder and stormier than ever, and the house creaked, the windows rattled. Batilda sat staring before her, her ears filled with the sounds of the night. Nevertheless, she heard her husband come in, but she did not move. "'Tilly!'

"'There was now an undoubted tenderness in his voice, "'in his deep, earnest voice. "'She was certainly very fond of him, she thought, "'if only he did not neglect her. "'She just raised her head towards him, sideways. "'She was a handsome woman, "'and her young, healthy blood seemed to give her "'a complexion of milk and roses.

"'Her features were not delicate, "'but they were pure. "'Her eyes were gold-gray and large, "'clear and bright. Her hair had a natural wave in it and was almost too heavily coiled. Beneath her black silk blouse her bust was heavy, with a low breast, and a naturally wide waist, too tightly laced. She had the full spacious form of a young and healthy woman

and lacked all the morbid distinction of finer breeding. Her eyes seemed to stare at a vision of physical delight, her lips seemed ready to salute that delight. The grip of her large hands was greedy and decisive. Her foot, in its substantial shoe, was large, too large for a woman of fashion. Nor was she that. She was rather a woman of health. She had no delicacy of wit. She had rather common sense, and the only morbid part of her intelligence was an irrepressible vanity. She had no delicate taste. She wore a simple black blouse and a black skirt, both from Brussels.

and yet there was a coarse line and a heavy fold in both. The brilliant on her finger gleamed insolently, white and hard. It was very strange, but she saw this herself. Her mama-in-law had given her that brilliant during her engagement, out of her own jewels, because she had once admired the ring on Constance's finger where the stone seemed to throw out sparks of fire. Tilly!

She smile at him now, made him come and sit beside her. Twenty-six years of age, a young husband and father, he looked quite ten years older, had aged more particularly, she thought, during the three years of his marriage. Now, however, that he had washed and changed, now that he no longer looked tired and wet,

now that he was laughing under his fair moustache, now that his grey-blue eyes were filled with laughing kindness, now his ageing no longer struck her so much, and she knew him again, and he was hers again, in this one moment when her husband and she were alone. Tell me, he said, how have you been getting on these five days? She felt a kindly affection for him,

and she loved this in him. She let her hand remain in his two hands. She allowed him to kiss her and returned his kiss, and she answered lazily with a movement of her shoulders. How have I been getting on? "'Oh, as usual. "'You mean, all right? "'Yes, quite all right.

"'I believe, Tilly. "'What? "'That you're telling of Fib. "'Your voice is very abrupt.' "'She shrugged her shoulders and gave her little laugh, "'which meant so that she couldn't help it. "'You ought to talk candidly to me for once,' he said. "'Yes,' she answered,

"'and her tone was more intimate. "'We don't do that too often. "'I'm very busy sometimes.' "'You are always busy. Why did you have to go to Amsterdam suddenly? I hardly know the reason. "'It was for Alex. And did you succeed? Possibly. "'Though I'm not asking to know,' she said at once, in a tone of piqued indifference, "'which he appeared not to notice. "'I've been thinking things over, Tilly. Thinking things over. When?

"'At Amsterdam. I thought you were so busy. I used to think in my room, in the evenings, about you.' "'About me.' "'Yes. Tell me, wouldn't you rather have your own house? "'You might feel happier if you had a home of your own.' "'She was silent.' "'Well, what do you say?' She shrugged her shoulders. "'Of course I would rather have a home of my own.

"'I told you so at once, when we married.' "'Yes, but at that time. "'Well, I didn't see it so clearly "'that you would not be happy in this house.' "'Oh, happy, I don't know.' you're not happy here. I would certainly rather have my own house. At the Hague.

At the Hague, very well. But if we move to the Hague, Tilly, we shall have to be very economical. Very economical? Well, of course, I'm not making much yet. And you're always busy. Yes, you have patience here, at Dreebergen, and all around.

Yes, he said with a laugh. But they don't pay me. No, why not? He shrugged his shoulders. Because they can't. She shrugged her shoulders also. It's very noble of you, Addy, but we have to live too. Yes, but don't we live?

If we move to the Hague, though, we should have to be very economical. You're well off. I'm not well off, Tilly. You know I'm not. Papa has a pretty considerable fortune, but he has a good many calls. Calls. Why, you're his only son. He might give us an allowance, until I was making more money,

but even then we should have to be economical and live in a very small house. She clasped her large white hands. I'm sick of economy, she said coarsely. Sick and tired of poverty. I've never had anything in my life but poverty. Decent, genteel poverty. I would rather be a beggar, simply. I'd rather be a poor girl in the streets than go through decent, genteel poverty again.

It wouldn't be so bad as all that. Not so bad, perhaps, but still, a small house, with one's servant, and seeing how far a pound of meat will go, and watching every haperny that the servant spends. No, thank you. It's not good enough. Then, Tilly. What then? Then I see no chance of moving to the Hague. Well, she said in her dull tone of piqued indifference,

then let's stay here. But you're not happy here. "'Oh, what does my happiness matter? "'I should like to see you happy. "'Why, you no longer love me. "'I do love you, Tilly, very much. "'No, you don't love me. "'How could you love me?

"'You think I don't see it. "'You love all of them here, all your relations. "'You don't love me. "'You hardly love your children. "'Tilly, no, you hardly love your own children. "'Tilly, you've no right to speak like that. because I'm fond of Uncle Gheadet's children. Is that any reason why I shouldn't be fond of you

and of Stan and little yet? She had risen tremulously. She looked into his grave eyes, which gazed at her long and almost sorrowfully, from under his heavily knitted, tawny eyebrows. She had intended to overwhelm him with reproaches, but on the contrary, she threw herself on his breast with her arms around his neck.

"'Tell me that you love me,' she cried, with a great sob. "'I love you, Tilly. You know I love you.' He kissed her, but she heard it through his voice. She felt it through his kiss. He no longer loved her. All at once, suddenly, the certainty of it poured a coldness as of ice into her soul. She held him away from her for a moment, with her hand against his shoulders. She stared at him. He also looked at her with his sorrowful eyes, and he spoke, but she did not hear what. Then she heard him say,

Are you coming downstairs, Tilly? They'll be wondering what's become of us. No, she said calmly. I have a headache, and I'm going to bed. Won't you come down? No. Do, Tilly, please come down with me. I shall be so glad if you will.

I'd rather not, she said softly and calmly. I really have a headache, and I'm going to bed. She looked at him gravely for one more moment, and he also looked at her very gravely and very sorrowfully, but their souls did not come into contact. She kissed him first. Good night, she said softly. He said nothing more, but he returned her kiss very fondly.

Then he left the room, and she heard his steps creaking softly on the stairs, Dear God, he thought, How am I to find her? How am I to find her again? Translator's note, Troucher, Gertrude or Gertie. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cuperus.

This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Addie remained in the drawing room for only a second. I'll go and keep Papa company for a bit. it, he said. And he went and looked up his father in his room, where Vandavelka always smoked his three or four cigarettes after dinner, alone. Daddy, am I disturbing you? Disturbing me, my dear fellow, do you imagine that you ever disturbed me? No, you never disturbed me. At least, I could count the times when you have disturbed me. But I've come to disturb you this time. Well, that's a bit of luck. and have a talk with you.

Good, that doesn't happen often. Had he knitted his brows which gave him an expression of sadness. Don't be satirical, father. How can I help it? I'm not being satirical, my dear boy. I accept the inevitable. I've been accepting it now for five days. After dinner, I would come up here quietly and smoke my cigarettes in utter resignation. Of those five days, two have been windy and three have been stormy.

and I sat here calmly and listened to it all. And? And, that's all. Life's an insipid business. And the older I grow, the more insipid I find it. I don't philosophise about it very much. I never did, you know, but I do sometimes think nowadays

what a rotten thing life is, with all its changes. At least, I should have been glad to let it remain as it was. How, Daddy, as it used to be when you were a small boy, I have gradually come to lose you entirely, and I have so little apart from you. Oh, nonsense. Yes, I have gradually come to lose you entirely.

In the old days when you were a schoolboy, then you belonged to me. Then came your time at college. That took a bit of you from me. You're 18 months in the hospitals at Amsterdam. I never saw you. Your year after that in Vienna, I never saw you.

I was lucky if I got a letter, now and again. Then you came back, took your degree, and then, then you went and got married. And we have always remained with you. And every year I lost a bit more of you. You no longer belonged to me. There was a time when I used to share you with Mama, and you remember that I used to find that pretty hard occasionally, but now I share you, with all the world. Not with all the world, Daddy. Well, with half the world then, with your wife, with Aunt Adder's. "'andoline and your nine adopted children "'with all your outside interests.

"'Those are my patients. "'You have a great many of them, for a young doctor. "'And? "'Well, Daddy?' "'Nothing, old boy. "'I only wanted to give you a piece of advice, "'but who am I to advise you? "'Why not, Daddy?

"'I don't count. "'Now then, I never have counted. "'You used to manage me, "'and I just did what you told me to. "'Give me your advice. now. Haven't we always been pals? Yes, but you were the one with the head. There's not much head about me just now. Give me your advice, Daddy. You won't take it from me. Out with it all the same. Well, my boy, listen to me. Keep something of your life for yourself. What do you mean? You're giving it

all away. I don't believe it can be done. I believe a man to stand as much in need of a healthy egoism as of bread and water. I should say that I was egoist enough. No, you're not. You keep nothing for yourself. You think it's funny of me that I should talk to you like this. But you see, the older I grow and the more cigarettes I smoke, the more I notice that, that's what?

That both your parents have never, considering your character, taken your own happiness into account. Mama, no more than I. I don't agree with you. "'It is so all the same. "'The years which you spent as a child between your two parents "'made you an altruist,

"'and made your altruism run away with you.' "'Addy smiled and gazed at his father. "'Well, what are you looking at me for? "'I'm looking at you, father, "'because I'm amused to see you so utterly wide of the mark. "'Why, I may have had a touch of altruism in me, "'but of late years. "'What? I thought a great deal of myself.

When I got married, I was seeking my own happiness. I wanted to find happiness for myself, in my wife and children, for my own self, and hang the rest. Ah, was that your idea? Well, it was a healthy idea, too. A healthy idea, wasn't it? So, you were wide of the mark, Daddy. I wanted a wife who belonged to me, children who belonged to me, all forming one great happiness for myself. Van der Velker wreathed himself. Vanda Velker wreathed himself in clouds of smoke. So you see, Daddy, the advice which you gave me, I followed of my own accord. Yes, old boy, I see.

That's so, isn't it? Yes, well, that's all right, then. I'm glad to have had a talk with you, but now, I must talk not about myself, but about something else. Of course, you can never talk for more than two seconds about yourself. However, you're right, I know now, and you had already followed my advice of your own accord. What else did you want to talk about? Daddy, I've been to Amsterdam. For Alex, well, is that settled?

About the merchant's school? Yes, he can go up for his examination, but afterwards. Well, I went to Harlem, near Harlem. What took you there? Someone sent for me. A patient? A dying. man. Who? Suddenly from the look in Addy's face, Fandervelka understood. He went very pale,

rose from his chair, and stared in consternation into his son's sad eyes. "'Addy!' he exclaimed in a hoarse voice. "'Addy, tell me what you mean. I had no idea that you knew anyone near Harlem. I didn't know that you had a patient there.' He seemed to be trying to deceive himself with his own words, for he already understood, and Addy knew by his father's eyes and his father's voice that he understood, and, speaking slowly in a gentle voice, Addy explained, as though the name had already been mentioned between them. Six days ago, I received a letter, written in his own hand, a clear, firm hand. The letter was quite short. Here it is. He felt for his pocket's book, took out the letter and handed it to his father.

Fandervelka read, Dear sir, though I have not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, I should consider it a great privilege if I might see you and speak to you here at an early date. I hope that you will not refuse the request of a very old man whose days are drawing to an end. Yours sincerely, the Stoffler. Addie rose, for his father was shaking, all over. The letter was fluttering in his fingers. Daddy,

pull yourself together. Addy, Addy, tell me, did you see him? Yes, I saw him. I was with him twice. And, and is he dying? He's dead. He died this morning. He's dead. Yes, Daddy, he's dead. Did you, did you speak to him? Yes, I spoke to him. He was very clear in his head, a clear-headed old man, for all his 92 years. When I arrived, he pressed my hand very kindly and nicely, made me sit beside his chair. He was sitting up in his chair. That's how he died, in his chair, passing away very peacefully.

He told me that he had wanted to see me, because I was the son of my mother. He asked after Mama, and made me describe how you two had lived, at Brussels. I told him about my childhood, I told him of my later life. He took a strange interest in everything, and then, then he asked after you,

how you had been, how you were, asked if I was attached to my parents, asked after my prospects, asked after my aims in life. I was afraid of tiring him, and tried to get up, but he put out his hand and made me sit down again. Go on, go on, telling me things, he said.

I told him about the Hague, told him how we were now living at Dreebergen. He knew that Uncle Gerrit's children were here. He seemed to have heard about us. When I went away, he said, Doctor, may the old man give you something, and he handed me three thousand guilders. You must have patience, doctor.

Who can't afford things? He said, you won't refuse it, will you? I thought it's right to accept the money. It was an obvious pleasure to him to give it to me. Next day, that was this morning, when I went again, he was much less lucid. He just mentioned Mama, and, when he spoke of her, I could see that he imagined that she was still quite young. Still, he understood that I was her son. Then he gave me his hand and said, I'm glad doctor to have seen you, give my regards to your

mother, the old man's regards, and to your father too. Then I went away, and when I called again in an hour to inquire, the butler told me that he was dead. Bandervelka sat in his chair, motionless and bent, with his hands hanging between his knees. He stared in front of him and did not speak. The past, the times of bygone days rose tempestuously before his eyes. It was as though that which had once existed never perished, as though nothing could ever change in what had once begun. Life slid on unbrokenly.

His eyes saw Rome, an old palace, a lofty room, Constance fleeing down a back stair, himself standing like a thief, in the presence of the old man, the good old man who had been like a father to him. Now, now the old man was dead, and Addy had been at his deathbed,

and Van der Velka's son was bringing the dying man's message, his last message, his forgiveness. Van der Velka stared and continued to stare motionless and a sob welled up in his breast. His eyes which were like a child's with their ever-yuthful glance filled with great tears. Nevertheless he controlled himself, remained calm, and all that he said quite calmly was, Addy, does Mama no? No, Daddy, I wanted to tell you first, and to bring you, the old man's message and, yes, his forgiveness. Van der Velka's head drooped lower still, and the great tears

fell to the floor. Addy now rose and went up to his father. Daddy, my boy, my boy, the old man sent you this message, tell your father that I forgive him, and tell your mother so, too. Addy flung his arm round his father's neck, and Van der Velka now sobbed on his son's breast. He could restrain himself no longer. He gave one great, loud sob, clutching hold of his own son, like a child. Had it not always been like that, the child the consoler of his father, the son now his mother's consoler. The emotion lasted but a moment because of the calmness of older years, but it was a moment full as the whole soul and the whole life of a small being. The older man, felt all his soul, saw all his small life. Was that coming for him? Forgiveness? Was it coming to him

through his son? Because of his son, perhaps, mysteriously, for some mysterious law and mystic reason. He felt it as an enlightening surprise, though he merely said after a pause. I'm glad, Addy, that you went, and now you must tell, Mama. I'll tell her this very evening, father. This evening? Yes, I can't wait any longer. Those last words are lying like a weight on my heart. I must hand them on. To Mama also. To feel relieved. Then go to her, said Van der Velka very calmly. And he remained sitting in his chair. His fingers mechanically rolled a fresh cigarette, but in his eyes which had always remained young, there was seen a faint inflection of of surprise, as though for the first time they had looked into the deeper life.

His son kissed him gently, went away, closed the door, and Van Velka's fingers continued to fumble with a newly rolled cigarette. He forgot to light it, he stared in front of him. Outside the house the wind blew moaning along the walls and drew its tapping fingers along every window as a longer vast keyboard. Forgiveness, the very possibility of it, whirled before his staring eyes.

End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. When Addy came downstairs, he met Constance. A gas jet was burning with a small flame in the brown dusk of the oak wainscoting. She was obviously tired. I'm going to my room, she said.

I was looking for you, Mummy. Come along with me then. Perhaps you're tired. Perhaps you want to rest and sleep. I can rest as well when you were with me as when I'm alone. Come. She put out her hand, took his and drew him gently up the stairs. She turned up the gas in her sitting room.

She changed quickly into a tea gown, and he thought that he would not spend. speak to her that evening, because she really seemed very weary. While she was busy in her dressing room, he looked round him and felt the years of his boyhood. The room was so exact a copy of the little drawing-room in the Kirchof-Larn that the past always came back to him here, and it's brought with it the strange melancholy of all things that had been and no longer were. Hark! How it's blowing! she said. It reminds me. of what, Mama? Of an evening, more than ten years ago at the Hague. It was after the death of

Grandmama Van der Velka. I had returned from here, from the room which is now Papa's bedroom. I had been to Grandmama, and it was stormy weather like today, and when I got home, I was fanciful and frightened. The wind seemed to me so gigantic, and I, I was so small. Then you came home, and I was so frightened. I crept into your arms. I looked into your eyes, Adi. In those days it was very strange. They changed colour.

They turned grey. Now they are sometimes quite dark grey, but sometimes I see a gleam of blue in them. I used to feel so sorry that they changed colour. Do you remember? It was not long before Uncle Gedit died. Oh, how frightened I felt, for days and weeks. weeks before. And why are you thinking of those days, Mammy darling? I don't know why, perhaps only

because it's blowing. How small our country is by the sea. It's always blowing, always blowing. One would think that everything that happens is blown to us across the sea and comes down upon us in heavy showers of rain. He smiled. Oh my boy, sometimes I feel so terribly heavy-hearted, without knowing why. Is it the house? The house? No, no, it's not the house. Don't you like the house even now? Oh yes, I'm pretty used to the house. Is it the wind, the rain? Perhaps both, but haven't I known them for years. Then what is it that makes you heavy-hearted? I don't know. Come here to me. Where my boy? On my knees, in my arms. She sat down on his knees and smiled sadly. It's an age. What? Since I sat on your knee like this.

Do you remember, do you remember, when you were quite a boy, and I felt frightened. I used to creep up to your little study and creep into your arms and look into your blue eyes. I never do that now. He clasped his arms round her. Then do it again. There, your child. You're doing it's now. My lap's bigger now. My eyes have changed colour. Everything. Everything has changed. Has everything changed? Yes, I've lost you. Mama, I have lost you. Hush dear, it was bound to come. Does a son belong to his parents? Does a son belong to his mother? A son belongs to everybody and everything, but not to his parents, not to his mother. It's a cruel law. It's a cruel law. But it is a law.

You're regretting the past. And there was not so much peace and quiet in the past, mummy. Do you remember? Do you remember? How you used to be? You and poor father? Now everything is much calmer. Everything has smoothed down so, because life has gone on.

Yes, life has gone on. I had you, and I have lost you. She was sobbing on his shoulder. Mamma, dear, it was bound to be. Didn't I consider? that it would be so, years and years ago. When you were a little boy, I often used to think, I've got him now, but one day I shall lose him irrevocably.

Now it has come, I must accept it with resignation. But am I not living with you all? Have I ever been away except a college and sometimes on business? Dear, it's not that. It's the losing each other, the losing each other, out of each other's souls. But it's not that. That's just what it is, and it's bound to be so dear, only because I no longer feel any part of you in my soul.

I no longer know anything about you. I have known nothing about you for ages. I see you going and coming. It's the patience, it's the children occupying you in turns. But what do I know? What do I know about you? It has become like that gradually, and since, since you got married, it has become irrevocable.

Mama, I oughtn't to talk like this, dear. I mustn't, and I should be able to overcome this melancholy if I knew that you were happy in yourself. Why should you doubt it? I don't know. There's something about you. Mother, he said, how strange it is that you and father. Well, have never really found each other. You so often think the same things.

Did Papa also think? "'Just now, almost the same as you. "'We have learnt to bear with each other, darling. "'But you have never found each other,' he said faintly, "'and his voice broke. "'She looked at him. "'She understood that he too had not found his wife. "'She saw it.

"'He was not happy in himself. "'A sword seemed suddenly to cut through her soul, "'and she was filled with self-reproach as from a well. "'Was it not all her fault "'that her son was not happy? now, was it not the result of his childhood, the result of his upbringing? The melancholy that had come after the excessive earnestness of his first youth, was it not her fault. But she merely answered his words mechanically.

No, she said, we have never found each other. He would have wished to tell her now about his journey, about the old man who had died over there near Harlem, but he could not. A feeling of discouragement prevented him, and they remained sitting without speaking, close together with her hand in his. After his father, after his mother, had both, so soon after each other, spoken to him of his own happiness, now that feeling of discouragement prevented him, because he saw life enveloping in clouds of darkness at his feet,

black darkness out of an abyss, so that he did not know whether the first steps would lead him, black darkness and emptiness, because he no longer knew, no longer knew what it would be best to say and do. He could no longer speak now of the old man who had died yonder, who had sent for him to tell him that he forgave the two of them, his father, his mother, who had once injured him. He could not do it, whereas, at the time of his father's words, the black darkness had only whirled in front of him. Now that his mother, so strangely was saying the same to him, it had suddenly become an abyss, pitch dark,

because he no longer knew anything. He no longer possessed the instinctive knowledge by which he must tread his path, which, while still so very young, he thought that he knew how to tread in clear self-consciousness of a clear soul that felt its own vocation. Oh, how often of late years had he no longer known.

He no longer knew what was around. right to do because whatever he had done of late years, the heaviness had sunk within him as an insufficiency, giving him that feeling of discouragement. He had felt that discouragement by the bedside of his needy patients. He had felt that discouragement in between his cares for Uncle Chelit's children. He had felt that discouragement when he was with his wife, with his own children. Oh, world of feeling born just of the emptiness of self-insufficiency, because self-alas was never sufficient, because something was always lacking, and he did not know what. And when this came over him, the night of sudden chaos, the word died on his lips, the movement on his fingers, the deed on his will.

Oh, world of darkness, which then suddenly spread like the expanse of clouds, outside, over all the clear sky of himself. He knew he wanted what was right, and yet the insufficiency swelled up. He knew his powers of alleviation and consolation, and yet it was the night without a smile. And now, when he sat with his hand in his mothers, with no words after their first,

save that she shuddered and said, Hark! Hark! How the wind is blowing! He drew her to him until her head sank on his shoulder, and they remain like that in the night. The gale outside was like a living immensity, a vast soul raging with world suffering, thousand voiced and thousand winged. And under its raging agony which filled all the air above the land, the house that contained the life of them all was small as some tiny casket. And that night he was unable to tell her.

End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cuperus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Now at last, after days, he was himself again. Alone, all alone in the night in his study, while everyone in the house slept, while only the night itself was awake. The night and the immense wind,

tormenting itself and struggling, raging and tearing round the house. Now at last he was alone and himself again after Amsterdam and after Harlem, after the troubles and comings and goings, the excitement, needy patience visited by stealth, the merchant's school, the old man, the old man especially, and tired as he was, yet he could not make up his mind for bed. In the study which was now getting dusky brown to his eyes, in the light of the lamp, he sat in the low leather chair, and his head wearily drooped onto his hand. Now that he had no more need for action, waves of indeterminate darkness surged and

floated all around and within him, bearing on their crests the mood of self-insufficiency. No one else knew him as he now knew and felt himself, not his parents, not his wife, not one of Uncle Kedit's children, not one of his needy patients, who only saw him composed and steady of nerve, a little somber-eyed, but so fore-square and firm, so calm and confident in his knowledge, always sure what would be good for all of them who were ill and wretched. No one knew him as he was now, weighed down with such despondency in his leather chair, and all who saw him four-square and firm, calm and confident in his head. his knowledge, would never have believed that he knew nothing at all for himself.

Oh, however much he might know for others, with that almost mystic knowledge which healed, as though by a suggestive force deep down within himself. However much he might know what was good for their bodies and souls, for himself he knew nothing, least of all for his soul. To them his young life seemed to move from one goal to another, always certain of itself through the windings of its course. Yet that was all on the surface, and he knew nothing of himself. His own disease was insufficiency,

and of recent years he had felt it swelling within him, fuller and fuller, eating into him deeper and deeper. He saw himself again as a child, his first recollection, between his two parents, his father taking him from his mother's lap, his mother taking him from his father's arms, and amid the unconsciousness of his earliest childhood, he had always felt the jarring and jealousy between them. Very soon his blood made him speak, that calm, unfevered Dutch blood,

and his unfevered Dutch nature could be seen in his serious eyes. From the first his Dutch seriousness and steady incomposure had been able to find, if not always words, at least sound. of consoling reconciliation, of ripe tenderness for that mother who hugged him in her arms, for that father whom he came to regard so soon as a bigger and older brother, and this when he was still a little fellow. It had been like that ever since he could remember, from the time when he was a child in the nursery, stroking mother's tearful eyes, and bringing a laugh to father's pouting mouth, and, as he grew older and bigger, he remembered,

It had always been like that. He knew himself to have been their comfort. It was small wonder that, when still quite young, he had begun to think of the comforts that he was, and had then known for certain that he was their comfort. He knew it then, as child and boy, no longer in unconsciousness, but in assured unshakable knowledge,

and then it had become his destiny. So very early it had dawned on his consciousness, and afterwards glittered before his eyes. I must help them. I must be to him and to her what is dear to them and what comforts them. So naturally had he taken that destiny upon his young shoulders that it never became too heavy for him

and there had grown up with him an inclination to comfort and alleviate those who were not quite so near to him. Quite naturally he had spread his wing over all Uncle Gerrit's children to care for them to bring them up. Quite naturally he sought what he could find to alleviate and comfort,

whom he could cure, whom he could care for, and this, farther still from him, not close to his home, but in outlying villages and distant towns. Thus had his nature grown, and thus did he act naturally in obedience to his nature. But the conflict between his parents, coming immediately in the first,

unconscious years of childhood had made his tender nerves tremble with an incessant thrill like a stringed instrument that is never silent. And under the calm, earnest glance, under the laugh of comfort or composure,

under the sturdy breadth of his young and manly strength, the strings had always vibrated and never consented to betray themselves. They had betrayed themselves once, once only, when his voice very earliest childish pain had given him a violent shock, in a despair too great to be born. But immediately afterwards he had known within himself that he must be strong to overcome the

cruelties of life. Since then the cruelties had blown against him like piercing winds, without causing the sensitive strings to vibrate visibly or audibly to others. Oh, did he not remember that suffering of his childish, soul when he fancied that all his childish love had been wasted because his parents, in despite of it, were going to separate, each grasping at the happiness that had smiled to him. No one had seen that suffering and vibration. After the first suffering, no one had seen anything, and it was as if the two great sensitiveness of the ever-vibrant strings had hardened in the robust young years of manliness. The god had stood before him so sharply defined, yonder, yonder.

He had felt young and robust, and that too sensitive vibration had only developed his soul mystically, so that it should heal wherever it directed its magic. It had been very strange to him, but just with the medical studies, which should have made him a materialist that had developed within him a conscious mysticism, inquiring into the essence of life which the medical books failed to teach him. When he discussed it with his student friends, they answered with the scoff of growing positivism,

the barren philosophy which clings to most men from their medical studies, because they ask only for the visible manifestations of the life which it is their business to tend, and not for the invisible source, the holy well of life, whence everything flows, in a radiance that grows gradually dim until the first radiance is no longer visible.

So it had happened with his student friends, and theirs had become the common materialistic doctor's career. His eyes had always been set on the essence of life, the source of the radiant spring, and with his increase in practical science and positive knowledge, the strange mystic certainty had increased in him, the certainty that he was able to heal if he wished, that he could heal through sheer force of will. It was not a matter for discussion, it was in him, a great instinctive knowledge. Oh, that glorious certainty which had shone out before him so early, sending its rays abroad. Since he had felt it, very early, so clear and certain in himself, he no longer spoke about it. At most, there was a very rare word to his mother. At most, there was a very rare word

to his mother, an occasional word to his father. But for the rest he would not touch his secret power with words. They were breathed to dim a mirror's luster. Oh, why had he not this knowledge for himself? Why of late years had he sunk deeper and deeper into the vagueness of that self-sufficiency? Why was the balance disturbed? Why did he feel a consciousness of blame welling within him? He now sat on wearily, and though everyone in the house was in bed, though the blowing wind, gigantic and plaintive, moaned up over distant heaths, and slid along the walls and windows with its sombre swelling howl, he could not make up his mind to go to bed,

as though he knew that, if he did, he would not sleep. And as if to know for himself how the discouragement could have overmastered him, he dived back into his memories. saw himself a boy again, healthy, strong and composed, loving his Dutch horizons and Dutch skies, with the deep growing conviction that he had within himself the secret power which he could pour forth to heal all who suffered in body or in nervous soul. He saw once more the disappointment of his parents,

especially Papa and of Grandmama, because he would not enter the diplomatic service, because he wanted to become a doctor, but he had carried his wish, backed up by Mama, who seemed to understand him. His rapid power of study, which allowed him to attain in feverish haste, the aim which he saw so close before his eyes, matriculating out of the fifth class at school, putting in a short time at Heidelberg before he went to Leiden,

he was so very young, only 17, passing his first examination in a year, his second in 18 months, taking three intermediate courses in the next five years, during which period he also acquired practical experience with a demonstrator at Vienna, and lastly, taking his degree at the age of 26. His parents rejoiced when,

after those nine years at the university and abroad, he settled down with them at Dreebergen, when they had him back in their house, where, despite the presence of all Uncle Khalit's children, he had left a feeling of emptiness. A short spell of the tenderness of living with them all again, and his love for mankind had developed so quickly, making him find his patience inevitably among the poorest of the rural population,

or sometimes in the villages, or even at Utrecht or Amsterdam. He never spoke about them, maintaining an earnest silence about the things which he did, even as he was silent about the secret force which he so certainly knew himself to possess. Never had he spoken to anybody over that poor little girl, a child of twelve, the daughter of two wretched labourers,

a crippled since the age of five, whom, with the various trifle of material assistance, but more particularly through his sure power of will, he had gradually helped to raise herself from her bed of straw, and able to move herself about, until she could now walk on her frail and yieldingly, little legs. He might have been ashamed of a cure so incredible, for he had never talked about it, not even to his mother, not even to his father. Oh, it lasted such a short time, the tenderness of

that time when he lived with them all again, with his parents and the others. When he reflected upon the strange double projection of his soul, when he was meeting the girl, who was now his wife at the Hague, meeting her just now and again. A strange projection one of them, perhaps not after all, but, because of the stormy night wind, somberly sending its howl over the somber heaths, he was not able to read his own thoughts plainly. Matilda, the few meetings at the Hague,

then that feeling when he chose her of having been irresistibly compelled. And, combined with a vague wonder within himself, the pride also of introducing that good-looking and healthy young woman into his family. He was proud that she did not belong to their class, especially on her mother's side, because it gave her an opportunity of triumphing over their arbitrary divisions. Proud too that she was healthy with her complexion of milk and roses,

and above all did not suffer from nerves, that all too common complaint among them all. But they had not shared his pride, and after his marriage, some hint of antagonism seemed inevitably to arise between him and his father. His mother, too, for all the liberalism that had come to her late in life, remained antipathetic to this girl, whose gait and voice, whose movements and utterance, all suggested a different environment from that to which Constance was accustomed. It was as if Aunt Adeline, Emily, Uncle Gerrit's children, all their big household,

had been unable to receive Matilda in their midst without a certain supercilious mistrust. They could none of them understand why he had married this woman, and he had not failed to see how they always stirred themselves to be gentle and amiable towards her, because, when all was said and done, she was his wife, stirred themselves especially not to let her see

that they all thought her not quite, really not quite. Her footfall was heavy, her voice not high-pitched enough. In everything that she did or said, they marked that sometimes infinitesimal difference which betrays a difference of station. He had not failed to see it, but his pride had lain low

and had never allowed them to notice that he saw it, because he thought it so small of them, so small-souled, that they could not blind themselves to that infinitesimal difference between Matilda and themselves. Yes, because he considered even their assiduous amiability small-souled. They showed it her so graciously sometimes, priding themselves all of them willy-nilly,

upon their greater native and acquired distinction, all thinking themselves finer and better and higher than his wife, whom nevertheless they did not wish to wound. He saw this last even in his mother, in the boys, in Adelaicha and in Kherdi, though Gerdie never succeeded, and he really preferred the undisguised aversion of little clasher, who clearly showed that she could not bear Matilda. And he now saw that in marrying this woman,

who was not quite of their class, he had wanted to display pride in particular against the arbitrariness of those whom he called, his people, his parents, his family. He had wanted to show that there was no longer any distinction of class, especially no distinction in those minor shades of class. If they were going to think about distinctions, she had the distinction of health,

while his own people were all sick in body and soul, not it might be suffering severely, but all affected or tainted with those nerves of their time. Perhaps his pride had just contained a desire to place his wife, Matilda, before them as an example. Look here now, here's a way, woman who is healthy and simple. For that was how he looked upon her soul and body. Because he looked upon her thus, he had felt for her the love that had driven him towards her, his soul taking

that direction of positivism and materialism, which, after his student days, had at that moment mastered the mysticism of his soul. For he had known then those moments in which he, tired of his textbooks or hardened in the operating room had felt the mysticism within him temporarily fading. And it was especially during these intervals of materialism that the young doctor had experienced Matilda's attraction, the attraction of a healthy pink and white woman who had given him healthy children. At such moments he saw the world, all mankind, renewed by careful selection, the vigorous life-force of the future bursting into luxuriant rose-blossoms, which would overwhelm the sickly lilies of those days of nerves.

When afterwards the secret forces spoke more loudly within him, then he would suddenly feel himself far removed from his wife, as though he had lost her, and especially in his dark, vague self-insufficiency, he lost her entirely, feeling himself nerveless and without power, even to return her kisses with any warmth, while his voice in speaking to her remained dull, and his grey glance cold,

whatever he said, and however hard he tried to force himself back into his healthy, positive love for the healthy mother of his two children. Then he would feel guilty towards her, and the inner conviction of his guilt increased. Was it her fault that he had been able only to give her one half of his soul, that he had it in his power to love her only with the positive half of his nature, however sincere it might be,

while he gave her nothing of what worked and moved in him more profoundly and gloriously, the true web and woof of himself. Was it her fault, and was he really entitled to take her, if he could not give her more than half of himself, while all that was higher, and he well knew what was higher in him, escaped her, and always would escape, her. But often, in his black insufficiency, even as now in his weary nocturnal mood, his consciousness of guilt, though it pained him, became suddenly too dreamy and unreal,

and he now comforted himself tranquilly. She's a simple woman. She has never thought of other than simple and uncomplicated things, has never lived among them, and she will never miss this, all that I do not give her. She will never know the lack of it. because she is simple. A healthy normal mother, the handsome healthy mother of my two dear children. Then again, tired and undecided to go to bed, he was pricked by his consciousness of guilt. He thought of her unhappy in the house that was dear to him, and he knew that he was incapable today, and so often, so often, of giving her that love, that positive half, that one half of himself. Sinking and sinking in his self-insufficiency, he now listened to the wind howling round the

house, the storm that had lasted for days, and he seemed to hear voices that came moaning up over the wide heath, as though the wind were alive, as though the storm were a soul, as though its concealed weeping souls, complaining souls, and were there one manifestation, souls blowing up again and again, souls which now in the night tapped with soul fingers at the trembling pains, round about this house in which his grandparents had lived so long, and in such loneliness, until now life had come to fill all the empty rooms. It suddenly seemed to him as though he heard something of their voices, moaning plaintively through the storm, accusing him first and then pitying him. The old man's voice, the old woman's voice, but what they moaned he did not

understand in the ever shriller howl upon howl that floated despairingly along the swishing trees, until suddenly the window, fastened only by the latch, blew open with a fierce tug. The Venetian shutter flap too and slung open again, banging against the wall of the house. The wind entered, and with one breath, blew out the lamp. The room now dark, the night luridly visible outside, the window, so desperately pulled open,

took on new outlines. Adrian, groping, knocking against the chairs, moved towards the window, seized the flapping, banging shutter, closed it, closed the window, firmly this time, turning the old latch

that was stiff with rust. The rain poured in torrents, The wind moaned and sobbed with sorrowfully entreating voices and tapped its fingers against the trembling pains. That night he did not sleep, tired as he was, and he kept thinking, am I at fault? End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus.

This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The old lady was sitting silently at the window in the grey morning which seemed spent and weary with the wind out of doors, and her thoughts were following a far course of their own in misty days of long ago. Clarsha came up to her. The child had two heavy books under her arm, bound volumes of the graphic and l'illustration, and walked bent under them.

Then she dropped them, clumsily. Crossed with the weight of the books, she beat them angrily, but the hard boards hurt her low. little hand, and so she decided to drag them to Granny, the naughty books which refused to come. She dragged them by the open bindings which had hurt her so. She tore them a bit, but that was their own fault because they wouldn't be carried. Satisfied with her revenge in tearing the books, she closed the bindings contentedly. The books lay at Granny's feet, against her foot-warmer, and now Clasha dragged up a hassock too.

pushed it against Granny's dress, and, kneeling on the hassock, asked Granny in a motherly fashion, Granny, Granny, Granny, like to look at pictures? The old woman, with a vague, misty glance, slowly turned her head towards the child, whose fair hair fell loosely round the rather thin, sharp little face, from which the over-bright eyes shone strangely, hard and staring. The voice,

Granny, look at pictures. rang strangely kind, but too childish for a big girl of twelve, with a maturing figure. It was too maternal towards the old woman. Granny, granny, like to look at pictures? The old woman vaguely fancied herself at Boutenzoch, in a large white palace among mountains, which stood out against a blue sky and cocoa trees, which waved gently like ostrich feathers. And she thought that her little daughter Gertrude was kneeling about, her, and wanting to look at the

books with her. Her old mouth wore a little puckered smile as she put out her hands for the book, which Clasher held up clumsily. But the old woman was too weak to pull the heavy book onto her lap, and it slipped obstinately down her dress to the floor, against the foot-warmer.

Clasher grew angry. Nottie books! Nauty books! She flew into her temper and struck the books again. but her little hand was hurt, and she suddenly began to cry, "'Hush, hush,' said Granny, soothingly. She bent painfully in her big chair, and laboriously pulled up the heavy obstinate book,

and Clarsha, with her eyes still wet, pushed up from below till at last it lay in Grandmama's lap. Then Clashah sighed, after the final victory, "'Turn over,' she said. She turned over the heavy clumsy binding and said, Clasher will explain. But the black pictures, the dark portraits, held no story for her,

and, pointing her finger at the picture or the portrait, she could not make one up, could not find her tongue. Turn over, turn over, she repeated. She was longing for colours, yellow, blue and red, but the pictures contained black, all black stripes and black patches, and she thought them ugly. Turn over, turn over, turn over, she kept repeating, excitedly yearning for them to become yellow, blue and red. The old woman, with her puckered smile, patiently turned over the pictures.

For her too they held no story, because they were black and somber, and she was already seeing colours for herself, the dead whites and deep blue, the bright lacquered green of houses, sky and trees in Java. Here under the sombre oppression of the skies, here in the sombre pictures, the old woman and the child found nothing to charm them. Then Clashire became very angry and dragged the heavy book from Granny's lap and beat it,

heedless of the pain, and scalded, ugly books, ugly black books. Hush, hush, said that. the old woman soothingly, laying her veined hand on the girl's fair head. Build a tower, said Clasher, with a gurgle of laughter, suddenly beholding a beautiful vision. She sprang up quickly. On a table in a corner of the room she found a box of dominoes. She brought the box, beaming with delight, but the smooth lid slid out of the box,

and the dominoes rattled on the floor. Clascha stamped her foot. But the beautiful vision still shone before her, and hurriedly and passionately she scrabbled them into her little pinafore. Then she brought them to Granny, like a harvest, like so much booty, and rattled them down at her feet. With a great effort she again pushed one of the heavy books onto Granny's lap, and the old woman helped her, pulling while Clascia pushed.

Bill Tower, cried the child. "'Granny held the book, held it straight, "'while Clasher placed two, three, four pieces on their narrow edges. "'Upon these she went on building the rickety black and white tower. "'At door and two windows,' the child explained, lost in her game. "'But the tower fell in with a crash. "'Granny mustn't move,' she whimpered. "'Balancing the heavy book on Granny's knees,

"'she went on building. hurriedly, so as to get very high. Granny mustn't move again. Tower, with a wall round it. Higher, the tower. One more stone on the wall. One more stone on the wall. But the wall and the tower came down with a crash.

Nauty, granny, naughty granny. Hush, said the old woman, soothingly. Addy had entered, and the child, dropping the book and the dominoes crowed with delight. and ran up to him. She called him Uncle, not realizing that he was her cousin. Uncle Addy!

She cooed. She opened his arms wide, lifted her a few inches from the floor. Look in Uncle Addy's pockets, he said. What have you got? What have you got? She fumbled in his pockets. No, that's Uncle's pocket book. No, that's his watch. Here, Luke, what's this?

He now helps her find the little parcel. She tugged hurriedly at the paper and string, and he opened the parcel for her. It was a little kaleidoscope. Look through it. Lovely, said the child gleefully. Lovely, blue, red, yellow. Now shake it.

She shook the kaleidoscope. The colours, from a square, changed their figure into a star. Green, blue, Red, the child cried. Now shake again. Blue and yellow. There, what do you say to that?

Lovely, lovely. She sat down on the floor, suddenly quiet and good, peered and shook the little cylinder, peered and shook it again. In the gaudy star she suddenly beheld a paradise. Green, yellow, blue. Addie relieved grandmamar of the book, put it down, and began to arrange the dominoes in the box. It's speed-blowing, said the old woman, pointing through the window.

There were great branches lying in the garden. End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Then Adeline came in, looking for Adi. He was so tired yesterday that she was. She had not cared to ask him the result of his visit to Amsterdam, but now, while he was still playing with Klaasha, she glanced at him with questioning eyes.

She was still a young woman, no more than forty, for she had married Kedit early and then born him a child every year. But, despite her gentle, round, fair face, she was no longer young in appearance. Her lines had become matronly, and, especially after the great sorrow, after her husband's suicide which had plunged her and the children into perpetual shadow like an indelible twilight. She had become so spiritless in all her simple energies that she came like a child to Constance or Addie about anything that concerned any one of them, mostly to Addy, whom she had taken to regarding as her inevitable protector. She looked up at him with respectful confidence.

She always did literally what he told her to. It was his. he who controlled their whole little fortune, investing it as profitably as possible for the children. Notwithstanding his youth, she turned to him in all that concerned her boys, and the boys themselves accepted it, inevitably, that their cousin, who was only six or seven years older than they, should look after their interests with paternal earnestness. But Adeline was well aware that Addy was very angry that Alex had had to leave Alkma. At first, things had gone fairly well in the secondary school at the Hague. After the third form, he was 17 by this time,

he had just succeeded in passing his matriculation. But when he took two years over his first examination had failed in the second, Addy himself had considered that Alex had better look out for something different, however much his mother, with her mind full of Chenet, would have liked to see her eldest son an officer. By this time he was nearly 20 and it was so late for him to go to the merchant school at Amsterdam

that Addy had decided first to obtain all the details for himself and therefore had gone to Amsterdam to see the headmaster. That was why this morning Adeline came to talk to Adi a little nervously, rather frightened of what he might say because he had been exceedingly dissatisfied about Alex, discouraged, not knowing what to do with him next. He would like to have a talk with Alex, he said, and Adeline, sad about her son, and rather frightened of Addy, went to fetch Alex and brought him back with her. He was tall, slender, pale, fair-haired. He did not look strong, although he had resembled his father, especially as a child. Every year his features seemed to become more and more fixed, and his face became like a spectral mask of pallor. with a look in the eyes a little shy under the lashes,

as with a timorous, bashful, and at the same time deep inner concealment of invisible silent things. Now that his mother had come to fetch him from the room where he sat reading, he came in with her, evidently nervous about the coming talk with Addy. But Addy said, I ought really to be going out, aunt. Alex, can you go with me part of the way? Then we can talk things over as we walk.

The roads are too wet, for cycling? Addy's eyes and voice set Adeline's mind at ease, as though he were telling her that it would be all right at the merchant's school. The cousins left the house together. The trees dripped with water, and the swift and angry wind chased the great clouds farther in one direction, but the sky remained grey and lowering. The far-stretching straight country roads vanished at last in a melancholy drab mist, and the two young men at first walked along without a word. Well, I went and inquired for you yesterday, said Addy at last.

You can go in for your exam, Alex, and you can go on working there for some time yet. I hope things will go better this time, old chap. You're nearly twenty now, if they don't. He made a vague gesture, and Alex took his arm. It's awfully good of you, Addy, to take so much. trouble about me. I too hope that things will go right this time. Mama would have liked to see you in the army. Still, I'm not really cut out for a soldier. It's a pity I didn't think of it before I went

to Alkma. But when I was there, I felt it at once. There's nothing of the soldier about me. And in that way, years were lost. Well, I do hope that now, when you're at the merchant school, you won't suddenly discover that you're not cut out for a businessman, that you're not fit for trade. You can become a consul, you know. Yes, perhaps. It's a pity, Alex, that you don't know things for certain in your own mind, that you have no settled ideas. Yes, that's just it. But you must become something, mustn't you?

You have no money, you fellows. And even if you had, a man must be something in order to do any or get any happiness, of life for himself and those about him. Yes, Adie. Promise me now, old chap, to do your best. You see, I'm playing the father to all of you, even though I'm only six years older than you are. I feel like a sort of father to you, and I should like to see you all happy and prosperous. But you must help me, Alex, show a little energy. If you hadn't thrown up the sponge at once at Alkma, you'd almost have had your commission by now. Yes. Like your father. Mama would have liked that.

But we won't talk about it anymore, and we'll hope that things will go better as Amsterdam. Addy, do you remember Papa well? Of course I do. So do I. I was eight years old when he died. I even remember. What?

That evening. Though I didn't understand at the time, why Mama cried and screamed like that, or why Aunt Constance and Uncle Henry were there. It was not until later. Oh, years later. that I understood. But I saw, I saw Papa lying with blood all round him, and that's a thing which always, always, hovers before my eyes. I'm always seeing it, Addy. Tell me, Addy, do you know why

Papa did it? There was nothing surely to make him so unhappy as all that. He was very ill, but not incurably. He thought himself incurable. Still, he was strong, physically. He was like Guy, wasn't he? Yes, Guy is very like him, to look at. He was tall, broad, fair-haired. Yes, that's how I remember him. I was eight years old then. You were a jolly little tribe. And now we're nothing but a burden, to you. Nonsense, it's not as bad as that. I hope things will go better, Addy, at Amsterdam. Why aren't you more talkative, Alex? You haven't been for a long time? haven't I? You never talk at home, to the others. Only once in a way to me, when we are alone. It was after Alkma that you became so silent. It wasn't surely because I was angry at the time.

Perhaps, partly. Well, I don't tell you. Tell me, Alex, if there is anything I can do for you. You do so much as it is, Addy. You do everything. But speak quite openly. Perhaps there is something more that I can do for you. No, what could there be? Something's upsetting you. No, you're unhappy. No, you're so reserved. I never talk much. Try and trust me, Alex.

I do trust you. Well then, talk to me. But I, I've nothing to tell you, Addy. I know, Alex, that you must have something to tell me. No, I know it, Alex. No, Addy, really, I've nothing to tell you. The lad tried to release his arm from Addis, but Addy held him tight. Walk a bit more with me.

Where are you going? I have a couple of patience to see. Take me there, Alex, and speak, speak openly. I can't speak. Then try and find your words. I'll help you. Not today, not today, Addy, out here in the roads. Perhaps another time, indoors.

Very well then, another time indoors. I'll keep you to your own. word, and now let's talk of nothing but the merchant school. And, with Alex still hanging on his arm, he told him about the headmaster, the staff, the lessons there, making a point of holding out hopes to Alex that everything would go easily and smoothly. Did Adi not know, did he not diagnose that the boy was so terribly afraid of life, of the days to come, because a twilight had always continued to press down upon him the twilight of his father's suicide.

It had given the child a fit of shuddering insofar as he had realised it at the time and things had suddenly grown dark about his child's soul. And when the power of thought had developed in him later there had always remained the fear in that darkness because the unconscious life went on daily and because his father, why, why, had torn him.

himself out of the unconscious life and committed suicide. That, though Alex had not spoken, was how Addy diagnosed him. That was how he really diagnosed his state with that strange look of penetration, with that strange vision. And when he looked into another in this way, he no longer thought of himself. His self-insufficiency fell away from him, and he seemed to know on the other's behalf, to know surely and positively, to know with instinctive knowledge, as he never knew things for himself. While they walked on, arm in arm, he thought that the boy's heavy step was becoming more rhythmical and even, that his answers, now that they went on talking about Amsterdam and the master in whose house he would be, were becoming firmer, as though he were

taking greater interest. There was no note of doubt in Addie's voice. His voice made the two years schooling at Amsterdam, the whole subsequent life, as a busy, hard-working man, stand out clear in the mist that hung under the trees and over the roads, made it all take on bright colours as a life spreading open with unclouded horizons of human destiny,

as though all the unconscious life would run easily along ordered lines. He himself had never known that fear of the days to come because he had seen his goal before him in the future. Yet why then, that morbid sense of insufficiency? He refused to think of it, and at once it passed from him like a ghost. Even after his sleepless night, he now felt the energy circulating strongly within him, felt the magic pouring out of him as vital warmth. He must make that boy by his side, realize the life before him, he must take away his fear of the future.

An unknown force inside him ordained that he should make the future shine with hope and promise for this boy, ordained that he should purge the days to come of their somber terror. And when he had taken leave of Alex, because he did not wish him to know where his patience lived, the lad went back easier in his mind, with his fears pressing less heavily upon him, with the sullen sky growing gradually brighter, however much he might have to think always of his father, however much he had to see his father's blood-stained corpse,

daily more and more clearly before his eyes. End of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cuperus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The household took its everyday course, of a morning. The everyday life, driven indoors by the merciless winter, the grey skies and blustering wind rolled on softly and evenly in the rooms and passages of the big house. Not much came from outside, where the great trees in the garden dripped with chill rain, nothing to stir the big

house which stood there like a great lonely block on the villa road amid the sombre mystery of its wind-blown trees. For the occupants of the big gloomy house had made as few acquaintances as possible among their neighbours, though in the spring and summer, Gerdi would take her racket daily to the tennis club. In the winter, it was a quiet life indoors, varied only by a walk, or a visit to a sick or poor neighbour, a quiet life between the walls of the big rooms, with the wind tapping at the window panes. The old grandmother sat, mostly in the conservatory and looked out into the garden, sagely nodding her silver-gray head.

She no longer recognised all the children and as a rule thought herself back at Boutensorch in the midst of her own family. Even when Clashire sat playing at her feet, she would think that it was little Gertrude, Gertrude who had died as a child at Boutenzoch. Constance, a zealous housewife, active despite her 55 years, moved about the house incessantly during the morning,

with Maricha or Adelaicha to help her. 22 and 21, respectively, they were always with Constance. Maricha, already full of unselfish consideration, and Adelaicha, delicate, not speaking much, sitting with her needlework upstairs in their room, and because of Alex's strange melancholy, it was only Guy and Gerdi, that represented joyous, healthy youth in the house. That rich health and radiance which reminded Constance of their father, of her brother Gerrit, who had been so noisy, broad and strong,

until he fell ill, too ill to go on living. Clashire was very troublesome in the mornings, very restless, full of freaks and cranks, always bothering the others to play with her, or at least to make a fuss over her. And Constance was so sorry that Clashire, could not be upstairs in the nursery with Yetcha and Constance, but Matilda would not have her there,

and the poor innocent child, 12 years older by now, was jealous of Constant and Yetcha, and hated Matilda, as though, unconsciously, she felt in the children a childishness that was natural, and as though she knew that, after all, she herself was much too big to play about like that,

and build houses with cards and dominoes. Above the great sombre house, against the great somber skies, and inside the house itself, there was always a strange melancholy of things that had been. It floated through the passages and creaked in the furniture. It could be felt in the old grandmothers sitting at the conservatory window in the pale, unchangingly sad face of Adeline, who was so helpless. It appeared in the silent sorrow of Emily, who was spiritless and never-sufferite, spoke much these days. In the sombre house they sat or moved in an atmosphere of bygone things,

which mingled with the atmosphere of the house itself, as though they were small, pale souls, broken by life, and sheltering in the safe house, now that the winter seemed endless, and the heavy clouds were so oppressive. A cloud of recollection hung over the old woman as she sat silently staring, as she played with Clasher, who would never, grow up. A last reflection of somber tragedy lingered around the simple mother of so many children, as though her husband's suicide, still struck her with tragic wonder that life could strike so suddenly and fiercely and cruelly. It was as though a strange psychological secret slumbered in the sad eyes of Emily, who was still a young woman, a secret which she would never speak.

Somber was the house, and sombre the everlasting wind that blew around it, full of strange voices of things of long ago, and they did not brighten the house, those three sad, silent women, so different in age, so sombre in their equal melancholy. They did not brighten the morning which they spent there together in the house on the long, rain-swept road, and it was Constance herself, followed quietly by Maricha or Adelaicha, who woke the house, stairs and passages to life, with her active footfall and the shrill rattle of her keys. The sound of a piano came harshly from Matilda's sitting-room upstairs, and it had only to be heard to make the other piano in the drawing-room downstairs cry out in pain under Cerdie's

furious little fingers, until Constance was startled and, and he was startled. at so much noise and hurriedly whispered to Maricha, do tell Gerdi not to play when Matilda is playing upstairs. Maricha would then rush to the drawing room and rebuke Cherdi, and because it was Aunt Constance's request, Geri's piano suddenly fell silenced, leaving Matilda's runs and flourishes to triumph overhead. The children drove out daily with their nurse in the governess cart,

whatever the weather. It was Addy's principle and they throve on it, and their youthfulness, stammering its first words, was like a bright rosy dawn of the future as they went along the sombre stairs and dark passages and rooms, casting a sudden golden radiance in that atmosphere of the past, as though they were suddenly powdering through the brown of the shadows, as though they were sprinkling the sound of children's voices through the brown air, which had not caught a childish sound for so many years. When Addy was out visiting his patients, van der Velka remained in his room, reading and smoking.

Uncle Jupiter, as Gerdi called him, because he usually sat enveloped in the blue clouds of his cigarette. And Guy did a little work for his examination as a clerk in the postal service, except when he went to Utrecht where he was receiving private tuition in geography. But when he was working at home in his little room up on the third floor, his young healthy restlessness

constantly made him get up and run downstairs, to borrow an atlas of van der Velka, hang round Uncle Henry for a bit, smoke a cigarette with him, then go back upstairs. He would look at his books and maps for three minutes and then jump up again, stretch himself, take up his dumbbells, feeling stiff from the long sitting, and go downstairs once more.

Constance met him in the hall. Aren't you working, Guy? Yes, I am, Auntie. Where are you off to? To the store cupboard. He went with her and Marietha to the store cupboard, conducted a raid among the almonds and raisins, talked a lot of nonsense, and made Constance laugh until she said, come on guy, run along upstairs. But because Adelaicha looked after the flowers in the conservatory,

and he saw her carrying a watering can, he assisted her and even sponged the leaves of an arelia, while Clasher played at Grandmama's feet, building houses with cards, which he loved for the shrill colours of the court cards and aces, and for the pretty figures of hearts and diamonds, clubs and spades. He built a house for her, He teased Gerdi, who was back at her piano now that Matilda had left off overhead,

until Troucher came to lay the table for lunch, and he raced up three flights of stairs, terrified, to work at all costs. Hang it all! Yes, to work! He sat with his hands to his ears, so as not to hear, and his eyes fixed on the maps. And when the luncheon bell rang, he deliberately waited a few minutes, pretended to himself to be annoyed because a morning passed so quickly and never came down to lunch less than five minutes late, making the excuse that he had been working so hard.

Now, in the winter, the short days passed in peaceful, sombre domesticity. In the afternoon, Constance went for a walk, or to see a poor person, generally with Adelaide. Paying or receiving a visit was quite an event, which had to have to be a walk. happened only three or four times during the winter. Only Gerdi sometimes entertained her tennis club and gave the members tea upstairs in the girls' sitting room as though striving for a little sociability from the outside. And, in the yellow circle of light shed by the lamps,

the evening drowsed on gently after dinner, with the wind whistling round the house, with Cheerdie's bustle amid the chink of her tea-things, with Guy and Adelaicha, rattling the dice. Two and five. Double six, once more. Imperial, once more.

Three and five. And Matilda sat with a book in her hands, her eyes expressing a weight of silent boredom, while the room seemed full of things of the past, and the voice of the wind outside and the mourning women, Granny Adeline Emily, like three generations of dreaming melancholy, depressed her,

a brief hour before going upstairs again to his reading. Translator's note, the shrill colours of the court cards and aces. The aces in Dutch packs of cards are set in brightly coloured pictures, usually town views. End of chapter 8. Chapter 9 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cuperus. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.

It was raining on the morning when Adolphine alighted at Seisdribergen and hurried to the tram, which was on the point of leaving. She looked very weary and lean, with bitter lines round her thin, spiteful lips, and a reproach in her sharp eyes. And suddenly she reflected that she was sorry that she had not put on a better cloak. Conductor, will you stop at Baron van der Velke's villa, please? "'We don't pass the villa, ma'am, but it's quite close to the road. "'Then will you tell me where to get out?' The conductor promised, and Adolphine suddenly became very uncertain of herself.

All those years, all the years that Constance had been living at Dreebergen, she had never been wants to look them up, really out of anger, because they had stolen Mama, because Mama had gone to live with them. In all those years, she had never seen her mum. had seen Constance only once and again, at Tharn after Bertha's death, at the Hague, casually, exchanging a few words with her, when they met by accident at Ant Lott's.

And Addie she had also seen but very seldom. She was sorry for it now, it looked so strange to arrive like this all of a sudden, and then she had not announced her coming, because she disliked writing the letter. if only Constance wasn't out or away, or perhaps gone to Utrecht or Amsterdam for a day's shopping, which was possible. She was coming quite like a stranger, and her heart was thumping, and she was almost sorry now that she had taken this step.

There were plenty of other doctors besides Addy, who was still such an inexperienced boy, and yet, and yet. In her unstrung condition, the tears came to her eyes. and she felt overcome with her sorrow, with all the bitterness of the last few melancholy years. It was all very sad at home. Van Satima retired on a pension and now ailing, with cancer in the stomach. The boys, Yap in the Indian civil, Chris in the army, Pete, a midshipman, never writing home, now that they no longer needed the paternal house.

Caroline soured by not marrying, and the youngest, Maricha, so weak. lately, so queer as Adolphine did not know what to do with her. Added to all this, because notwithstanding her economy, they had lived on too lavish a scale in her striving after hay, grandeur, they had run into debt, and were now living in a small house, really vegetating, without seeing a spark of grandeur gleaming before their eyes. It was all over, there was nothing left for them. It was all loneliness and dying off, relations and friends. There was no family circle left at the Hague, and it seemed as though such a family circle as had survived, was now united, how strange, in van der Velka and Constance's house at Dreebergen. Adolphine had long cherished a wonderful

jealousy at this, as though, after Van Arles' death and berthers, it ought to be her house which the family, however greatly dispersed, would look a-pourgible. as the family house. It was not that she was hospitable by nature, but her vanity was injured, and to satisfy this she would not have objected, even to taking Mama to live with her, however doting and tiresome Mama might have become. But there had never been any question of that. No, Mama had at once gone to Constance, and Adolphine could feel by the way in which Paul, Doreen, the Royvenors, and even Carol and Cateau spoke. that they all, with varying degrees of affection,

looked upon van der Velke's house at Dreybergen as still remaining the family centre, and nice state of affairs. Adolfine was angry now, because she never succeeded in anything, because she never had succeeded. And now, she had actually set out for Dreybergen with the very object of asking those two,

Constance and Vandevelka, to do her a favour, though she refused as yet, to picture it so clearly as such. She was very nervous when the conductor at a halt told her to get down, showed her a road, pointed to a house distantly visible

between the bare dripping trees. The great block loomed massive grey through the black boughs. The outline of the long straight roof stood out harsh and unwelcoming against the grey winter sky. It was only the fancy of overstrung nerves, but in the windows of the front, with their reflecting pains and blinds half down,

Adolphine seemed to feel reserve, repellence, pride, grudge, refusal. It all shot very quickly through her, made her hesitate to go on. And yet, now that she had come so far, now that she was approaching the gate of the front garden, she realised that it was too late, that she must go on, round the beds with the straw-wrapped roses, and she rang at the great gloomy front door. She rang shyly, too softly, the bell did not sound, and she stood waiting under her dripping umbrella.

Her heart was beating as she pulled her second time, rather harder, in spite of herself. Troucher now opened the door, and she recognised her as the maid, the same maid for whom Constance had rung years and years ago in the Kirchhoff-Larn to show her the door after their last private interview. She was surprised to see the girl, looking older, but still recognisable, and because her thoughts were carried back to so many years ago,

the sight gave her such a sense of hesitation that she could hardly speak, especially as Troucher, equally surprised, was also staring her in the eyes. Adolphine felt that she was going to stammer now that she had to open her, her lips, but there was no way out of it. The question must be put. "'Is, is my frau? Is my frau? Is my frau at home?' "'Yes, ma'am. My frau is at home.' Adolphine had entered, trembling, and the maid closed the door behind her, and took her wet umbrella from her. Standing on the mat, she saw the long hall before her, with the brown doors, the antique cabinet, the portraits and engravings. It's

gave her the impression of a very sober and serious Dutch house, but an impression, too, of reserve, repellence, pride, grudge and refusal. And, with her eyes anxiously fixed on the open oak door at the end of the hall, she stammered once more, almost imploringly, with an irresolution in her voice which she could not overcome. "'Embnort, e'nots disturbing her.

Not at all, ma'am, pray come in.' Then the door of the drawing-room opened, and Constance herself stood before her. Adolfine! There was surprise in her voice, if not gladness, surprise at finding Adolfine there, Adolfine, whom she had never seen at Dreybergen, whom she had never seen later for the matter of that, except once or twice, casually, at the Hague or barn when poor Bertha had died. Adolphine, I've come to see how you are getting. on Constance, you and, and, ma'm more.

Adolphine's voice wavered, jerkily, beseechingly, uncertain of itself, and it was so strange for Constance to see Adolphine, to hear her uttering such words in so hesitating a voice that she was put out for a moment

and could not frame a phrase of welcome, could not even make a show of cordiality. But she saw that the door at the end of the hall stood ajar, and she said to Troucher, almost angrily, "'Troucher, why is that door open again? You know I want it shut.' "'It opens sometimes with the draft, ma'am,' replied the maid.

Troucher closed the door and went back to the kitchen, and the two sisters were left alone. "'Come in, Adolphine. I'm not disturbing you. Of course not. I'm glad to see you again.' She forced a note of geniality into her voice. We haven't met for years, said Adolphine, in hesitating excuse.

Not for ever so long. I go to the hague so seldom. Here's Mama. The old woman was in the conservatory, gazing out of the window. Mama, said Adolphine with emotion. Mama! She went near her. Good morning, Mama. The old woman looked at her vacantly. It's windy, she said. The garden is.

is full of big branches. Mama, said Constance, here's Adolphine come to see you. The old woman did not recognise her daughter. She looked at Adolphine vacantly and indifferently. Then she said, It's not right for Gertrude to run about in the garden when it's so windy.

There are big branches falling from the trees. No, Mama, I'll go and fetch her in. Gertrude? asked Adolfine. She means our poor clasher, whispered Constance. But doesn't Mama know me? Not just now. She'll recognise you presently.

Mama, don't you know Fien? Fien, repeated the old lady. At all Fien, Mama, look, she's come to give you a kiss. She's dead, said the old woman. Mama, Adolfine, dead. Look, she's here. The old lady shook her head.

She's dead, she said unshakably. She died years ago. Adolphine turned her head away and began to sob. She'll recognise you presently, said Constance, gently, consoling her. She's sure to know you presently. Adolfine, I'm so glad to see you. But Adolphine was sobbing violently. Mama, doesn't know me.

My dear, she hasn't seen you for so long. I know she'll recognise you later on. You're staying to lunch, of course. I should like to. Constance, I've come to... Yes. To ask something, but presently, not now. I'm too much upset.

Let me help you off with your things. I'm dreadfully wet. It's raining so. You've chosen a bad day. I didn't want to wait any long. longer. Tell me, what is it? What can I do for you? I can't tell you yet. Gerdi peeped round the open door. Is that Aunt Adolphine? Yes, said Constance. Maritia and Adelaidea followed. Is that Aunt Adelphine? They came in and shook hands.

Is Clasha out in the garden? asked Constance. I saw her running about just now. You have a busy household. "'Constance,' said Adolphine, waveringly. "'Yes,' said Constance, smiling. "'And yet I should miss them if they weren't here, "'all my daughters and my boys.' "'The girls stood round her. "'Creddy, looking very handsome,

"'adoletia, weak and pale, "'and Maritia, tall, lank and plain. "'And then you've got Emily and Adoline,' "'said Adolphine, counting them shyly. "'Yes,' said Constance. Constance, we all keep together now, children, and Adolphine staying to lunch. Something in her words seemed to ask the girls to leave her alone with Adolphine. In the conservatory, the old woman sat gazing up at the clouds, which came sailing along,

big and grey, and she heard nothing, paid no attention. Adolphine, said Constance, when they were alone once more, "'We have a moment before lunch. "'Come upstairs to my room. "'Then we shan't be disturbed.' "'She put out her hand. "'Adolphine took it, "'and Constance led her sister

"'almost mechanically through the passages "'and up the stairs. "'It's a gloomy house,' said Adolphine, "'with a shiver at the sight of the oak doors. "'Yes, it is rather gloomy. "'Fortunately it's large. "'There's plenty of space.' "'Really?'

asked Adolphine, growing interested. Have you many rooms? There were great many. When the old man was alive, they were all empty. Now they are nearly all full. Nearly all? Very nearly. This is my own sitting room.

They went in. It's the furniture from your drawing room at the Hague, said Adolphine. Yes, I can imagine myself at the Hague here. Do you like the Hague? I'd rather live there than here, but Henry and Addy are attached to the house. It's their family house. They have fine big rooms, said Adolphine in humble praise.

I'm living in a very small house now. Ah, but there are so few of you. That's true. How's your husband? He's not very grand, Marcia neither. Isn't she well? No, she's very full of nerves. I consulted Dr. Berens to ease my mind.

What does he say? He suggested that. That what, Adolfine? He said that Addy was beginning to make such a name as a nerve specialist. He advised me to go to Addy and talk to him about Maricha. Perhaps one day when he comes to the Hague he might see Maritia. Do you think he could be persuaded to, Constance? Certainly, Adolphine, of course he will, gladly.

I hear such good accounts. of him as a doctor. Yes, he is getting a very big practice, and making a lot of money. Well, not so very much, I believe. Ah, perhaps he's right, as a young doctor, to be reasonable in his charges. You see, Constance, that's really why I came down. You were quite right, Adolfine. Addie will be home, presently, and then you can talk to him yourself. Poor, my richer, I'm sorry she's so ill. How old is she now? Twenty-six. I remember. She's a year younger than Addy. Who would have thought, Constance,

that you would come and live here with Mama and Adeline and the children? But Mama always liked you best. I should have been glad to have Mama with me. But it's better as it is. Our house is so tiny. Does Addy come to the Hague often? would he be able to treat Maricha regularly? He would go specially. He hypnotises, doesn't he?

Very often, I believe. Do you like that? Addy often gets very remarkable results. I don't very much fancy it. I shouldn't like him to hypnotise Maricha, but if it's essential. The gong sounded, Is that for lunch?

Yes, will you come? Thunder Velka and Addy were downstairs. They had just come in, but had heard from the girls that Aunt Adolphine was there, and van der Velka welcomed her conventionally. Oh, what fights they had had had in the old days, but so many years had passed since those bygone times, and what did a pressure of the hand and a kind word cost? He had acquired a certain genial earnestness in his big house,

filled with his wife's family. He would have missed them all, all those big children, even though Guy and Hurdy were the only cheerful ones, but those two were the sunshine of the house, and the others still clung to him with sympathy. Their gratitude created a sympathetic atmosphere around Uncle Henry. At the long luncheon table, Maricha cuts the bread and butter. Granny did not sit at the table, and Matilda came down very late.

No one had told her that Aunt Adolphine was there, and she stood amazed in the doorway before bringing herself to offer a non-committal greeting. She was aloof in her manner, thought Adolphine, middle-class, put on airs as she sat down. It was striking how her personality failed to blend with that of the others, as though she remained a stranger among them. In the grey winter morning, hovering sullenly along the dark walls of the dining-room,

she was a fresh handsome woman. Her full face was the colour of milk and roses. Her lines swelled with health. Kherdie beside her was nothing more than a pretty little smiling thing. Maricha and Adelaidecha were very plain, Marisha so lank and yellow, Adelaika looking quite old with her sickly face. Clasha was very tiresome, ate uncouthly,

and sat beside Constance, who kept on gently reproof, grooving her, and cut up her bread and butter for her as though she were a baby. Guy carved the cold beef. All of them were silently wondering what Aunt Adolphine had come down for, and their conversation sounded constrained. But Fandarvelka talked nonsense calmly with Guy and Gerdi. Adolfine, to keep the pot boiling, talked about the hague.

Uncle and Aunt Royvonar, and the girls had returned to India, ever so long ago, and were not coming back to Holland, now that uncle and aunts were older and preferred to live in Java. Louise was living with Otto and Francis. Francis always had something or other than matter with her, and Louise looked after the house, and Hugo and Otolincha, who were now 13 and 14. Then there were Carol and Cateau,

erzed, Doreen, Paul. "'We don't see much of one another nowadays,' said Adolins. Salfine sadly. Ah, Mama's Sunday evenings. They were very pleasant. Say what you like. We didn't always agree, perhaps, but still. She started, became confused, pecked awkwardly at her food.

She felt that the illusion of a united family, Mama's great illusion in the old days, was quite dispelled. And older, more melancholy and still bitter as she was, she felt sad about it. sad about something which possibly she had never valued, but which she now missed, and she could not help feeling acute envy that Constance was living in so big a house, and harboring so many relations. And suddenly she asked sharply,

"'Your house is rather damp, isn't it, van der Velka?' "'Well, it's mostly on the ground floor,' said Van der Velka good-humouredly, "'and we've had a lot of rain. "'Once feet get so chilly.' Guy, give Auntie a footstool. Guy fetched a stool. Adolphine let him push it under her feet. There were so many trees round the house, she said.

That's what makes it gloomy and chilly. You should have them thinned out. It must be very lonely living here. Don't you see the others regularly? asked Constance, trying to change the subject. No, Carol and Cato pay me a visit now and again. It's not much of a pleasure to. to anyone. It's never more than a visit, said Adolphine,

criticising her brother and sister-in-law, and forgetting that in the old days she herself never honoured Constance and van der Velka with more than a visit. And she went on, Paul one never sees, nor Doreen, and Ernst. You know, you know he has not been very well lately. Constance gave a start. No, I didn't know. I saw him only three weeks ago. I wish he would come and live here at Dreibergen, say in a nice, bright room at a good boarding-house. I really think the country life would do him good, and he probably feels rather lonely at the Hague,

but he wouldn't do it. He's been living all these years in the same room and seems so much attached to that room that he simply can't leave it. And yet, he is never satisfied with the landlady and her brother. That brother is his constant bugbear, and yet, he is his constant bugbear, and yet, he is, I thought that he was living quietly enough. Is he still always calm? However self-absorbed he may be, who say he hasn't been well lately? Well, he's not as bad as he was.

How long ago is it? Ten or eleven years ago? Eleven years. He's not like that, but he looks very queer at times. And I'll go to the Hague tomorrow and look him up, said Constance with decision. My dear, said Adolphine.

in an aggrieved tone. I assure you that he's nothing out of the way. Besides, we are there, if anything should happen. He's living by himself too much. I've thought it for a long time, and I reproach myself. I've seen Uncle Ernst once or twice lately, Mama, said Addie to calm her. He was just as usual, no worse. I pressed him then to come and live at Trebergen.

He refused, but he was quite calm about it. "'He has not been calm the last few days,' said Adolphine. "'I shall go to the Hague to-morrow,' Constance repeated, tremulously. "'Would you like me to go?' asked Daddy. "'Really, Constance,' Adolphine resumed, in a superior tone of mock moderation. "'You needn't get into such a fluster. "'If there should be anything wrong, we are there. "'And Carol and Dorine and Paul.

"'You can leave Ernst to do. us quite safely. It's just as though he didn't count. It's not that, Adolfine, but, but what? You don't trouble about him, and I feel remorseful that I myself, lately, but I'm very busy, and busy, echoed Adolfine in amazement. Here, a dribechen. The atmosphere of the room was filled with a sudden tremor of nerves, becoming too highly strung. The girls looked, at Aunt Constance. She felt, she realized that she was losing control of herself and made an effort to keep calm, but her eyes and lips trembled. She saw, however, the concern overcasting the features of all of them, except Matilda, and she now mastered herself entirely, though the tremor remained,

very deep down within her. Yes, she replied, in a gentle voice, We are really rather busy here, all sorts of things you know. Of course, Adolphine, it is comforting to feel that you are all there at the Hague, in case anything should happen to Ernst. The tension was relaxed. The luncheon ended quietly. Only Adolphine said, Is this homemade jelly?

Why do you have it made so sweet, Constance? In her secret heart, she thought the sweet jelly delicious. "'Aunt Adolphine wants to talk to you, Addy,' said Constance, when the meal was over. Adolfine now felt very humble. Yes, she would like to talk to Addy, and she went out with him alone. "'She's come about, Marieta,' said Constance, when Adolfine and Addy had left the room. "'But why didn't she write?' asked Van der Velka, instead of coming down. Suddenly the sound of Adolphine's sobbing reached their ears from the next room.

Is Mariet a really bad auntie? asked the girls, and they sat expectantly. The voices of Adolphine and Addy sounded one against the other from behind the folding doors. They listened in spite of themselves. She must certainly change her present environment, said Addy. Adolphine sobbed. That's what our doctor said, and... "'and Dr. Barron's of the hospital,' she hiccoughed through her tears. Constance did not want to listen any more,

but though she had controlled herself just now, her nerves were still on edge. Pretending that she was waiting for Adolphine, she went through the drawing-room and sat down beside the old lady in the conservatory. "'Yes, yes,' mumbled Mrs. Van Lua, "'if it goes on raining like this, we shall have fluts again, just as we did last year.

Before her staring eyes, she saw the tropical floods of Java. Half an hour later, Adolphine and Addy came to Luke for Constance. Adolphine was suffering under the influence of great emotion with red eyes which she kept on wiping. Constance went up to her, Adolphine, dear, she said, you must have confidence in Addie. motherly pride mingled with the pity in her voice. I have, Constance, said Adolphine, only what? What am I to do with the child?

Change of environment, our doctor said. So did Dr. Barons of the hospital, and yet we're very nice to her. Why this change of environment? And where's she to go? I haven't the money to take her to the country for any length of time. in this season two, in the autumn. What, what am I to do with the child? I was thinking, said Addy. He looked at his mother. Well, if you and Papa approved, I could observe and treat her best here. Constance suddenly stiffened.

I don't know, Addy, she said. I don't know that Papa would agree to that. How tactless it was of him to say this in Adolphine's presence. She regretted that she had not told Adolphine before lunch in her sitting room that the house was full, quite full. But he continued quietly, I should like to ask Papa, Marcia could have Guy's room and Guy the little room next to it. That's too small for Guy. You must remember, he's got work to do. He was conscious of the reluctance in her words. Nevertheless, he said, Guy could do his work in my study. I'm never there in the mornings.

No, no, said Adolphine, joining in. No, Addy, it wouldn't do. Your mother's busy enough as it is. It's not that I'm so busy, said Constance. But, well, Mama, how are weekly books, you know. He had never known his mother so hard or so cruel, and he now said, Of course, Mama, if you think it can't be done, I'll see what I can do for Aunt Adolphine,

somewhere in the neighbourhood, perhaps Maricha could go and live in a family at Zeist. Do you think you knew someone there? asked Adolphine mournfully. But suddenly, Constance felt very yielding. She became so yielding because Addy had said this. All her hardness and cruelty melted away in remorse at her last words, and she said, Addy, go upstairs and ask Papa. Adolphine looked up with wonder in her reddish. eyes. She was struck that Constance was altering so suddenly in tone from reluctance to assent,

and she was also struck that Constance did not apparently wish to decide, and that she was leaving the decision to Van der Velka. Addy went upstairs at once. The sisters remained silent and alone. The old lady was sitting in the conservatory. "'You, Constance,' said Adolphine, "'do you think that Van der Velka?' she did not complete her question, but went on, "'Yes, I suppose your weekly books are very expensive.' "'They are heavy,' said Constance. "'You understand. It's—'

"'What? It's my husband's money, spent on my relations. "'But get its children have something.' Constance shrugged her shoulders. "'You know exactly how much they have, "'a couple of thousand guilders apiece. "'Well, that's something. We keep it for them, and don't touch it. Really? said Adolphine in surprise.

But then there's Mama. Mama? Yes, you have her money too, said Adolphine, looking Constance in the eyes. Constance returned the look. My dear Adolfine, she said gently. This Mama is not fit to attend to her affairs. Her money is in the hands of our solicitor at the Hague, and he controls its form.

her. And the income? It's invested. We get none of Mama's money. Surely you knew that. No, I didn't. The books can be seen at the solicitors by any of the brothers and sisters. Why do you do that? Because we don't want to touch Mama's money. But why not? She's living with you. We want to avoid unpleasantness with any of the brothers or sisters. But which of us would create any unpleasantness, asked Adolphine, very humbly. By our way, there's no question of any unpleasantness. Yes, said Adolphine, still, I thought, that we received all the interest on Mama's money. Yes, the money's lying there quite useless. There will be all the more for her grandchildren,

later on. Yes, said Adolphine, greatly surprised, remembering her long conversations during those many years with Satsuma, Carol and Cateau, because van der Velka and Constance at Trebergen were quietly taking Mama's money for themselves. I wonder the Solicitor never told us. I thought you knew all about it. No, said Adolphine humbly, and did not add that the solicitor had once told Carol, but that they had all refused to believe it. So Mama is really living at your expense?

Constance smiled. Her needs are so small, poor Mama. But you keep a special maid for her. Yes, that's the only thing. Still, it makes everything dearer, in food, and taxes. Yes, said Constance calmly. She heard Van der Velka and Addy come down the stairs. They entered the room, and it was strange to see the father and son together.

Van der Velka, with his irrepressibly young, bright face and his boyish eyes, though his hair was turning grey, and he was becoming a little stout from his sedentary life. And Addy beside him, with his serious directness of mind, like a very elderly young man, his grey eyes filled with thought and care. "'Addy tells me that Marieta's not at all well,' said Van der Velka, by way of preamble. Adolphine gave a great sob that shook her whole body. She nodded and began to cry. "'Well,' said Vanda Velka, who was always moved by tears,

"'if Addy would like to have her here, "'to keep her under better observation, "'you know, let her come, Adolphine. "'By all means, we'll find a bed for her somewhere. "'It's the family hospital, after all.' "'And when Adolphine began to sob violently, "'he added with a little pat on the shoulder, "'Come, cheer up and hope for the best.

"'Addy's sure to make her all right again.' Translator's note, still it makes everything dearer in food and taxes. There is a tax on all servants in Holland. End of Chapter 9. Chapter 10 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Ernst was still living in his rooms in the newer Outleich, surrounded by his collections, surrounded by his hobbies.

About of 50 now, he led a silo. solitary life amid his books, his china, his curiosities, and the landlady looked after him and cooked his meals because he paid well, paid too much indeed. He saw little of the family because the others really lived as secluded as he did, Paul in his rooms, Doreen at her boarding house, though she was never satisfied and was constantly changing her boarding house. And no family tie drew him to Fansatsama's house or carols.

In this way, a separation and estrangement had grown up amongst all of them. The bond between them had perished, now that Mama was no longer at the Hague to gather them all around her on Sunday evenings in her big house in the Alexander Stratz. And Constance of late years had often pressed him to come and live at Trebergen, but he obstinately refused, and yet, on the rare occasions when he saw her at the Hague, he would take her hand and sit knee to knee with her,

unbosoming himself of all his stored up discontent, with the rooms, the meals, the landlady, that's brother of hers, the brother especially whom he could never stand. The vulgar bounder, as he always called him. Constance then felt him to be an aging, always lonely man, who never uttered his thoughts, and who, because of this continual silence, bottled up within himself the thousands of words which he now poured forth to her all in one torrent, with a timid look, as if he were afraid that the landlady and her brother were standing behind the door, listening.

When Constance at such times tried to persuade him to move to Driberchen, he shook his head obstinately, as though some part of him had grown fast to that room of his, as though he could not tear himself out of it, and his eyes would glance at his books, his china, as though to say that it was impossible to remove all that. And, because he was calm and no trouble and quiet in his behaviour, she let him alone, because this was what he preferred, to live within himself, among his hobbies, solitary, shy and eccentric. Five years ago, it was true, he had been ill again, had talked to himself for days on end, had wandered about in the wood. Paul wrote to Constance, and she had come over,

but Ernst had soon grown quiet again, afraid no doubt that he would have to go back to Noonspeat, afraid of a change of residence, afraid of keepers, of nurses, of the things which he had never been able to forgive any of them, not even Constance. That was years ago, five years ago, and lately Constance and Addie too had never seen Ernst

other than calm and peaceful, though a great deal of strange and silent brooding seemed to lurk behind the silent cunning of his dark-staring eyes. But then, months and months would again pass without their seeing him, without their hearing of him. They were all accustomed to his strangeness, and the months would drag past without the threatened crisis coming. No, nothing came, even though the man was strange,

though he did talk to himself, though he was full of bottled up grievances. And when they saw him again after a lapse of months, they were struck by a certain artistic method in his rooms, with their beautiful warm colouring, struck by some new arrangement of the furniture, by some new purchase. And he, as though conscious that he was on trial,

would talk almost normally, terrified lest they should drag him from his rooms, to which he was attached, even though the landlady and her, brother always stood spying behind the door. Constance, feeling suddenly upset and filled with self-reproach at neglecting Ernst, went to the Hague with Addy the day after Adolphine's visit, and the two of them arrived unexpected in the newer outlache. "'Meneer is out,' said the landlady.

"'In this rain?' asked Constance. "'Yes, ma'am, he went out early this morning. How has he been lately?' "'Pretty well, ma'am. As usual, Manair is always odd, you know, but he's not troublesome. He's fairly well. Not like—' Some years ago. No, ma'am, Manir has been talking to himself rather more of late. But that's all. Will you wait for him? Yes. He's sure to be back by twelve o'clock or so. He's very regular in his habits. Won't you come upstairs?' Constance and Addy went upstairs and waited in Ernst's room. "'Poor fellow, poor fellow!' said Constance with emotion. She did not know what was the matter with her, but she felt full of self-reproach. "'Oh, were they not leaving him too much alone, sunk in his solitude? How she wished that she could coax him to go back with her to Dreybergen, and to live there, not far from them, in a little villa with some people who were in the habit of looking after invalids.

Oh, not in their own house, not in their own house. She would never have dared suggest that to van der Velka, nor had Adi ever proposed it. No, not at home, not at home, but somewhere near, so that she could see him at any moment and not worry herself with the idea of his suddenly having a nervous breakdown, with no one by him to take his piteous soul-sickness to heart. And as she sat thinking, she looked around her and was struck by, the manner in which the eerie lines of the old porcelain and new pottery curved against the somber hangings and furniture. It was very strange, stranger than she had ever noticed. The setting enhanced

the eeriness of it all. As the years passed, the vases had become more and more of a disease, blossoming in eerie lines and glowing glaze, like some vicious orchid, high against the walls, rising to the ceiling in a riot of exotic forms, like a vegetation reaching up, stretching up, stretching up, stretching up necks and hands, with the necks and handles of the vases, as though trying to rise higher and higher beyond the grasp of profane mortals.

Why does Ernst put his vases so high up? Constance wondered as she looked round the room. Suddenly he entered, the landlady below must have told him that his sister and his nephew, the young doctor, were upstairs, for the movement with which he turned the door handle was abrupt. His glance as he stood and looked from the one to the other was laden with suspicion, and his voice trembled violently as he asked, What are you here for?

He stood before them, an old trembling man. His neglected clothes hang in old slack folds about his angular. limbs. His hair already almost entirely grey, hung long and lank around his lean trembling features, and dark staring eyes, which looked with a martyed glance from the one to the other. And yet, however neglected and soul-sick this trembling man might be, who looked an old, old man, though he was not more than fifty, a gleam of intelligence shone deep down in his suspicious glance, at his long, lean fingers were those of an artist, impotent to paint or model, in lime, colour, wood, or sound, the fluttering, ever-present dream of a beauty only just divined.

They both strove to reassure him, said that they happened to be at the Hague, and so had come to look him up. And after the first shock, he really did not strike them as strange or more ill than usual. Suddenly, even a ray of sympathy seemed to shoot through him, and he sat down between them, took their hands, and delivered himself of his complaint. Hush! They're always listening behind the door, the brutes, he whispered timidly, the landlady and her brother. I can't call my soul my own. They're always spying.

When I'm undressing, when I go to bed, when I have my meals, they're always spying. I can hear them grinning. They're standing there now, to hear if we're talking about them, and when I open the door, they're gone in a moment, so quickly, just like ghosts. The other day, he lay under my bed all night. I'm getting used to it. I no longer mind, but, properly speaking, I can't call my soul my own. Anyone with less steady nerves than mine simply could not stand it, could never stand it.

"'But Ernst, why don't you move?' He knew the question well. He recognised the motive. He gave a kind and condescending little smile because they did not know, because they were so coarse of fibre. "'I can't very well move,' he said. "'You see, I have everything here, everything here.' His glance and his gestures became very vague, as though he did not wish to say more. And Addy saw, how it was. Uncle Ernst still believed, had always, all those years, believed in the souls that swarmed around him, the souls that had been conjured like spirits out of books, curiosities, and old vases. But he never spoke of the souls now, because he remembered only too well

how stupid and wicked his people had been in the old days. After that attack twelve years ago, he had gone on believing in these brain and soul phantoms of his, but he had learnt to keep silence about them, to talk as the stupid people talked, or by preference he did not talk at all. But this very silence had caused his mistrust to develop into a mania that he was being persecuted, a mania that made him constantly look round, timidly.

He would open the door, look into the passage, and Constance knew that, in the street, He was forever looking round, attracting the attention of the passers-by with this frightened, suspicious trick of his. Addy saw it, Ernst believed in the souls which lay crowding around him, which linked themselves with chains to his soul, which he dragged with him through the mud of the streets and the wretchedness of life. The souls that thronged in agony around him, until they weighed down his chest,

and stifled him so that he longed to run, how muched. half naked into the street, to cool himself in rain and air, to gulp down the wind. And very deeply bedded in the sick soul, Addy saw hypersensitiveness, hiding as an adorable tenderness, which instead of turning to a disease, might have developed into the profoundest qualities of sympathetic feeling, not only to feel, but also to know and understand, because of the slumbering spark of intelligence, because of the knowledge, so eagerly gleaned. And now all these were wasted gifts, morbid qualities. Now it was all useless and

sick, and had become more sick and more useless, as the sick years of shadow drearily dragged on their misty melancholy introspection and increasing distrustfulness. It was all, all lost, and in his pity at this fatal waste, at this tenderness which had soured almost into madness, and was devoted to shadows while the poor world stood in such real need of tenderness and feeling. Addy remembered how once, years ago, he had felt conscious of a longing with a single word to cure the sick man, but which, which word? It was as though he knew that one word to be hovering in the air around him, while he was still too young and ignorant to catch it as he might have caught a butterfly with his hat. And now, he knew for certain, after all those years of misty melancholy introspection and increasing distrustfulness, that it was too late, and that the man could not recover, and that he would die as he had lived, in the almost proud hallucination which brought around him for protection the numberless oppressed, persecuted and martyred souls, suffocating him in the cloud of their frail tortured and complaining bodies.

And it was not only the souls. The living who sought him out were also included in his proud illusion. They also needed his support, because he alone was strong, and all of them were weak. It was too late for a cure, but still Adi longed, though he knew for certain that no cure could ever take place to free that lost and impaired quality of noble feeling from everything that could shock or offend the silent suffering man. And he swore to himself to get Uncle Ernst out of the Hague,

out of these rooms where he was taking root, and at the same time being tortured. He happened that day to feel very restful, very calm, even though deep down in the subsoil of his soul, black self-insufficiency lowered as usual. He would not know what to do for himself, for this sick man he did know what to do. For himself, he groped around in a dark labyrinth.

For the man of stricken brain and soul, he knew it all suddenly, with a bright ray of clearest perception, knew with a sacred instinctive knowledge. And yet, there was not a touch of joy, not a touch of ecstasy or fervour in his sombre melancholy glance, in his deep, sombre voice, when, with his customary earnestness of words of, manner, he said to his mother,

Mama, you must leave me alone with Uncle Ernst. She looked at him, and despite his quietness, his earnestness, his calm and somberness, she knew her son too well not to feel suddenly that he knew. Very well, she said, you stay with Uncle Ernst. I'll go round to Aunt Adolphine and see Marietcher. When and where shall I see you, this evening at the hotel? He shook his head. "'No,' he said.

"'You'd better go back by yourself to Dreybergen with Marieter. "'As for me?' He paused as low reflecting, passed his hand across his forehead. "'As for me, you'll see me to-morrow,' he said, "'or the next day. "'At Dreebergen, at home?' "'Yes. "'And your uncle?'

"'He made a sign with his eyelids, "'and she understood him, partly, and asked no more. "'She took leave of Ernst and moved to go, but Ernst kept her for a moment at the door. Constance, what is it, Ernst? If there's anything that I can do for you, you'll tell me, won't you? Tell me, frankly.

It's difficult for me, I know, to look after all of you. But if I don't, nobody else will. So tell me plainly if I can help you in any way. There's nothing at the moment, Ernst. But later on, perhaps. Then I shall be very glad to help. You must ask me straight. it out. I will. Look here. You must be careful. Of what? Of the brother. The fellow's a scoundrel.

Take care. Don't speak too loud. He's standing behind the door. You see, he can't reach so high. What do you mean? He can't reach up to my poor vases. He would have to take the steps, and he won't do that in a hurry. What used he to do to the vases, ernst? Take them in his hands. I dare say he admired them. No, he used to break them. On purpose, he, he, what, Ernst? He used to throttle them. Hush, he used to wring their necks with his vile fingers.

Then he realised at length that he was saying too much, and he gave a loud, kindly laugh. You don't believe that he used to throttle them. Well, at any rate, they're safer up there. At least he can't break them. "'No, what's the matter with Addy? He's not looking well. Nothing. He's staying on to talk to you. Is there anything I can do for him? Perhaps there is, Ernst. Have a talk with him. You people are a heavy burden on me. I must go now, dear.'

She kissed him goodbye. "'Be careful,' he whispered. Suddenly he swung open the door. "'There,' he cried triumphantly. "'Did you see? There, there's a second. There's a little bit. scoundrel slips away so quickly, just like a ghost, no, more like a devil. She gave a last glance at Addy. Her eyelids flickered at him and she went away. Ernst closed the door very carefully. He simply can't go un-living by himself, thought Constance as she hurried to the Van Satasemers. It was a very small house in a side street at Downard, and she found Van Satzum,

her sick and ailing in a stuffy little sitting room, she saw Carolyn, too, bitter-eyed and bitter-mouthed, generally embittered by her dull existence as spinster of nearly 30, with no prospect of marrying. Meanwhile, Adolphine kept her sister waiting. She had obviously run upstairs to put on a clean tea gown. At the back of the little house, under the grey sky, which sent down a false smalling light through the heavy rain clouds, the atmosphere seemed full of bitterness. Bitterness because they were ill and poor and disappointed, and all this dreariness was scantily and narrowly housed between the father, mother and daughter, in the little room where they kept getting in one another's way. A melancholy born of pity welled up in Constance,

and she tried to talk cheerfully while Fansatima coughed and complained. Carolyn, bitter-mouthed and bitter-eyed, sat silent, and Adolphine, suddenly, with no attempt at preamble, observed to Constance, "'It's splendid air here at Downward, and the house is extraordinarily convenient. But her boasting voice choked as she completed her sentence more humbly, for the four of us.' "'And where is Marieta?' asked Constance. "'Upstairs. She likes being upstairs in a little bit of us.' her own little room. How is she today? Just the same. May I see her? Adolphine rose with some hesitation, but she took Constance upstairs and opened a door. Mary Chott, here's Aunt Constance.

The girl rose from her chair in the grey light of the little room. She was tall and pale, and in that light seemed suddenly to blossom up like a lily of sorrow with the white head drooping at the neck, a little on one side. The very fair hair hung limply about the temples. It was heavy, her only attraction, and was wrung into a heavy knot which she wore low at her neck. The movements of her long arms, of her long thin hands betrayed a listless, lingering anemia, and her blouse hung in folds over her flat bosom. She was 26, but looked younger. Her lackluster eyes were innocent, of all passion, as though she were incapable of ever becoming a woman, as though her senses were dying away, like some fading lily on its bending stalk.

Good morning, Auntie. The little room was grey and white as a nun's cell, with the cloistered simplicity of a hermitage. I'm so glad to see you, Maricha. Auntie, Mama said that you and uncle. Yes, Maricha, we'd be glad to have you with us. Mama has told you, hasn't she? then, Adikon, "'It's very kind of you, auntie, "'but I would rather not come.' "'What do you mean, dear? "'I would rather stay here.

"'There's not much about me to cure, "'and I'm not anxious to be cured, "'and in your house. "'Well, I should be so gloomy. "'I am never bright or cheerful, you know, "'and I hardly ever come downstairs.' "'Adolphine's eyes filled with tears. "'It's true,' she said softly,

she lives up here. You would be cheerful enough with us, Marisha. No, auntie, I should feel uncomfortable with you. Because I'm not cheerful, I should depress you all. We are not so easily depressed, and the chief thing is that Addy could treat you regularly. Marisha gave a pale smile. Why won't you go, dear? asked Adolphine.

The girl retained her pale smile. She seemed to be wrestling with a temptation that opened up soft and peaceful visions in her pale life as a constant invalid, but she did not wish to yield. Come, said Constance, you had much better, really. Suddenly Maricha felt herself grow very weak.

She saw death, saw the end, so very close before her eyes, and the soft, peaceful visions would never be more than a very brief hallucination, which after all she might as well accept, and because she suddenly felt as though in a dream she had no strength to resist the gently persuasive voices of her mother and her aunt, which were luring and luring her like voices from very far away, voices which she seemed to hear through the haze of vague and enticing distance.

Yet her own one voice did not reveal what she felt, as she continued feebly objecting, I should be too much trouble An invalid is so depressing It would be very difficult For Addy to look after you here Besides, you have grandmamma She's no trouble And little clasher

Yes, but that's different How are Maricha and Adel Quite well, very well indeed We'll go on calling her Maricha And if you come down, we'll call you Let's say, Mary, to avoid confusion Mary, will that do, but your house is so full as it is.

Guy is giving you his room. The girl uttered more faint words and phrases, but they were like little waves which carried her softly and tenderly towards the gentle vision and the dream. Very well, auntie, she said at last. You are very good to me. It's only natural as far as I'm concerned, but when you're at Dreibergen, you'll thank your uncle,

won't you? Of course it's his house. Yes. Won't it be rather damp? For Maritia, asked Adolphine, hesitatingly. I don't think so, said Constance. Constance, said Adolphine, taking her hand. It is so kind of you, and I'm so grateful. Her voice trembled as she spoke. My dear, what a fuss you make, said Constance. I'm your sister and Maritia. is my niece, but, but what? It certainly is kind of Henry. Yes, it's very nice of your husband. You see, it's his house. Yes, and he had so many calls on him, said Adolphine humbly. Constance, won't you let me pay something, for Marietas keep? So much a month, I mean, until she's a little

better. You'd better not bother to do that, Adolphine. You have so many expenses. Yes, but you've plenty of use for your money too. What I mean is, it's your husband's money. I know, but Henry would rather you didn't pay anything. Really? Really? I'm sure of it. If you are Fansat summer wrote him a line, he'd like that. Of course I shall. I shall thank him myself. And you'll come and see the child whenever you like, won't you, Adolphine?

Yes, Constance, I will. What a pity it is. that you don't live in the Hague. Why? Oh, the Hague is so much our town, our family town, and your house, now that Mama is so old, is certainly the house of the family, the centre, so to speak. It's Henry's house. Yes, that's what I mean. Constance stood up to go. Then will Maricha come down with me tomorrow? Yes, we'll pack her trunk.

A reacher rose suddenly, threw her arm round Constance, and sobbed excitedly. "'Auntie, auntie, I do think it's so—so what, dear?' The rapture died out of her voice, and she concluded, "'I think it's so kind of uncle, of uncle and you, to have me, to live with you, to live with you.' Van Satasemar downstairs had a violent attack of coughing, and Adolphine rushed anxious, out of the door. End of chapter 10. Chapter 11 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus.

This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Days had come of endless flaking snow, and the hard frost kept the snow tight-packed in the garden alongside the house, the silent, massive building whose thick white lines stood out against the low-hanging snow-laden skies. One great greyness from out of which the grey of the snow fell with a sleepy whirl until it was caught in the grip of the frost and turned white,

describing the outlines of villa houses and the branching silhouettes of black and dreary trees with round soft strokes of white. The road in front of the house soon soiled its whiteness with cart-tracks and footprints and with the snow there fell from the sky, like so much grey wool, the pale melancholy of a winter in the country. All white decay and white loneliness, days so short that it seemed as though the slow hours slept,

and, when awake, but dragged their whiter veils from grey dawn to grey twilight, so that dawn might once again be turned to night. And the short days were like white nights, sunless as though the light were shining through velvet, as though life were breathing through velvet, velvet cold as the breath of death, the breath of death itself,

striking down and embracing all things in its chill velvet. In the big house reigned the silent warmth of domesticity in big heated rooms and passages, with the rich browns of the heavy old carpets and curtains, which had lived long and were beginning to grow worn in weary attitudes and folds of chamber contemplation, as though the dead stuffs looked down and dreamed and breathed in sympathy with all that lived among them.

While in the snowy light reflected from outside, the mahogany furniture also gleamed with its own life, or cast back things of long ago, past sufferings of small people and past sentiments. The silent moods of old and lonely people seemed to rise up from the old solemn furniture, which smiled good-humouredly because so much new life had come into the midst of it from the outside. The chair springs moaned, the cupboard doors creaked, the looking-glasses grew dull and bright in turns, the china became chipped, the silver became scratched, full of the serviceable humility of those very old, wearing things of day.

daily life, which had long been used and were dying off slowly, while all around and about them, blossomed the new movement of the new life from without. And yet, despite that new movement and that new life, a soul of the past seemed to hover through the long passages, up the brown stairs, to skim along the dark doors, even though these, when opened, gave admission to the rooms of the new life. Even in the room, rooms themselves, something still hovered of that soul of the past, and the furniture reflected that soul, as though it were vaguely clinging to material things, a soul catching at earthly things, when itself had not yet died out entirely. In among these reflections of the soul

things of the past, there lingered a remnant of biblical piety, because of the titles of certain books in the bookcases because of certain old-fashioned engravings in the dark rooms. And at certain hours of silent twilight, there passed through the house a sort of hover of prayer, which Constance sometimes felt so intensely that on Sunday mornings, she always insisted that the girls at least should go to church, as though they were almost bound to do so, out of reverence for the old people who used to live and pray here,

and especially for the old man. and the thought that she herself did not go troubled her so greatly that, very occasionally she accompanied the girls, though she continued insensible to any impression derived from liturgical religion. And the things of the past that flickered and hovered and formed the intangible atmosphere of the dark passages and the rich brown rooms, in which the only gay note was struck by the blue and white of the delft pots and jars,

those things of the past all unconsciously harmonised with the mood only of Vandevelka because something of his childhood was wafted and reflected in them, and of Adi, because of his vague sense of inheriting not only the material but also the immaterial things with which the big house remained filled. Though he felt a stranger to the old man, he felt related to the old woman with a strange retrospect of what he knew of her and remembered of her late. a silent, mystic years, when liturgical piety was not enough to satisfy her. But for the rest, the house remained as it were, one great hospitality,

though alien in blood to so many who had found a shelter in it and a sanctuary. The old doting woman at the window, peering out at the snow-gray garden vistas, the morning and still young mother with her grown-up children, and Emily full of silent mystery. and the other day in a drifting blizzard, Constance had brought home Maricha van Satsima, Mary as they decided to call her, and they had given her Guy's room, now that Guy worked in a corner of Addy's study, where he heaped up his books on a little table. The house gradually became very full.

The daughter-in-law also remained alien to the big house, but the children, Constance and Yetcha, were always like golden sunbeams, sometimes whirling in a sound of yet stammering voices of early springtime as they went along the stairs and passages with their nurse. One already toddling on foot, the other still carried, to go for a drive in the governess cart, or to play in the conservatory, where the old great-grandmother at the window

looked on with vague smiles at their playfulness, which was that of very small children. And the day after Constance's arrival with Marieter in the grey-white, blizzard. How surprised they all were when Addy telegraphed that he was coming next day with Uncle Ernst. Two or three words only in the telegram with no explanation. How astounded they were that Addy had managed to get that done. Constance and Guy went at once to the little villa where they took in patients. Yes, the doctor had already wired for the two rooms, they were told, and everything was being got ready. That was to say, the bedroom.

for the gentleman would furnish the sitting-room himself. And on the next day, Addy and Uncle Ernst actually arrived. Ernst's furniture was being sent on from the Hague, his china had been packed up under his own and Addy's supervision, and, though Ernst at first looked at the bare sitting-room with great suspicion, tapping at the walls, listening at the partition, and declaring that the people, the man of the house, himself a male nurse, and the trained nurse, his wife, were spying behind the door,

just like the landlady and her cadaver brother at the Hague. Nevertheless, he was pleased, surprised to find the room so large, though he missed the somber canal in the Nue Outlache, which he loved for the gloom of its colouring and atmosphere. As he passed through the garden with Adi, leaning on Adi's arm, he thought it's strange that he saw, walking through the room, white snow, accompanied by the nurse, an old lady, the only patient at the moment, though there were several in the summer, and he looked at her with suspicion.

But he was pleased again and surprised when Addy explained to him how very near he would be living to all of them, and when Addy brought him to the house, Ernst stood by the garden gate, gazing at it, and looked up at the snow-cornist gable, at the soft snow on the straight lines of the windows and above the door. The great house seemed to look down upon him benignly with all the eyes of its window panes, and he went on, leaning on Addy's arm, through the garden and inside. He had never been there before. He took an immediate interest in the antique cabinet in the hall,

the engravings, the delft jars, and nodded his head approvingly, admitting that this was beautiful. Constance welcomed him cordially, and, though he had not seen Mama for years, he greeted her in all simplicity, as if he had parted from her only yesterday. She held his hand, looked him in the face, recognised him for a son of hers, but did not know his name, imagined that he had come from Java, asked after things and mentioned names. They did not understand each other, and Constance felt very sad, especially because of little Clarsha playing at Mama's feet with lovely coloured picture books which Uncle Addy had given her. Look, a blue man, yellow woman, red and outside, everything white, everything white, everything white.

And suddenly, so heavy a melancholy arose in Constance that she could have burst out sobbing because of her mother, her brother, because of that child, of her poor brother, Gerrit. But she made a violent effort of self-control, put her arm round Ernst's shoulder, and led him away from Mama, and Adeline and Emily came to speak to him. Oh, the things of the past, not the past things, of which the atoms still hovered about this house, those of the old people, but the things of their own past, of the bygone dead years of all of them, years of a youth not so long ago. How they crowded in amongst them all, how they filled the atmosphere of the faintly somber room,

while the snow reflected its gleams indoors to water away brightly in the old mirrors. How did they all come to be here like this? How did they all come to be here like this? as in a refuge, as in a sanctuary, a silent haven of simple love. How nerveless she became! How nerveless! When she saw her husband and her son come in, those two who, she could not pursue her thoughts of nerveless and sadness any further.

Alex also now entered, and in him, so young, so young, she also saw all the past, flashing at her suddenly out of his eyes, with the vision of his father's death. But now the girls came in two, and when Guy and Gerdi came, both laughing, she also laughed because of their gaiety, their flaxen-haired joy in living, young and strong and healthy and simple, both of them.

How happy, how happy those two were! Oh, the more the past heaped itself up, the more the present was overcast with shadow. But those two, "'Herdie and Guy were young and strong and healthy and simple. "'Hapy, happy!' "'And with a laugh almost of happiness, "'however intensely she might feel all the things of the past,

"'she asked Daddy, "'Isn't it too much for Uncle Ernst now?' "'Yes, I shall take him home,' said Addie. "'Can't he stay and dine one day?' "'Perhaps later on, he must get used to it first. "'The great thing is not to force him.' and he suggested to Ernst that they should go back. But Ernst said,

When will my packing cases come? Tomorrow, uncle. You see, if I'm to get everything in order, I'll help you. Will you help me unpack? I'll help you too, uncle, said Guy. Yes, said Ernst, that's right. You see, he whispered to Addy.

What, uncle? It's not good for the vases to remain in the cases so long. You don't believe it, of course, but... He did not complete his sentence, would not say that the vases were suffocating in their cases, with all that paper and straw. He would not say it, because Addy was so kind, a kind-hearted fellow, really, but devoid of understanding.

Stupid, just as stupid as all the rest of them. We shall unpack as quickly as we can, Uncle, and make the room comfortable for you. Yes, I have only the bedroom, present. The bedroom's all right, isn't it? Yes, am I to have my dinner there tonight? If you don't mind, as your sitting room isn't ready. Yes, I don't care for dining in my bedroom. Can't I stay and dine here? Certainly, Uncle, we should like that above all things. Aren't the troupe of us too noisy for you? They are a bit noisy, but, no, they're very good. Tell me, Addy, they're all

children of Uncle Gerrit, aren't they? Of Uncle Gerrit, yes. Yes, yes, I remember, I should like to stay and dine if I may. It's because the sitting room isn't ready, you see. Very well, Uncle, then come upstairs now to my study, then you can rest a bit and read, or sleep if you like, on the sofa. No, I never sleep by day. It'll be quiet for you there. Yes, it's quiet where you are. "'Come with me.' "'He took Ernst upstairs.' "'This is a nice, quiet room,' said Ernst. "'Then I'll leave you by yourself.

"'You'll find books and papers. "'Can you manage to occupy yourself alone?' "'Yes, my dear boy. "'I want to be alone. "'You're kind, you're very kind. "'You understand me. "'I shall be glad to stay and dine. "'Would you like your dinner up here?'

"'No, downstairs with all of you. Their uncle Gerrit's children, aren't they? You see, it's all family. I'd rather dine downstairs. All right, I'll come and fetch you. End of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain.

A few days skating produced a sudden, unexpected lightness of heart, and Matilda grew more animated. The members of Gerdi's tennis club met again, on the ice. Guy did nothing but skates these days, excusing himself to Constance and Addy for his idleness by saying that one had to make the most of the ice, which never lasted long. And even Van der Velko was persuaded by Guy to fasten on his skates, remaining young as ever in his quiet way. It was indeed a sudden, unexpected lightness of heart after so many rainy days. The cold wind whipped up their blood. The snow crackled like powdered crystal under their eager hurrying feet.

Young men and girls who heard his little circle came to fetch her in the morning and again after lunch, and when the skating was over, they would all meet round the tea table in the big drawing room, and Addy taught Clashar to skate on the pond in the garden, and, under the jovial influence of the frosty snow, he romped about the garden with his children, with little Getcha and Constance, and yet perhaps none of them sniffed up the healthy outdoor life of these cold days of east wind and ice so greedily as Matilda suddenly quickened in her rich blood her somewhat coarse build her heavy tread and her loud full womanly voice it had been no life for her with the silent dripping rain in the noisy but yet sombre big house she and the children had kept upstairs as much as possible

in her own rooms, because she felt out of tune with the whole pack below, unable to coalesce with the big household. Those sad women, and all those children of Uncle Geritz, who daily monopolised Adi more and more, until he had hardly a moment to give to his own children and her. What was he to her now? Always busy, always occupied, always away, always attending to the pack below, or to poor people outside, poor people, about whom she knew nothing. What was her life to her, the life in which she pined away in that musty atmosphere,

in which she always remained a stranger, for lack of any sort of sympathy, because she did not, any more than any of them, which for the establishment of any harmonious intimacy, was it not really a terrible existence for a young and spirited woman in the country, in the winter,

at Dreebergen, with no friends, in a house with rooms so dark and gloomy that the servants declared that it was haunted. Then downstairs, always at the window, the doting grandmother, Clasher, half an imbecile, Adeline and Emily, never cheerful, always melancholy, and those who were cheerful, Guy and Gerdi, never nice to her. Her father-in-law much fonder of Guy and Gerdi than of herself, whom as she well knew, he actually disliked. Her mother-in-law, kind at times it was true, had she not given Matilda the beautiful, brilliant, which now sparkled on her finger, but still cold, she thought, cold even to the children, just forcing herself to be kind, because Matilda happened to be her son's wife.

No, she couldn't say who or what was to blame, but as strange as she remained. a constant stranger, half-forgotten, together with her two children, the children, who alone besides Papa and Addy, bore the name of the house, of van der Velka, Baron and Baroness van der Velka. The children neglected because the whole troop of Van Lois made themselves masters of the house, of the affection of her father-in-law and mother-in-law of every minute that Addy had to spare.

Oh, it was just a hostess. Adelaidecha was always ailing, and now Maricha van Satzama, really very seriously ill, had been added to the rest. Or wasn't it rather, with their exaggerated clinging to that family of semi-lunetics, a madhouse, now that over and above doting grandmamma and half-witted clasher, this uncle Ernst, who was quite out of his mind, had appeared on the scene. True, he did not live in the house, but he was there a great deal and would come into meals unexpectedly without a word of warning. She was frightened when she met him suddenly in the passages,

always carrying on about the Delph jars. And then he didn't recognise her, didn't know who she was, what she was doing there, until he remembered, Addie's wife. Perhaps he only behaved like that from craftiness, from wicked, A haunted house, a sick house, a madhouse, that's what it was, and this was where she had to spend her life, but Addie's suggestion that they should live by themselves, economically at the Hague did not attract her. She had had enough of economy. She had not married him for economy. She had not married him for his money or for his title either. She had really and truly

married him because she loved him, loved his quiet, charming, serious face, his eyes, his mouth, loved having him in her arms, because she loved his voice. Loved, strange though it may seem, his rather elderly, restful manliness, calmness and strength, suggested by that rather short, sturdy, blonde frame. She had looked upon him with love, had felt love for him, and no one could blame her for being sensible and for not being prepared to marry him if he had been quite without money. Of course, she thought it nice to have a title. Well, there may have been a little vanity in that, but weren't there hundreds like her, and did that make her bad and so contemptible that they just left her to her own devices, Addie himself, as much as the whole pack of them?

All the little grievances accumulated within her breast, weighing her down and almost stifling her. The tea, which Reddy purposely made not fit to drink, the half-witted child, which pushed against her chair, the imbecile man who did not recognise her, the coolness of papa, who never spoke a kind word to her, not even when he was playing with his grandchildren, Yetcher and Constance, who were just as much her children as Addis. The grievances accumulated within her, grievances against Papa, Mama, the sick people and the mad people they had to live with them, all because they were relations, against the servants, against Troucher, against everything and everybody. Oh, how gloomy that rainy winter had been, ever and ever raining, with the great wind blustering round the house,

drawing such strange moaning sounds from the creaking windows and shutters and bellowing down the chimney till all the old wood of the house and the furniture came to life, took soul onto itself and squeaked and groaned until the whole place was one eerie horror of inexplicable noises. Those noises, oh those noises! They all knew of them, and not one of them spoke of them, because in spite of it all, they clung to the old creepy, haunted house. They even denied their existence to her, and the best thing that Matilda could do was not to speak about them

because they refused to hear them. But she was frightened. She had gradually become frightened with that long keeping indoors. Where could she go, with the rain, the wind of the storm, lashing for days and days? She had become frightened, frightened, frightened, and they, all of them, had one another, whereas she had nobody, with her husband generally out visiting his patients. She had only her two little children, and she was frightened on their

account too, and now, when she suddenly came upon Ernst on the stairs, she became frightened again, and she could see that the children were also frightened. No, she was not happy, and she was angry with herself at not being plucked. and choosing poverty and economy. Oh, how sick of it she was, at the Hague, rather than the so-called luxury of this haunted house. And such luxury, the furniture old, the carpets worn, the table very simple.

Really, a simple middle-class life, and one that costs thousands and thousands, as Addy would assure her on the first of the month, when handing her allowance for herself and the children. With those thousands and thousands they could surely have had a more genuine luxury. If Papa and Mama and Addy hadn't been such soft-hearted fools as to take in that pack of Uncle Gerets, you could do good and still think of yourself. With those thousands, but without the pack, they could start and furnish the house in a better, less stuffy and more modern style,

paint all those brown gloomy doors, a cheerful white. and gold, have cheerful new carpets, curtains and furniture, with flowers and Japanese fans in the conservatory, make a summer residence of the house, and in the winter live at the Hague, keep their carriage, have their opera box, go out and entertain. They could have lived like that, papa, mamma and Addy, if they had wished, for the thousands were there to do it with. At the Hague, Addy, as Baron van der Velka, could have acquired a smart practice, the good-looking, pleasant fellow that he was. That was how they might have lived, deriving some enjoyment from their money.

And even then, they could very well have helped Aunt Adeline with the upbringing of her children, and everyone would have thought it's very handsome of them, and no one would have thought that they were living or acting unreasonably, or selfishly or inexplicably, whereas now, where is now, looking themselves up in the dark, haunted house, all through the long, long winter, with nothing but sick people,

all through the long, long winter, with nothing but sick people, nothing but mad people about them. Fortunately, it had begun to freeze. It was as though this glorious ice had brought about a friendlier feeling. "'Herdie was not so very horrid. "'Gai skated with Matilda because she was a good-finished skater,

"'fond of good-finished unwearied skating, "'and the crisp crystal cold, "'after all the days of rain and storm, "'made everybody cheerful and indulgent. "'Oh, those skating trips! "'First a short journey by train, "'and then along the waterways, "'endlessly, endlessly.

"'And she was so grateful when Addie, one single morning, was able to escape going to all those sick, poor people whom he had to visit daily. She hated the sighted feel of him when he returned, and went with her, for half a day's skating. And she took possession of her husband, glad to have him with her, with crossed hands swaying evenly and rhythmically with him, in the rhythm of hip to hip, in the swing of firmly shod feet, while she cuts through the broad blast of the wind, with her swift, powerful movement till her eyes and face shone

and she was drunk with swallowing the ice-cold distance, shooting far ahead in canal vistas between the snow-clad meadows under the low-hanging skies, swept clean as with giant besams of wind, while the horizons of skeleton trees dwindled and faded away, and the windmills, with the broad black, silent gestures of their sails,

loomed up, and disappeared as she shot past. Fortunately, it had begun to freeze. It seemed to her, as if suddenly in these days of winter pastime, she had found her husband again, as if she half felt that he was finding her again. He did love her then. He was not quite indifferent to her.

Through her glove she felt his hand glowing in hers. She felt the swift rhythm of their hips as a voluptuousness, and she could have hung round his neck because he took her with him like that, rushing, rushing over the straight streaks of endless smooth ice. Addy, Addy, you do love me, don't you? Amid the swift movement she looked at him and laughed,

and his eyes turned with a little laugh to her. Oh, how they knew how to laugh those great earnest eyes of his, with the often strange blue spark, like a flash of secret fire which he sometimes did not understand, but which he understood now. For what else did it mean that flash, and that he loved her too, that he thought her pretty? And was he not telling her with his eyes, as he had often told her in words, that he loved her because she was so attractive, so palpably healthy and pretty, and that it was this that attracted him in her, her pink and white complexion, her rounded form, her young and very, and very,

vigorous limbs. Then she felt him akin to herself, a young man, a man made young again, a man with a clear, materialistic soul, and in this man she read the young doctor who loved her healthy body, her rich healthy blood, weary as he must be of the morbid nerves of his mother's family. Oh, those fan lowers, she hated them all. She felt herself to belong to another race, and was Addie himself, like his father, not healthy, simply healthy and manly, a good-looking young fellow, a man, even though he was almost prematurely old. Was he in the smallest degree of Van Lua, with all their nerves, the morbidity, their semi-lunacy, so sickly in constitution one and all that she could not stand any one of them? But they turned her stomach, Adelaicha, always ailing,

Maricha, really, very ill, Alex, so weak, Emily, so crushed and melancholy. A van derkel she, but still with Van Loa blood in her. Edghae was a nice-looking boy, but so dull and sleepy. And Gerdi was a nice-looking girl, but full of eccentric ways, of course, because she was a van Loa. But they turned her stomach, that always ailing, half-mad family of her mother. in-laws, who had ensconced themselves in their house. And it was lucky that in Addie she found simply a van der Velka, Baron van der Velka, a healthy fellow belonging to a healthy, normal family.

That was how she looked at it, normal. That was how she looked at it, while she let her husband swing her along the endless, endless streaks of ice. The snowfields flew past. The horizons of leafless trees approached, changed their aspect, disappeared. The spreading sails of the windmills loomed up, disappeared, loomed up with the silent tragedy of their despairing gestures outlined against the sky. That was how she looked at it, normal. True, Addy employed hypnotism from time to time, but that was the fashion nowadays. He could not lag behind when medicine was making progress in all directions.

And, utterly blind to the really duplicate soul that was her husband, she saw him merely single, simple and normal, because she remembered now in the joy of their sport on the ice, the vigorous embrace of his arms, the hunger and thirst of his unsated kisses. Normal, quite normal. No, she felt. herself so strong now to win him, to bind him to herself, because she herself was comely and

healthy and normal. His delight when he was tired of every sort of ailment, his luxury, which already had given him two pretty children. People were skating in front of her, behind her, like the pair of them, and she was proud that she was skating with her husband. She would not let him go. He was hers. He was hers. He was hers. It was fortunate that it had begun to freeze. They had had three fine days, and this was the fourth, and already, alas, a touch of Thor seemed to slacken the crystal-clear firmness of the sky, which had been so transparent at first. But still the ice was in no way impaired. A trip was planned, and Matilda felt sure that Addy would come, and great was her

disappointment when he said. Not today, Tilly. I must go to my patience this morning. You managed with the afternoon yesterday? I can't wait so long this time. There's an old woman who expects me, and my reacher isn't so well today. Mary, I mean, as Mama calls her. Then I shan't go either, she said crossly. Why shouldn't you go? He persisted, gently. You enjoy it so. With you? I can't come this morning. You're sorry. You're sorry. You're you can to please me. No, I can't come this morning, Tilly, but you would please me by going. I like skating with you. His eyes laughed, and do you imagine that I don't enjoy it? You don't love me. You know better. Then come. Not this morning. You're always so self-willed. Because I

mustn't go this morning. Be sensible now and go without me. She shrugged her shoulders. "'All right, I'll go, I'll go.' It was just after breakfast, and the children were still downstairs. He played with them. Constant toddled to him on shaky legs. Addy held Yetcha on his arm and rubbed his moustache against her milk-white little face to make her laugh and crow.

A soft feeling of bliss welled within him because he was pressing against him a life that was his life. a small shrine of frail and tender childbody in which flashed an atom of soul that laughed and crowed and lived. And the baby was so ordinary, a baby just like other babies, when he looked at it as a doctor,

and the baby was so mystic, when, as a father, he pressed it to himself. What was more mystic than a little child? What was more mysterious and higher in divine incomprehensibility than a little child? a little child born just ordinarily a few months ago. What was more divinely mysterious and mystic than birth and the dawn of life?

Where did it come from? The baby with its tiny atom of soul, the baby which his wife had borne him. As a doctor, he laughed at his own naive question. As a father and man, he grew grave in awe of it. He felt two beings within himself more and more clearly every day. two beings, long maintained in a strange equilibrium, but now trembling as at a test. He felt too within himself, the ordinary, normal, practical, almost prematurely old,

earnest young scientist and doctor, and within that soul his second soul, a soul of mystery, of divine incomprehensibility, a soul full of mysticism, a soul full of unfathomable force, a force which unloosed a magic that was salutary to many. And when that magic passed out of him, salutary to many, he would feel himself normal, practical and serious, but suddenly blind for himself, as though he knew nothing for himself,

because he was two souls, too much two souls to know things for himself. Oh, what was more incomprehensible than the essence of life? What more incomprehensible than himself? What more incomprehensible than this little baby and that little toddling boy? And it was born so simply in the womb of a healthy woman, and it grew up so ordinarily, and that very ordinary growth was as great a riddle as anything or everything. Oh, who knew? What did anyone know? And the strangest thing of all was that he knew, with a strange consciousness for others,

what to do, what to say, how to act, that he had known, unconsciously, as a child when he had spoken words of consolation to his father, to his mother. Later, consciously with a salutary and sacred knowledge, not alone for father and mother, but for others, for so many, for so many. Now he handed her back to the nurse,

his little yetcher, his little riddle of birth and the dawn of life, his little atom of soul. Now he stroked the silky curls of Constant, who was clinging to his legs, and went upstairs knowing. How strange that was in him, that calm quiet's knowledge, that certainty of his will,

which would shine forth in a setting of calm speech. He went up the stairs to the top floor, to what used to be Guy's room, where Guy had generally sat in the morning, bending over his books and maps, until, in an impulse of youthful restlessness, he would wander through the house looking for his sisters or aunt. Parreacher now occupied the room, or Mary, as she was usually called.

Addy knocked, and she asked who was there, kept him waiting for a moment in her modesty, as she nervously tidied something in her room and put away her clothes. When he entered, she was sitting in a big armchair, looking very pale. But Matilda, angry that Addy had refused to come skating, suddenly felt a violent jealousy, a violent dagger-sharp jealousy in her soul, because Addy had spoken of patients who expected him, and because he had spoken of Marieta.

And, in her room, undecided whether to go or not, whether to stay indoors and sulk, or to seek her amusement without her husband, she suddenly felt an irresistible impulse to follow her husband, upstairs. She went, and in order to keep in countenance, should she meet anybody, she resolved that she would pretend to be fetching a coat, hanging in a wardrobe closet next to Marietcher's room. The wardroves were used for clothes that were not worn every day. Entering the closet, she softly closed the door and held her keys in her hand. If she were surprised,

she would quietly open the big wardrobe. Meanwhile, she would, she would, She listened at the partition, and she heard the voices of her husband and Marisha, as though they were sounding across a distance and an obstacle. How did you sleep, Marisha? I haven't slept at all. What was the matter? All night long, I had a buzzing in my ears. It was a roaring and roaring like the sea.

I wanted to get up and come downstairs, to auntie, but I was afraid to, and I didn't want to disturb the house. It was just like waves. I didn't sleep at all, and then I dream, I dream while I lie awake. All sorts of things flash out before me, like visions, and it makes the night so long, so endless. And I feel so tired now, but above all so hopeless. I shall never get well. Yes, you will.

No, Haddy, I have always been ill. You must have a quiet sleep now. I shan't be able to. Yes, come and lie here on the sofa. I'll draw the blinds. Addie, what is it, Maritia? Do you know what I should like? What?

I should like when you have put me to sleep as you did yesterday, and the day before I should like never to wake again, to remain asleep always. I should like your voice to lull me to sleep forever and ever. And why don't you want to go on living? You're young and you will get better. Tell me what's the matter with me. Don't think about that.

My body is ill, but isn't my soul ill too? Don't think about that. And lie down. Keep very still. Give me your hand. Hush. Sleep is coming. Peaceful sleep.

The eyelids are closing. The eyelids feel heavier and heavier. The eyelids are closing. Heavier and heavier the eyelids. You can't lift them. You can't lift them. The hand grows heavier and heavier. You can't lift the hand. The whole body is growing heavy, heavy, heavier and heavier with sleep, peaceful sleep, coming, coming. Batilda listened breathlessly at the partition. All was silence now in Marieta's room. Batilda no longer heard Addy's soothing voice, summoning sleep.

magic of peaceful sleep. And suddenly, as she listened, she grew frightened. She, Matilda, grew frightened of things which she did not understand, grew frightened, as she was frightened when, in the evening, late, she went along the dark passages and the dark staircases. And yet it was morning now, and the wintry reflection of the snow, a little faded by the first touch of the fell shrill into the narrow closet without any shade of mystery. She trembled where she knelt, frightened of what she did not understand. She trembled, and in her trembling, became conscious of a fierce jealousy, not only of Maricha, but of all Adi's patience,

those outside whom she had never seen, living in their poor little houses which she did not know. But she was most jealous of Maricha, was the good, girl asleep now. She heard Addy's footstep, heard his hand on the handle of the door, heard him go out, he was going out. Maricha was no doubt asleep. She waited a few seconds longer, heard the stairs creak lightly under his feet as he went down, and now, after her fears and jealousy, she was seized with curiosity. She left the wardrobe closet, listened in the passage outside Maricha's door, and suddenly, grasping the handle firmly and carefully, she opened the door and saw Marisha slumbering peacefully in the darkened room, her face white and relaxed on the

sofa cushions. Then she closed the door again and went downstairs. She was no longer frightened, no longer curious, only her jealousy burnt fiercely within her, like an angry fever. She had just time to put on her things and pick up her skates. Guy Gerdi and their friends were waiting for her downstairs. End of Chapter 12. Chapter 13 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. That evening, Gerdi said to Constance,

Auntie, Matilda carried on like a lunatic today. But Constance refused to listen. she well knew that there was no love lost between Matilda and the rest of them and it always upset her that on the one hand Matilda always remained a stranger and that on the other one of the children always had some remark to make about Matilda. She on the contrary was always glossing over Matilda's shortcomings and nearly always took her side. Honestly, Auntie, Matilda carried on like a lunatic this afternoon.

"'Herdie was in a great state of excitement, "'and she determined to tell her story. "'It was after dinner. "'Tee had not yet been served, "'and Matilda was upstairs, putting the children to bed. "'The others in the room were Adeline, Emily and Guy. "'Granny was sitting in her corner, "'and Constance refused to listen.

"'You mustn't always be so intolerant about Matilda,' "'said Constance by way of reprimand. "'Int, intolerant,' echoed Gerdy excitedly. "'But you didn't see her. "'The insane way she behaved. "'We were on the ice, and—' "'She lowered her voice to a whisper, "'though Granny was not likely to understand.

"'We were on the ice, and there were others, "'the Airtzailers from Utrecht, "'and Johann Aertzela from the Hague, you know, "'the one who's in the Grenadiers. "'Yes, I know. "'Matilderan here old acquaintances, She often used to dance with him, but that's no reason for carrying on with him as she did. I say, it wasn't as bad as all that, said Guy, in a tone of palliation.

Not as bad as all that, not as bad as all that, repeated Heddy, very angrily, because Guy, Constance and everybody were making excuses for Matilda. Not as bad as all that. Well, if I was married, or even unmarried, I should be ashamed to carry on like that with any man, then I'd met him at a hundred dances. Do let Matilda enjoy herself, said Constance. Really? She has so little. So little what? said Hedy, almost impertinently. She has everything, she has everything she could wish for. She has a darling of her husband. She has the sweetest of children. She has everything. But she sometimes feels a little neglected

and strange among all of us, said Constance, still taking Matilda's part. So, if she's a little irresponsible once in a way, I don't grudget her for a moment. But it was more than being irresponsible. It was much worse. She was simply carrying on. For shame, Gerdi, who mustn't be so spiteful? Gerdi shrugged her shoulders angrily. She simply doted on Aunt Constance. nothing on earth would induce her to quarrel with Anticonstance, Anticonstance who was so kind to all of them, and so she preferred to say nothing.

But her dear, eager little soul was up in arms. She was very angry indeed. She pitied Addy. She was so angry. She felt such pity for Addy that really she did not quite understand her own feelings. After all, this was not the first time that Matilda had annoyed her. she had never liked Matilda.

It was enough to make her spill the tea or the milk if Matilda entered the room unexpectedly. And so, she really could not quite understand why she was so very angry and thinking so much of Addy simply because Matilda had carried on so with Johanna Zela, why it should irritate her so that Constance, on principle she could understand that much,

was taking Matilda's part, why it should irritate her that Mama and Emily was sitting so sad and silent that Granny was sitting so feeble and silently trembling in her far corner. Wyatt should irritate her that Adelaicha and Guy should keep on playing

backgammon. Three and four, two and five, Imperial, once more. She was very much overwrought, and, when Matilda came in for tea, the children were now asleep, Gerdi's little face quivered. She could hardly contain herself,

but she made the effort, because Constance was looking at her in such surprise. And to keep herself in countenance, she went in search of Uncle Henry, found van der Velker in the passage on the point of coming in, and asked him, Uncle, are you coming to play a rubber? If you like, dear, who's going to make up?

Maricha, I dare say, and Alex. Is the other Marieta, Mary, downstairs? No, uncle, she's up in her room. This house of ours is a regular hospital, eh? Oh, it's not as bad as that, uncle. I think it's a very nice house. You do, do you? Geri, usually so cheerful,

suddenly became very nervous, cross and angry, very limp, and she didn't understand herself, couldn't understand herself. Well, come and have a rubber. Yes, yes, I'm coming. Don't hustle your uncle. He's getting old.

But Geri laughed, shrilly, though she had to keep back her tears. You'll never be old. You think that? No, never. Ah, then I shall remain a scapegrace to my dying day. No, a dear, kind, uncle, but come and have a rubber now. She dragged him into the room.

Constance grumbled mildly. Gerdi, you're just like a naughty child. Every time you run out of the room, you leave the door open. And Gerdi, from being limp, became filled with poignant self-pity. Aunt Constance had ceased to care for her, cared more for her daughter-in-law, Matilda, everybody, everybody cared more for Matilda, Adi, Johanette Zela, they all cared more for Matilda. She, Reddy, was misjudged by everybody, everybody except Uncle Henry, who was so nice and kind. She made a great effort, mastered herself, mastered her volatile emotions.

Alex had come over that Saturday from Amsterdam where he was now boarding with a tutor at the Merchant School and he and Maricha soon got the bridge table ready and it became quite a serious rubber in the still pale yellow atmosphere of the big living room where the lamp shone sleepily through their yellow silk shades just bright enough to light the books or crochet work in the hands of the silent women Constance Adeline Emily

At about nine o'clock there was a certain movement in those intimate, silent, almost melancholy indoor lines and colours when Adeline took Clash to bed and Constance and Adelaidea helped Grandmama upstairs. The child and the old woman at the same hour, the one never outgrowing her first childhood, the other relapsing into her second, after so well knowing the many sad things that were to come, that had come, that had already faded away. even as all life that comes and goes, fades away in the faded pallor of the past. And when Constance and Adeline returned downstairs together,

they seemed to hear the wind getting up around the house, and Adeline said on the stairs, "'Listen, the wind's getting up, there's a change in the weather,' said Constance. "'That means Thor, it's a westerly wind, and we shall have rain.' On entering the room they found Ernst there. He often came round in the evenings. He watched Heard his cards and sat very still, never spoke much, feeling that they never understood what he said, and that it was better to talk to them as little as possible, even though there was some good about them, even though they were not utterly depraved, even though they meant the suffering souls no harm. Although once in a way all of them, they would trample on them unconsciously, because they did not see and understand.

and because they were so stupid and so innately rough. Nevertheless, rough and stupid as they were, they were his relations, and he came and looked them up, feeling at home in the house of his sister Constance and her husband, in the house also of Addy, who was the cleverest of them all, and who, he felt certain, did hear and see the souls, for he often spared them. He now stared at the cards and thought of the rubbers at mamars in the Alexander Stratt,

when he used to go there on Sundays in the old days. Strange that everything changed, that nothing remained, he thought. It was no longer the Hague now, it was Dreebergen, it was van der Velke's house, and Cedit's children. Kedit, how rough, how very rough he used to be, but even so, not exactly wicked and depraved. And the cards as they were played one after the other fell from the fingers of van der Velka, Gerdi, Alex and Maritia. The same game, only life changed. The game did not change, nor did the souls, the poor souls, ever and ever suffering around him, linking themselves

to his soul with dragging chains. He sat in silence and followed the play of the hand, stood it, nodded his approval of Vandervelka's careful game. Matilda had come in, so had Addy for a moment before going upstairs to work, and they met as husband and wife, who, after dinner in a bustling house, seek each other out for a moment to exchange a word or two. Batilda's eyes were red. Addy looked serious, and they all noticed it. It struck them, it saddened them, while they heard the wind flapping like a sagging. sail and the panes lightly creaking and the windows lightly rattling in their frames. Constance wondered what had happened and thought that it must be Matilda, always urging him to move

to the hague, and Addy would be quite willing for his wife's sake, but then the money question would crop up and remain insoluble, because Matilda would not be economical, and that indeed was how it was, and they had lost each other, Adi and Matilda, and that. and they would find each other again in a rebirth of desire when Addie reflected. What a beautiful, healthy woman she is! And we have to be healthy in our bodies, and normal in our longings, if we would be healthy of soul, in the life of our bodies and our physical being. On the evening after the excursion on the ice, they found each other again.

The wind had lashed their blood to a warm glow. The exercise had sent its coursing through their veins. love was reborn of their embrace until drowsiness overtook them, and Matilda thought that she had found him again, and Adi thought that he had found her again, because their kisses had sealed one to the other, because their arms had clasped one to the other. But they lost each other again at once, as ever and always,

because Matilda just did not know him in his two-sided soul, and he never knew things for himself, whatever he might know for others in the clarity of his knowledge, in any of the manifestations of the instinctive knowledge which he knew silently and blissfully in his soul's soul, the hidden spark from which treasure shone. Matilda sat down quietly in a corner, sitting a little way from the others, to catch the light of a lamp on her book, and Addy remained for only a moment, saying that he had work to do. And as he went out of the door, there was a sudden draught, so that the lamps flickered and smoked and nearly went out. There's something open, said Constance. Where can that wind come from?

I look, said Addie, closing the door. You see, said Gerdi, pursing up her mouth and turning to Aunt Constance. You see, it's not always my fault when there's a draft. Silence fell. There was not not a sound but the hard tap of the dice on the backgammon board and the rustle of the cards as they were played, while Constance Adeline, Emily and Matilda read or worked, and the evening hours in the soft light of the sitting room dozed away, as with soft trailing minutes and quarters, dull reflections in the mirrors, faint lamplight on the furniture, and the rhythmical ticking of the clock in the almost entire silence, broken only now and again by an occasional word at the card table, or when Guy said,

It's blowing, and thawing, there'll be no skating tomorrow. And piercing scream rang through the house, and the scream so suddenly and unexpectedly penetrated the silence of the stairs and passages of the great house, outside the room in which they were sitting, that all of them started suddenly. What's that? What's that? They all sprang up.

The cards, thanks to Heard. his fright, fell on the floor and lay flat with their gaudy pictures. When Van der Velka opened the door, there was no longer any draft. The maids were running into the hall anxiously through the open door of the kitchen. Everybody asked questions at once. They heard Addy come down a staircase and the hurried creaking of his firm step on the stairs reassured the women. They called out to him, he to them, and, amid their confusion, they at last heard his voice clearly. Help me, here, where? On the stairs. They ran up the stairs. On the back staircase, they heard him call. And Constance saw that the partition door

was standing ajar at the end of the long passage. She gave a cold shiver, and she heard Matilda suddenly say, Oh, nothing. Nothing will induce me to go. go up that staircase? But she forced herself and went, and the others followed her. They found Addie on the small narrow back staircase, and he was carrying Maricha, Mary, in his arms. She hung against him unconscious, like a white bundle of clothes, with her nerveless arms hanging slackened limp. What happened? I heard her call out. A staircase door above was open. I expect she meant to go downstairs, to fetch something and was taken ill on the stairs.

Help me, can't you? he said, almost impatiently. The women helped him carry Maricha upstairs. They all went up now to their rooms. The maids still pale and trembling, put out the lamps in the sitting room, and silence and darkness fell over the house as they went creaking up the stairs with candles in their hands.

The wind outside increased in violence, and the dripping thaw patted against the pains. The three sisters were together in their bedrooms. Maricha and Gerdi in their room, Adelaicha in her own room, with the door opened between them, and they spoke very low in whispering voices. I'm getting used to it, said Marcia sensibly. I'm no longer frightened.

I heard it's quite lately, said Geri, and Adelaichar answered. Yes, I hear it's nearly every evening. Uncle and aunt don't speak about it. No, it's better not to. It's always the same sound, like the dragging of heavy footsteps in the garret under the roof. And then it goes downstairs. Yes, then it goes downstairs.

Uncle had the garret examined. Add he has been up there with Guy. They found nothing. It can't be a rat. It's quite unaccountable. I'm getting so used to it, said Maricha. it sometimes comes down the little staircase and Constance is afraid of the little staircase

she doesn't like the house at all but Uncle does and Addy does Matilda was so frightened Uncle and Addy wouldn't like to leave the house and it's a nice house said Geri I'm frightened myself lately and yet I'm fond of the house I love the house too said Adelaature

It's so brown, so dark, like something safe and something very dear, around us all. I should be very sorry to leave the house. I shall never marry, shall I, because I'm ugly and delicate, and I shall always remain with uncle and aunt. Gerdi took her in her arms. You won't, Adelaidea went on. You will marry one day, Geri, and so will Maritia. Oh, stop, said Gerdi.

Do stop Adelaidea. What do you do, talking about marriage. I'm ugly as well. Nobody likes me. Listen, said Maricha. What did you hear? The sound I thought. I hear nothing. Listen. Yes, listen. It's trailing up the stairs. Oh, I'm frightened, I'm frightened, said Gerdi. The sisters all crept together. I'm not frightened, said Maricha. I often hear it, like that. What is it? The mates. say, what? That it's who, the old man.

Hush, listen, listen. They say the house is haunted. It may be nothing at all, said Maricha. It may be the wind, making a draught. But everything's shut. Old houses have queer drafts sometimes for all that. The furniture's old too. Listen, it's trailing.

That's the wind. There's the same trailing sound in the wind sometimes, blowing round the house. I'm getting used to it, said Maritia. Yes, said Adelaika. One gets used. One gets used to everything. I shall always remain in this house, with uncle and aunt.

I love them. They never talk about it. That's by far the best way. Matilda, how frightened she is. Listen, listen, it's going upstairs. It's the wind, taking the draft upstairs. In an old house, it's as though the old wood were alive. And the furniture.

What can have been the matter with Mary? Can she have seen anything? No. No, no. She wanted to fetch something. She fainted. She's very ill, I believe, very weak. Addie says that she's not so very ill.

Listen, could it really be the old man? And if it were the old man, what then? said Adelaidea. "'I, I shall remain in the house. "'I shall die here, I think, "'as uncle and aunts.' "'Oh, do hush, Adelaidea,' "'said her, haughty, limply, nestling in her sister's arms.

"'I am not afraid of dying.' "'Oh, Adelaidea, do hush, do hush, "'you mustn't talk of dying. "'Listen, I hear it again, "'but now it's trailing away, "'like a draught, sucking in the air. "'Yes,' said Adelaucher, I expect it's the old man.

Why should it be he? He can't tear himself away from the house. He was always implacable to poor Aunt Constance. The old woman was different. Yes, she was different. No, it's the draught, it's only the draught, and the house creaking. It's nothing, it's nothing. But perhaps we imagine, because we hear,

we all feel the sort of fear, because we hear. Mary saw something I expect. Come, girls, let's go to bed. Do you dare sleep alone in your room, Adelaide. Yes, Geri, but leave the door open between us. Yes, that's nicer. Good night, then, darlings. Adelaide, you won't think any more of dying, will you?

said Geri, moist-eyed. Perhaps I shall be dead before you are. Hush, darling, how can you talk like that? I'm delicate and ugly. You are strong. You're pretty. I may be dead first for all that, said Echerdie, sobbing. Cherdie, don't excite yourself so, said Maritia, that's because we've been talking about it.

Now you won't sleep all night. I dare say I shall be frightened tonight, said Echardie. If so, I'll wake you, Marisha, and creep into bed beside you. Very well, do, and don't worry. Good night then. Good night. "'Good night!' "'Round the house the Thor wept,

"'and in the night the sinewed grain of the ice "'broke and melted, "'in weeping melancholy, "'with the added melancholy of the west wind "'blowing up heavy clouds, "'the west wind, which came from very far "'and moaned softly along the walls "'and over the roof,

"'rattling the tight-closed windows of the night. "'Inside the house rained the darkness of repulose, and the shadow of silence, and the inmates slept. Only Gerdi could not fall asleep. She lay thinking with wide-open eyes, as she listened vaguely to the wind blowing and the thaw pattering, thinking that she hated and loved, that she hated Matilda and loved him, Johann.

End of Chapter 13. Chapter 14 of Dr. Adrian by Leroyne, Louis Cooperus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Yes, said Paul, as he followed Constance out of her own sitting room, while she, with her key basket over her arm, went down the stairs with Maricha and Gerdi. Yes, I'm not ashamed to confess it. I've come to see how the country suits me. The Hague is becoming so dirty that I can't stand it any longer. What a dirty place a town is. It's much cleaner in the country.

You're fortunate you people. But I dare say I should have stayed on at the Hague. I'm not really a man for the country. If my landlady wasn't getting so old, if she wasn't always changing the servants, if those servants weren't so unspeakably slovenly and dirty. She produced such specimens lately that I gave her notice. I'd had those rooms 14 years.

It'll be a great change for me, but I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to see to everything myself, and I'm getting too old for that. Yes, I still do my wash-hand stand myself, but look here, Constance, when it comes to making my bed, because the servants' hands were dirty,

and my sheets one night smelt of onions, you know, that was really too much to expect. I'm no longer a young man. I'm forty-six. Yes, that's right, you young baggage. laugh at your old uncle. I'm 46. Lord, what a lot of dirt I've seen in those years. As the years go by, Phil heaps itself around you like a mountain. There's no getting through it. Politics, people, servants, bedclothes, everything you eat, everything you touch, everything you do, say, think or feel.

It's a beastly business. Just one sick. sickening mass of filth. The only pure, unsullied thing that I have found in the world is music. Ah, what a pure thing music is. Paul, I must just go down to the storeroom and have a talk with my cook, about the filth which I'm to give you this evening, said Constance, and the girls laughed. All right, I'll come with you. I shan't be in the way. Ah, what a pure thing music is, he continued, and the story. store-room, while the cook opened wide eyes. Look at painting, for instance, how dirty, oil

colours, serpentine, a palette, paint-brushes, water, all equally messy. Sculpture, clay and damp cloths. Literature, what's more loathomely dirty than ink, the oceans of ink which an author pours forth. But music, that's tone, that's purity, that sheer plaiters, Oh, no, since they've taken to building public conveniences at the street corners in the Hague, I can't go on living there. Paul, said Constance, warningly, but he was too much worked up to understand that she was rebuking him. Run away now with the girls and leave me with Kecha. Look at her, staring at you, and not minding a word I say.

Kacha, listen to me. I want to order the dinner, and you. you, Paul, ayo, be off. Come away, uncle, said Maritia. Kecha at Dreiberchen, isn't accustomed to hear everything called so dirty. Keatsha's proud of her kitchen, aren't you, Keatsha? said Gerdi. Ah well, said Keatsha, I expect Manir doesn't mean all he says. Not mean all I say, Paul shouted at the servant, who stood calmly with her arms akimbo. not mean all I see.

One could do a lot with scrabbing, sir, keep things nice and clean. And I tell you, Paul blazed out, that everything's dirty, except music. I'd accept my kitchen, said Keatsha, greatly offended. I don't know what sort of servants mania's had, but we're good cleaners here, aren't we, ma'am?

Yes, I know her own me, it's quite old, and my frow only keeps her on out of kindness. And we've got young help besides, but dirty, shaking her head energetically. It's now dirty, huh? Now it is an old house, and a big family. Girls, Paul, cried Constance in despair. I have no time to stand in my storeroom,

arguing about what's dirty and what's not in the world, or in Cacher's kitchen. Get out of this. And you, Cacher, listen to me, and answer me. Yes, ma'am. Uncle, come along, said Hedy. we'll show you Cachar's kitchen. Well, B'Nea can inspect that with pleasure, said Cacher, by way of a last shot.

The girls dragged Paul off to the kitchen, where they were joined by Adelaidea, and even by Maricha fancatsama, and they screamed with merriment when Paul examined the pans one after the other. But Luke, uncle, they're shining like silver and gold. Well, we can still have our dinner out of them tonight. still children. Music. Music is the only pure thing in the world, provided it's not false. Of course, it mustn't be false. Have you a good piano here? Yes, Uncle, Matilda has hers upstairs, and here's mine in the conservatory, said Gerdi. I'm the only one who plays.

Paul sat down at the piano, struck a few chords. The tone is fairly good. Ah, music, music. and he played, he played Wotan's farewell, followed by the fire magic. He played very well, by heart. His pale, narrow features became animated, his long fingers quivered, his eyes lit up. In the conservatory, the old mother listened, heard merely a flow of soothing sound.

At her feet, Clasher listened, playing with her toys. Matilda came from upstairs. After her came Guy, deserting his books. Paul played, went on playing, he had forgotten all about them. Suddenly he stopped. You mustn't think, he said abruptly, that I'm an unconditional Wagner worshipper. His music is delightful. His poetry is crude, childish and thin.

His philosophy is very faulty and horribly German and vague. Proofs? You ask for proofs. Take the Rhine gold. Did you ever see such gods, with no real strength, no real marrow, in their coarse thieves' souls, their burglar's souls, full of filth? Is that the beginning of a world? No, a world begins in a purer fashion. And so childishly and crudely the world's treasure, the gold, the pure gold guarded by three dirty Lorelei, with their hair full of seaweed, Who, the moment they set eyes upon a dwarf, start giggling and making fun, are those the pure guardians of the pure gold?

But the music in itself, the purity of tone, oh, in that purity of tone, he is a master. And he played the prelude to the Rheingold, played it twice consecutively. Suddenly he stopped once more. Oh, Gerdi, how dusty your piano is. doesn't ever wipe the keys. Where can I wash my hands? Uncle dear, do go on playing. It my fingers black with dust. Now, look here. Cachers' pans may shine like silver and gold, but your piano is a sounding board of dirt.

Where can I wash my hands? Here, at the top, she led him to the hall. Well, first find me a clean towel. The towel is clean, sir, said Troucher, who has. happen to be passing. No, I want a towel fresh from the wash, folded in nice, clean folds. And it was great fun. Marieta ran hunting for Constance to get the keys of the linen press. So you've come to live here, said Van der Velker, who came down while Paul was washing his hands. Yes, I had a sudden, irresistible impulse to move to Dribergen. I was feeling a little lonely at the Hague. He confessed. I'm growing old and lonely, and it's cleaner in the country. The air is less foul, though I am not lucky with this thaw. The road outside was one great puddle, but I have found two

airy rooms in a villa. It's strange. I should never have believed that I could ever come and live at Trebergen, and in the winter too. He inspected his hands which were now clean. Imagine, he said, if there were no water left, I should be done. dead next day? Paul really brightened up. He was a great deal at the house, very soon got in the habit of dining there every evening, and because he felt scruples at always taking his meals at Vandavelka's expense, he made handsome presents, as a set-off for his sponging, he said, so that in the end it cost him more than if he had dined every day at home. He ordered fine flowers and fruit from the Hague. On Vandervalca's birthday, he gave him a case of

of champagne. On Constance's birthday, a parcel of caravan tea because he came and had tea with them every afternoon. In this way, he contributed generously to the housekeeping and relieved his scruples. He brightened up considerably after his recent years of loneliness, talked away lustily, broached his philosophies, played Wagner, and even Matilda accepted him as a pleasant change, with a touch of the Hague about him. Constance would rebuke him at times and say, Paul, I won't have you constantly ordering that expensive fruit for me from the Hague. My dear Constance, he would answer, I'm saving the cost of it on my ties,

but my dandism is gradually wearing away. In the evening, in the great sitting-room, while the wind blew round the house and the dice fell hard on the backgammon board, and the gaudy colour of the cards flickered in the hands of the bridge players. Paul's music came as a new sound, driving away the grey melancholy, tinkling in drops of silver harmony. He played everything by heart,

and the only thing that his attentive audience couldn't stand was his habit of suddenly breaking off in the most delightful passages to defend some philosophical thesis which no one at that instance was thinking of attacking, with which everyone agreed at the time. Nevertheless, despite his playing and his newfound cheerfulness, he felt old, lonely and aimless.

Whenever he had an opportunity of talking quietly to Constance for a moment, without having to run after her downstairs to the storeroom, he would say sadly, I am an old bachelor, an old boy, I'm a typical old bachelor. You ought to get married, Paul, she said one day. He gave a violent start. "'Constance,' he said,

"'if ever you try to lay a trap for me, "'I swear, I'll run away, "'and you shall never set eyes on me again. "'Where should I find a wife "'who would be as tidy as I? "'And then I'm so difficult to please "'that the poor child would have a terrible life of it. "'Sometimes, yes,

"'sometimes I do cherish the illusion "'of marriage with a very young girl, "'one whom I could train according to my eyes, ideas, my philosophy, my ideas and philosophy of purity, of which the loftiest is the idea of purity in soul and life. That's a regular old bachelor's idea, Paul, getting married to a very young girl, training her in your ideas, a fine woman of thirty or over, that's better. As old as that, exclaimed Paul. A woman of thirty is not old for a man of forty-six. No constance. Don't trouble your head.

Marriage is a desperate affair. No, it's a good thing that I never got married, but I do feel lonely sometimes. I'm glad I came to live here. It's you who are providing the family picture now. Poor Mama, she still knows me quite well, but she thinks that I am still very, very young. Yes, the family picture is with you now,

not on Sunday evenings, but every day of the week. Now that I'm growing old, I feel myself becoming more pastoral than I used to be. Do you remember how I used to abuse the family and deny family affection and how angry poor Hedit used to get? Now I am growing very idyllic and I am throwing back

and longing for the family in the desert. I'm glad that your house has become a centre for the family constance. But for that, there would be nothing to keep us together. Oh, it's a melancholy thing to grow so old. lonely as I am, but have I to live for, nothing. Well, with you, I'm still at least a sort of rich uncle, one from whom the children may have expectations. I dare say I shall leave each of my nephews and nieces a trifle. I must have a talk with my solicitor one day. It won't be much

for them, but I leave them enough to buy a clock or some other ornament for their mantelpiece. And your old friend browses back at the Hague, you know? Oh, didn't you know? Hasn't he written? He's sure too soon. I met him the other day. The fellow's grown old. He always had an old face.

Rinkles are things that need looking after. They want massage. I used to massage mine, but I've given it up. My personal vanity has gone. As you see, I wear the same tie always. I'm fond of this tie. it's steamed from time to time. That keeps it fresh. It's a nice tie, but I no longer have such a collection as I used to. Yes, the family no longer cling together at the Hague.

Carol and Cato still do nothing but eat good dinners by themselves. For years and years they have done nothing but eat good meals together. Lord, Lord, what a disgusting pair to find their pleasure in that. Satsma and Adolphine, That's a sad case. You people have been very kind to Maritia. Otto and Francis have a heap of children now, and that's good Louise looks after them, while Francis makes a scene one day and embraces her the next,

with a great display of emotion and loads of tears, and that has lasted for years too. Yes, the years pass. I simply couldn't bear it any longer, especially with those sluts of servants whom my landlady started engaging lately. I yearned for cleanliness, and, for my family, it's a sign that I'm growing very old, Constance.

My dotage is always marked by that idyllic longing. That's why I take so much pleasure in immersing myself amid you all in family affection. It's a great thing that's none of you quarrel. Even you and your husband don't quarrel anymore. It's become the golden age. Translator's notes. Kecha, Kate, Kitty.

Iyo, Malay, Clear Out. Me, Mary. End of Chapter 14. Chapter 15 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. And the hard-braced north-east winds, which had brought the nipping frost with them, came no more. They had passed, and it was.

was no longer the strong boisterous winds, but the angry winds, the winds that brought with them the clouds of grey melancholy, in eternal steady-blowing sadness, as though in the west yonder there were a dark realm of mysterious sorrow, whence blew huge howling cohorts of gigantic woes, titanic griefs, overshadowing the small country and the small people. The sky and the clouds now seemed bigger and mighty. than the small country and the small people. The sky now seemed to be the universe, and houses, roads, trees and people,

horizons of woods and moors, lastly, human souls, all seem to shrink under the great woes that drowned the small country and the small people from horizon to horizon. Curtains of streaming water cloaked the vistas, and a damp fog blurred the distant, wavering line of trees, trees. A rainy mist washed out the almost spectral gestures, the silence despairing movements of

the windmill sails, and the low-lying world, feeble, small, sombre and bowed down, endured the crushing oppressive force of rain and wind, lasting night and day, and all day long. Constance and brows were sitting once more in her own sitting-room, which was a replica of the little boudoir in the Kirchoflan at the Hague. Along the curving folds of the curtains, through the grey-clouded panes, they watched the grey rain falling, now in vertical streaks, now a slant, driven by the raging wind. I so well remember this weather, he said, in the old days, when I used to sit chatting with

you at the Hague, in your room which was so like this room. Yes, she said. I would come late in the afternoon, find you sitting in the dark, and scold you because you had not been out, and we used to talk about all sorts of things. It's a long time ago. The years fly past. Do you remember? We used to fight a little, both of us, against the years that were overtaking us, against the years that would make us old. She laughed.

Yes, she said. We no longer fight against them now. We are old now. We have grown old. We are growing old, and yet what an amount of youth a human being possesses. As we grow older, we always think, now we are growing old, and when we are older than when we thought that, we feel that we have always remained the same as we were from a child. Yes, a person doesn't change. Only all his joys and all his sorrows change, and become blurred, but we ourselves do not. No, we don't change.

Then why should there be joy and sorrow? When, after many years, we have remained the same as we were from childhood. Because we remain the same, and yet do not remain the same. Yes, she said, smiling, I understand what you mean. We remain the same from childhood, and yet, yet we change. It is like a game of riddles. I, I am the same. and I am changed. I too. My soul still recognises in itself my former child's soul, and yet, yet,

I am changed. Tell me, I believe things are running smoothly with you. Sometimes, not always. No, I'm so glad to see that things are going well as between you and Henry. We are growing so old, everything gets blunted. No, it's not only that. No, not only. You have grown used to each other, without talking about it. You set store by each other by now. Perhaps, gradually.

Hans is a good sort. Yes, he's just simply that. And you appreciate this now? I think I do. You both have full lives. Yes, who would ever have found? thought it. You have so much to make you happy, Addie always with you. My poor boy, why do you say that? I am frightened. What of? I don't know. On days like the last few days, I am sensitive to every

sort of fear. I always have been. Have the fears been justified? Sometimes. What are you afraid of? I have sad thoughts. That is sheer melancholy. a melancholy which is a presentiment on days like these. And everything is well. Only the material things. Be happy in that your life is so richly filled, both yours and answers. It's a life of the richest security. With all that you do.

With all that we do, we do nothing. You do a great deal. For people who are small, he smiled. For small souls, do we do enough. You do a great deal. She shook her head. I don't. Hans does.

He's good. Just simply good. Tell me, is it merely because of the weather that things don't seem to run smoothly? No, material things aren't everything. Is it because of Addie? Perhaps. I can't say. I feel an oppression here.

She put both her hands to her heart. It's always liable to come. A day. Yes. A day of sorrow, illness, wretchedness, of misfortune, of disaster. Why should you think that? I often think it. Now there's a misfortune coming. A disaster. I sit and wait for it. Oh, I've been waiting for it for months. The children look at me, ask me what's the matter, whether anything has happened, with Matilda. No, nothing ever happens. There's no sympathy between us, but I, I am calm and wish her every good, my son's wife. You must get over that oppression. It can't be argued away. You must be happy. I've been here for some days now.

I see nothing but love, all around you. From her side? Well, perhaps not from hers. She always remains a stranger. Then win her to you. It's very difficult, when there is no sympathy. But apart from that, there is nothing but to love around you. Really, you are wrapped about with silent happiness. She shook her head. They are fond of me, but there are things slumbering. There are always slumbering things. Happiness without shadow doesn't exist, and one even doubts whether it ought to. No, perhaps not, for later, for later, but there are things that slumber, silent, sorrowful things. I see you can't overcome it. No, I am glad to see you again. After so many years, and I too am glad to see that things are going so well with you, even though

there are sorrowful things that slumber. There are many good things. There is much love and much living for others. She laughed softly, so simply, with no great effort. When we are not great, why should we act as though we were? We are small and we act accordingly. If we do good in a small way, isn't that a beginning? A striving. For later? Yes, for later.

I, I can't even say that I'm doing good in a small way. Tell me about yourself. There's nothing to tell, thinking, living, seeking. Always seeking. There has been nothing besides. Then do as we do, she laughed softly. Do good in a small way, as you say that we do. I shall try, but I am disheartened.

I admire you, and I envy you. I, I am disheartened. I am sometimes quite dejected. I should like to live quietly with a heap of books around me. I, I'm giving it up. The struggle? Yes, the struggle to stay. seek and find. Little by little it has conquered me. Can you understand me? You, you have conquered it.

What have I conquered? You understand. You rank that conquest too high. And you, why are you conquered? Because, because I have never achieved anything. I may sometimes have found, but never, never achieved. And now I want to rest with a heap of books around me. And if I can, "'Follow your example and do good in a small way.' "'I will help you,' she said, chesting, very sadly. They were silent, and between her and him, the room was full of bygone things. The furniture was the same, certain lines and tones were the same as years ago. Out of doors, the unsparing nights of the clattering rain and raging wind was the same as years ago.

Life went on weaving its long woof of years, like so many grey shrouds. They both smiled at it, but their hearts were very sad. End of Chapter 15. Chapter 16 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain, and the melancholy of bygone things seemed to swell on the loud moaning of the wind during the following days, when the rain poured down. The house these days seemed full of the melancholy of bygone things.

There were days of shadow and half-light reflected around the old doting woman in the conservatory, Adeline, the silent mournful mother, Emily, a young woman, but broken, like all the greyness exuding from human souls that are always living in the past, and in the melancholy of that past. And now that Browse also saw it's a thing of shadows and twilight round Alex. Because the boy could never forget the horror of his father's death, he also understood within himself,

that bygone things are never to be cast off, and that they perhaps hang closer in clouds of melancholy around people under grey skies, the small people under the grey skies, than in bright countries of mountains and sunshine and blue sky, and that there were sorrowful things of the soul that slumbered. Did he not see it in Addy's knitted brows, in ailing Marietcher's dreamy stare,

in Matilda's glances, brooding with envy and secret bitterness and malice? Did he not see it in the sudden melancholy moods of Gerdi, usually so cheerful, and did he not understand that in between the, young lives, there was weaving a woof of feelings that were most human, but exceedingly intense, perhaps so intense, because the feelings of small souls under big skies can be deeply sorrowful between the brown walls of a house, between the dark curtains of a room, which the grey daylight

enters as a tarnish of pain, mingling its tarnish with the reflection which lingers from former years in dull mirrors, as though all feeling and all life were quiveringly mirrored in the atmosphere amid which life has lived and palpitated. Browse was now living at Zeist, and he had collected his heap of books around him, and lived there quietly, conquered as he said. But he was with them a great deal, and was hardly surprised when, one morning, intending to come for lunch, he heard unknown children's voices in the hall, saw in the hall a young woman whom he did not know at first, heard her say, in a very soft voice of melancholy, with a sound in it like a little cracked bell of silvery laughter.

Don't you recognise me, Mr Browse? She put out her hand to him. Do you mean to say that you really don't know me? And, Constance, Mr. Browse doesn't know me, and yet we used to have to have to say. so many disputes in the old days. Fruella, Fruele van Archerl, Fräller Marianne, Browse stammered. Mrs. Van Frisfeik, said Marianne, correcting him gently. And here are my children.

And she showed him a little girl of eight and two boys of seven and six, and he was hardly surprised, but he felt the melancholy of the past, rising in the big house. when van der Velker came down the stairs and said, "'Ah, Marian, is that you and the children?' "'Yes, uncle. We have been to Utrecht, to look up, Uncle and Aunt Van Fraysfeich. They are so fond of the children.

Charles may come on this afternoon, but he wasn't quite sure.' And turning to browse, she continued very easily. "'We are living near Arnhem. Would you come and see us in the summer? Fraysvike would be very glad I know.' She spoke quite easily, and it was all very prosaic and ordinary when they all sat down round the big table in the dining room, and Marianne quietly chatted on. At Marieta, Lord, what a lot of Marietas we have in the family.

Our Marieta is soon coming to introduce a young soldier to you. Is it settled then? asked Constance. I thought Uncle Van Argel didn't approve. He's given in, said Marianne, shrugging her shoulders. But the dear boy hasn't assent. That we none of us know how they're going to live on his subaltern's pay, at a bereacher, who always used to swear that she would only marry a rich man. And we have good news from India.

Carol is really doing well. How prosaic life was! How prosaically it rolled along its steady drab course, thought Browse, silently to himself, as he looked on while Guy carved the beef in straight even slices, And prosaically, though it rolled, what a very different life it always became from what any man imagined his life would be,

from the future which he had pictured, from the illusion, high or small, which he had gilded for himself, with his pettily human fancy, ever gilding the future, according to its pettily human yearning after illusions. Oh, if the illusion had come about, which, in the later life, reborn out of themselves,

he and Constance had conceived, without a word to each other, in a single brightly glittering moment. Though, if Henry's illusion had come about, and that of this young woman, now the little mother of three children, would it all have been better than it now was? Who could tell? Who could tell? And though the dreamy reflecting upon all this

brought back all the melancholy of the past, yet this melancholy contained an assurance that life, as it went on, knew everything better than the people who pictured the future to themselves. There they all were, sitting so simply round the big table at that simple meal, for which Constance apologised, saying that Marianne had taken her unawares. and Browse was but mildly astonished to find that Marianne was married to Fanfresfike. He had not heard of it, and it was a surprise to him to see her suddenly surrounded by children. He was but mildly astonished to see her and Hans talking together so simply as uncle and niece, as though there had never been a shred of tenderness between them.

He was but mildly astonished when he himself talked to Constance so simply. while he felt depressed about Addy, whose eyes looked so dark and somber. When Addy was still a child, he had conceived an enthusiasm for him, perceiving in him a certain future which he himself would never achieve. And he had also suffered because he felt Addy's jealousy for his father's sake when he, Browse, used to sit for hours with his mother in the half-dark room, whispering intimate words so quickly understood, so sympathetically felt.

Now the years had passed, sorrow had faded away, and sorrow was being born again, perhaps. The life cannot exist without sorrow, laid up as an inheritance for one and all, and yet sorrow was so very little, and became so small in the measureless life entire. There was nothing for it but to smile,

later, much later, at all the disappointment, even that of seeking and not finding and not achieving. It was very noisy because of the children, the three little fraysvikes after lunch playing with Yetcha and Constance, and as the girls were staying with the children, Constance, with her arm round Marianne's waist, went upstairs to her own room. Let's sit here quietly for a bit, she said.

Marianne smiled. You've always got your hands full, auntie, I don't know why, dear. We live so quietly here at Dreybergen, and yet, yet my hands are always full. I do sometimes crave to be quite alone, but the craving never lasts long, and it seems impossible.

However, it's all right as it is. What awful weather, auntie, I remember how often it used to rain like this when I came to see you in the Kerkoff-Larn. How long ago it is, years and years ago, here, among all your old knick-knacks, it looks to me suddenly and strangely as though everything had remained the same, it yet changed.

Auntie, auntie! Obeying a sudden impulse, she dropped on her knees beside Constance and seized her hand. Do you remember? Do you remember? I used to come and see you in this sort of rain and stay on, and I could not bear that you should be unhappy with uncle. Do you know, I talked about it. I said tactless things. I asked you to try and be happy with Uncle. Do you remember?

Do you remember? And now, Auntie, it appears to me as if a great deal has been changed, though much has remained the same, and as if things had become much better, between you and Uncle, between you and Uncle Henry. Dear, we have grown older, and everything has become more mellow. And Uncle, Uncle is very good. Yes, he is good.

He is just simply good. You see that now. Yes, I see it now. I admit it. Oh, I am so glad. Yes, we have grown old. Not you. Yes, I too, she said, laughing softly.

I am young, but I'm older than my years. And, Auntie, tell me, do you remember before we went to a barn? You came and called one day. We were just busy moving, and you sent for me and auntie. asked me, you told me that Charles was fond of me, and I refused him. Do you remember? Do you remember? I should think I did remember, darling, and now you've got him after all, and it's all for the best, isn't it? Yes, auntie, we get on very well indeed, and I have my children. Do you remember, do you remember how you came to barn one day? I was very low-spirited, and you took me in your arms

and pressed me to you, and told me a fairy tale about the small souls, which passed through vanity, to ecstasy. Do you remember? And when the ecstasy died out, then the little soul found a grain, it mere a grain, which was big enough, however, because the soul itself was so small. Do you remember, Auntie? Do you remember? Yes, dear, I remember. It was just a few tiny words to console and cheer you a little,

and now the little soul has found the grain, hasn't it? I think so, aren'ty, but under, under all these small, everyday things, a great deal of melancholy remains. Perhaps it is wrong, perhaps it oughtn't to be so. But if there are things in one's past, if we have lived before, dear, then there is always a certain melancholy, and we all have our share of it, just because we feel deeply, very deeply perhaps,

under our dark skies, and because our feeling always remains, and our melancholy too. Perhaps so, auntie, and so it goes on, and we drift on. You see, there are good things in life. Tell me, does this occur to you that you have found? What? What you came to look for, years ago in Holland, after you had been abroad so long, Auntie, and felt so homesick for your country for warmth, the warmth of family affection. Tell me, Auntie, doesn't it occur to you that you have found it now? The country, our grey, dark country, and everything that you used to long for. Are we not all round you? Even we, there we live some way off. Are we not all, nearly all of us around you? Yes, dear, and I are you happy now? Yes, dear. I hear something in your voice that

contradicts your words. Tell me, what is it? I'm frightened, I'm frightened. And you have found so much, you have found everything. What? What are you frightened of? I'm frightened. I feel so anxious. What about? About things that may happen. Where? In our house? What can happen? Things, sad things. Auntie, this is nonsense. I can't help it, dear. I'm frightened. I'm frightened.

Tell me, Auntie, you don't like the house, do you? It's not that. But the house oppresses you. No, it's not that, child. Uncle and Addy like the house, and I'm getting used to it. Tell me, auntie, they say, What?

That the house is? She looked at Constance. meaningly. Darling, darling, it's not that. It's an old house. We never talk of that. But it may be just that that depresses you. It did at first, but I'm getting used to it. Addy is so very calm and communicates all his calmness to us. What appears inexplicable is perhaps quite simple, but that's not it. I'm frightened, frightened of what? Of what I fear. happen. And what do you fear? Things that I can't put into words. Some great sorrow. Why, Auntie, why should it happen? And then, if sorrow comes, would you be strong? Constance suddenly gave a sob.

I shall be weak. Auntie, auntie, auntie, why hear you so overwrought? I shall be weak. No, Auntie, you won't. They do mustn't be so frightened. There is nothing but love all around you. and they will all of them, all of them help you. I am frightened, and I shall be very weak. No, auntie, no, auntie, do stop crying. What are you afraid of? And what could happen now? For whom are you afraid?

For Addy, for my boy, for Matilda. But why, auntie? Why? Oh, don't be so frightened. Everything's all right between them and Addy. Addie is so calm, so practical, so simple. in his way of acting and thinking. Perhaps.

Oh, if he is only strong. Isn't he always? Perhaps he is. Oh, my dear child, I'm so frightened. Hush, auntie, hush. Don't cry anymore. Lie still now. Lie still in my arms.

Even if we have sorrow to go through, even if we have sad things to experience. Even then, you should remember that everything, that everything, that everything comes right again, in the end. If we all have our share, why shouldn't they have theirs? And perhaps, who knows? Your anxiety is exaggerated, aren't he,

because you have been a little overwrought lately. It may be that. Is it all a little too much for you sometimes? I'm so seldom alone. I dare say you feel tired sometimes. It may be that. You mustn't think about it anymore, "'Tell me, auntie,

"'Herdie isn't very well. "'What makes you say that?' "'I thought she looked pale and rather sad.' "'Constance passed her hand over her forehead. "'Oh, Marian,' she said, "'I wish that I could talk it all away, "'think it all away, but I can't. "'I'm frightened.

"'I keep on being frightened.' "'And she sobbed gently on Marianne's shoulder "'while the younger woman knelt beside her. The rain fell in vertical streaks. The carriage took Marianne and her children to the station through a deluge. End of Chapter 16. Chapter 17 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Since that first time, Matilda was pricked with continual jealousy and in the mornings when Addy went upstairs to Maritia van Satasama's room, she always followed him and stole into the wardrobe closets next door,

always with her keys in her hand, so that if she happened to be caught, she might appear to be looking for some article of dress in one of the presses. She listened at the partition and understood what they were saying sometimes, but not always, because Maricha spoke very low, and Matilda could not always hear what she answered. But, as her eyes glanced mechanically along the big flowers that formed the pattern of the wallpaper,

she suddenly noticed a broad crevice, where the wood had split and the paper cracked and torn, and with her heart leaping to her throat, she peeped and peeped. She had to squeeze between two cupboards. She banged her head against the partition and was terrified lest they had heard, but they heard nothing,

or else the noise did not strike them, for the sound of their voices went on. Batilda now put her eye to the crevice, and was able, though with difficulty to see into the room, saw Marieta sitting with Addy beside her, saw her hand resting in his. Why does he hold her hand so long? She thought,

need he feel her pulse as long as that? But he did not let him. go of Maricha's hand, and Matilda became impatient, also because she could not catch what they were saying. How softly they are talking, and how confidential it all is, she thought. And when Marisha lifted her head a little, as with the movement of a lily on its slender stem, Batilda saw her smiling, saw her eyes gleaming softly, saw the words taking birth, as it were, smiling on her lips. and it seemed as though those words added a touch of colour to the pale lips and a blush to the pale cheeks. How very much better she looks than when she came, thought Matilda,

though she wanted to call out to Addie and tell him to let go Maricha's hand. They are about the same age, she thought, I am much younger than she is. And yet Maricha, though 26, had a certain youthfulness as of a very young girl. and Matilda could not get rid of the thought. They are very nearly the same age. It's ridiculous. A young doctor like Addy, with a young woman, a young girl like her.

It's ridiculous. Why is he wasting his time on her now? She now saw the smile fade from Maritcher's lips. Saw the girl, on the contrary, look very serious, tell a long and serious story. What can she be telling him? thought Matilda, and she saw their faces come nearer to each other. It was as though Addy were reassuring Maricha, explaining things.

And now, now he laid his hand on Maricha's head, and she, she lay back on the sofa. It's absurd, thought Matilda, this hypnotising, and that they should be alone together for so long. Soon the hypnotism took effect, Marisha fell asleep, and Addy quietly left the room. Batilda waited a few minutes, and also stole away, meeting no one on the stairs. What she had seen through the slit in the wallpaper was nothing, and yet, and yet she could not help constantly brooding over it. She now also noticed at lunch that Maricha was much more cheerful, that her movements were much less languid, that she laughed with the other girls, and she noticed that, after lunch,

she helped Adelaide with the plants in the conservatory, that she was beginning to join in the life of the others, that she no longer went straight back to her room as she used to do at first. And constantly, too, downstairs in the conservatory, she was struck by an intimacy between Marieta and Addy. Matilda was quite sensible, though she was jealous of her husband. She was jealous of all his patients. She was quite sensible and thought, a certain affection between a young girl and a doctor, a young doctor who obviously has a good influence upon her,

as Addy has, is easy enough to understand. And she wanted to go on thinking so sensibly, she, a woman of sound normal sense. But it was difficult, very difficult, for Addy went out and she at once saw Marietas' smile disappear, saw her happy vivacity sink as it were, and Maricha soon went upstairs until she came down again with Aunt Constance and Adelaidea to go for a walk, as they did every afternoon when the weather was not too bad.

Matilda remained upstairs, played the piano, looked out upon the sad, misty road. Oh, she loved her husband, she even loved him passionately, and she was living here for his sake. But wasn't it awful? Wasn't it awful? Wasn't it awful? In heaven's name. wouldn't it be better just to move to a small house at the Hague and accept the pinch of poverty? She went to the next room, to her children. They had been out and were playing prettily

while the nurse sat at the window sewing, and now she did not know what to do next. What an existence in the winter, in a village like this, in a big house, a house full of sick people and mad people. As it happened, through the window she saw Uncle Ernst walking along the road, with his back bent under his long coat, talking to himself as he returned to his rooms in the villa where he was being looked after. What an existence! Oh, what an existence!

For a young and healthy woman like herself, she was never susceptible to melancholy, but she felt a twilight descending upon her from the unrelieved sky overhead. She could have wept, and yet she could have stood it all, if only she had possessed Addie entirely, if only she could win him entirely, she thought suddenly. And suddenly it occurred to her that she did possess him, but not entirely, not entirely. He escaped her, so to speak, in part. They had love, they had further in common, they had the children in common,

they had bonds of sympathy, physical sense, sympathy almost. She felt happy in his arms, and he in hers, but for the rest he escaped her. Something of his innermost being, something of his soul, the quintessence of his soul escaped her, whereas she gave herself wholly to him and did not feel within herself those secret things which refused to surrender themselves. She felt it, she understood it now, suddenly, under the grey melancholy of the skies, as though she suddenly saw clearly in that twilight. She understood it.

Their love was merely physical. Oh, he escaped her, and she did not know how she was ever to win him entirely, so as to have him all to herself, all to herself. Perhaps if she began to take an interest in his patience, to share his life in them, but she was jealous of those patients who took Adi from her for hours and days together, and she was jealous, very jealous of Maritja.

But what then? How was she to win him? And in this rich-blooded woman, whose senses bloomed purple and fierce, they're shot up as with a riot of red roses, the thought of winning him more and yet more with her kisses, with her whole body, with all that she would give him, with all that she would find for him, to wind tendrils round him and bind him to her, forever and forever.

And then, then also to make him jealous of her, as she was jealous of him, by disturbing his unruffled calm, the calm of a young, powerful man with painful suspicions, which would yet bring him wholly to her, so that she might win him entirely. And wasn't it awful? Wasn't it awful?

As it was, she sat here the live-long day and possessed her husband only in the evening, only at night, as though she were food for nothing else. It went against the grain, and suddenly, intuitively, she felt her jealousy of Addie's long talks with Maricha more sharply than before. What need had he to talk to her at such length? Oh, he ought not to neglect his wife, so, He ought not to think her good only for that.

He ought to talk to her also for hours at a time, earnestly, strangely, gazing into her eyes as he talked to Marieta. Why did he not talk to her his wife like that? What were these talks? What had those two to talk about? It was not only about being ill and about medicines, and not even only about hypnosis, of that she was convinced.

There existed between the two of them, secret things about which they talked, things which they two alone knew. Oh, how she felt her husband escape her, as though she was stretching out her fingers at him, covetously, and as though she did indeed grip him in her hot embrace, only to lose him again at once. Her days passed in constant monotony. She was a healthy, superficial, rather vain, very young woman, a few vulgar aspirations, and she suffered in her surroundings because she had an undoubted need for healthy and superficial affection. She would have been happy leading a simple, very carnal, very material married life, with plenty of money, plenty of enjoyment, with children around her, and then she would have laughed with pride and being good as far as she was able.

As it was, she felt flat, except physically, she was hardly the wife of her. husband, and despite her children, hardly accepted by his family and hardly suffered in their house. And she peevishly blamed them all, thinking that they were not kind to her, and she failed to perceive that what separated her from them all was a lack of spiritual concord, of harmony, of sympathy, because she had nothing that appealed to them, and they had nothing that appealed to her. Because the emanations from her soul and theirs never reached, each other, but flowed in two directions. Because everything that they understood in one another, even without words, she did not understand, even though it were explained to her in words,

because she looked upon them as sick, mad, egoistical, and nerve-ridden, because they looked upon her as shallow and vulgar. It was an antipathy of blood and of soul. Nobody was to blame, and even that she did not understand. The only one to blame perhaps was Adi, because, when taking her for his wife, he had not listened to the soul within his soul and had allowed himself to be led only by instinct and by his material philosophy of regeneration.

She is a healthy, simple woman. I want healthy, simple children. That's how we ought all to be, healthy and simple as she is. Were those not the idea, which had made him introduce her into the midst of them all as an object lesson without listening to the still slumbering voices of his soul's soul. And scarcely had those voices awakened before he had been roused out of himself with the thought. After all, I found her. Why should I

lose her now? Who am I, this one or the other? And if I am both those whom I feel within me, how can I unite them and compel them into a single love for my wife? for the woman who gives me healthy simple children. And, every day that passed, he had known less for himself, whatever he might know for all of them whom he approached, and benefited by strange influence. Knowing less and less daily, until he saw himself plainly as two,

and gave up the struggle, let himself go, allowed his soul to drift at the will of the two streams that dragged him along, in weakness and surrender and lack of knowledge for himself, whereas he sometimes knew so clearly for others. Self-knowledge escaped him, and, if Matilda had been able to see this in her husband, she would have shrunk back and been dismayed at what,

all incomprehensible to her, existed secretly in the most mystic part of him. She would have been shocked by it, as by a never-suspected riddle. She would have turned giddy, as at a never-sus down which she gazed without knowing where it ended,

a bottomless depth to her ignorant eyes and quite insusceptible instincts. She would not have understood, she would have refused to understand that there was no blame, but only self-insufficiency and inconsistency of soul

in silent antagonism and antipathy because Addy felt himself to be too. She would have have wanted to blame them, all of them, because they were not nice to her, but not her husband, for she loved him, because of his sturdy young manliness, because of his older earnestness and thoroughness, in which she failed to see the soul of his soul. As she now wanted, unhappy as she was, to continue feeling like that, neglected, offended, and errated by all of them in that large, gloomy house, in which everything down to the dark,

oak doorposts, was hostile and antagonistic to her, until she felt frightened of mysteries, in or upon which they hardly ever touched in speaking. Mysteries which were even almost welcome to the others, and not too utterly unintelligible in their communism of soul, from which she was irrevocably excluded. End of Chapter 17. Chapter 18 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cuperus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. That night, Maricha van Satima had a dream which was like a nightmare. She was running down a sloping mountain, deep as an abyss. She rushed and rushed, and Adi came rushing after her,

and Matilda after Adi, rushing with delirious screams. After Matilda, Johanna Zela came rushing, and last of all, Kherdi, and before any one of them reached the other, Maricha, who was running in front, plunged into the deep abyss, and they all plunged after her. The echoing fall in the black depths made Maricha wake with a start to find the darkness of her bedroom quivering all around her, the strange inner darkness of the night. And she was cold and clammy and sat up wide-eyed, while the wind blew fiercely outside. Her first impulse was to get up and run out of the room for help,

to Aunt Constance, to Adi, but, growing calmer, though her head and heart were still throbbing, she let herself fall back upon her pillows and controlled her fears. She would stay quietly in her room. A month ago she would never have done as much. At the Hague, after this sort of dream, she would utter cries, go running through the house, scream aloud. Now she did not scream, but lay where she was, and drove the feverish thoughts in front of her.

Yes, feverish she was, but she speedily recovered a sense of calmness as soon as she began to think of Addy. Hadn't he said so himself? Maricha, when you feel overstrung, think of me. And she thought of him, and things began to smile and to grow very calm around her. She gave a deep sigh. She recalled the words which he used when hypnotising her. Your body is growing heavy. The hand is growing heavy.

You can't lift your hand. And though she did not fall asleep, she became very quiet and smiled contentedly. True, she knew that he said the same thing to all the patients whom he hypnotised. Think of me whenever you feel your nerves give way. But she, when she thought of him, was she in love with him? Perhaps.

She didn't know. Perhaps she did love him deep down within herself, in the chastest recesses of her soul. Perhaps she had been in love with him for years, ever since he used to talk to her so kindly. He a small boy. She, a rather bigger girl, but about the same age. When her brothers were so rough to her,

and Mama flaucher and Carolyn used to snub her as they always did. In the noisy, uproarious, vulgar house, she had grown up quietly, like a little pale plant, humble oppressed, as it were hiding herself, until suddenly some impulse in her blood

had made her scream the house down with neurotic cries. They had all asked whether she had got mad, and she had locked herself up since, hidden herself in her room, and after these attacks, she would remain behind as in a dream, seeing nothing, hearing nothing around her, just staring. And when she saw that her condition at last made an impression, she at once became proud of that

impression, lifted herself out of the Cinderella humility, became the interesting figure at home, now that she aroused her father's fears, her mother's pity, her sister's annoyance. and she had grown proud of her neuroticism she let father, mother and sister feel fear, pity and annoyance with a sort of vindictive satisfaction yet she had a vague feeling of deep unhappiness because her soul was sinking

as into an abyss her hands groping vaguely in the terrible void she would spend days in tears then Aunt Constance had come so kind, so gentle, so sensible, and she had resisted, because perhaps she was very fond of Addy, and always had been, in obedience to some modest dread, did not wish to live where he lived. But Santa Constance had insisted, and she had yielded, and Addy, Addy was now curing her. Oh, he cured her, when he merely pressed his hands softly on her forehead,

and she confessed to him the wicked, arrogant pride. in her illness, which at last created an agitation in the paternal house where Maricha had never counted. He had listened so earnestly, telling her that this was very wrong, that it was the worst of all, and that, with such wicked feelings, she would never get well. And after that, he talked for days, oh, so earnestly, and she listened to him in ecstasy, as though her soul were rocking on his deep soothing. voice. And gradually, gradually, she had discovered in him. Oh, no affection for her, no ordinary affection or love, for she was plain and thin and without charm, while Matilda was so handsome,

a beautiful woman, but a real harmony between some of his feelings and views with what she, in her silent life as a lonely, downtrodden little girl, had thought about all sorts of people, animals, things, about everything which had aroused her compassion in her youthful earnestness and hypersensitiveness, about the wind lashing the leaves, about a driver ill-treating a horse, about Aunt Adeline, Granny, Emily, little clasher, about poor people whom she would sometimes go and visit with Aunt Constance and Adelaidea. And thus, slowly, out of all these small, simple feet, feelings, something had thrilled in unison with his feelings, had roused kindred feelings in him,

until they had talked of all sorts of strange presentiments and dreams, of existence before life, and after death, of an invisible world and life, crossing their threads with the visible world and life. And, when sometimes she had been a little fanciful, Addy had always understood her, but at the same time, with all his restfulness and strength, his seriousness and smiling earnestness that quieted her in her hypersensitiveness and hyper-imagination, in her dread and surmise, until she now discussed all those questions with him,

so quietly in words that quickly understood one another, so that, even in these conversations, which might easily have made her more neurotic, he satisfied her and lulled all the anxious thrills of her sick girlish nerves and soul. There was a mystic force in his voice, in his glance, in the pressure of his hand, so that even after these conversations she remained lying in a deep and blissful sleep. And, after half an hour, woke from it, as though rising refreshed, out of a wide, still bath, on strangely rarefied air like cool water,

which gave her an incomprehensible, blissful sense of spiritual well-being. And that peaceful life of sympathy was healing to her, whereas it vexed, Matilda. She thought that it would always keep flowing on like this, and she was greatly surprised when she suddenly heard of a ball at Utrecht, to which they were all invited.

"'Which of you want to go?' asked Constance. I shall stay at home, but Uncle will chaperone you. Matilda loved the idea, even though Addy did not give it a thought. Of the girls, however, only Reddy cared about it, but Guy would go with her. So none of you? Adelaidecha, Mary, Maritia? No, they did not feel inclined, even though Aunt Constance urged them, said that they very seldom had any fun, that they ought really to go, now that the chance offered.

But the girls didn't want to, and Aunt Constance said, Well then, you and Uncle will just make four, so you can go in the carriage. But Matilda preferred to dress at Utrecht in an hotel because her dress would get creased in the carriage, and she decided to go in the afternoon with a box. On the evening of the ball, Constance grumbled at Adelaicha, Mary and Maritia,

because they took no pleasure in dancing, and said that if this went on, they would move to the Hague, because the girls were growing so dull in the country. Constance's nerves were raw, and she said angry, unreasonable things. Her eyes filled with tears. But Auntie, said Maricha, we're all so happy here together.

Why talk about the Hague? What do we care about a dance? That's just it. I think it's unnatural. Listen to it's blowing, said Adelaidea. And raining, said Marcia, Mary. That's what Uncle and Cady and Guy are driving through, said Adelaicha.

The poor horses, said Marcia, Mary. The others laughed. Yes, the horses will get wet, poor things, said Marcia Mary. Dirk'll look after them, said Constance. The horses are taken out so seldom. But when they are, they are taken out in the way. "'In the rain,' said Mary, reproachfully. "'Paul was there, playing softly on the piano.

"'Earnst was there, and it was very strange to see the friends which he had silently made with "'Clarisha. "'Together they looked in her picture books, the unnaturally old queer man, and the unnaturally young child. "'I can read now,' said the backward girl of thirteen, very proudly. "'Really?' said Uncle Ernst. "'Yes, Uncle Addy is teaching me to read. "'Look in these books with pretty letters.

"'Blue, yellow, red, that's violet. "'And that, Uncle Addy says, is purple. "'That's purple. "'A lovely colour, purple. "'Uncle Addy teaches me to read.' "'And laboriously she's spelt out, the highly coloured words. "'So Uncle Addy teaches you to read with coloured letters,' asked Danced. Yes, I don't like black letters, and look at my books, or with beautiful pictures.

That's a king and a queen. It's a fairy tale, uncle, this is a fairy. The king and queen are purple, purple, and the fairy. Look, uncle, look at the fairy, is sky blue. Uncle Addy says it's azure. She drew out the word in a long, caressing voice, as though the names of the colours had a peculiar meaning for her, rousing in her strange memories of very early colours, colours seen in gay, far-away countries, down, down yonder. Mr. Browse won't come, said Emily. No, it's raining too hard, said Adeline. He won't come this evening. He's become so much

one of the family. The evening passed quietly. The old grandmother and Klasa were taken and put to bed, but, because Aunt Constance was sitting up till the carriage returned from Utrecht, they all wanted to sit up. "'What an idea!' said Constance, with nervous irritability. "'Why don't you all go to bed?' But they were gathered round her so pleasantly, and they stayed up, Adi, Emily, Adeline, Maricha. But Adi sent Adelaidea and Mary to bed, and they sat waiting downstairs in the night.

It was three o'clock when at last they heard the carriage, and van der Velke, Cherdie and Guy entered. Matilda is spending the night at the hotel, said Van der Velka. And uncle made a very sweet chaperone, said Guy, chaffingly. But Cherdie did not say much, look tired, very pale, constrained. They went upstairs to their rooms, and Cherdie kissed her mother.

But without the others seeing it, she followed Adeline to her room, and suddenly, unable to contain herself, burst into a paroxysm of tears. Darling, darling, what is it? And the mother, long-sense broken, took the girl, now breaking into her arms, and it was as though she suddenly wakened from her apathy and felt herself very much a mother. Oh, she knew that she could not do much for her children, that she was not capable, never had been since Gerrit's death, that without van der Velka, Constance and Addy, she could not have made anything of her children.

Nevertheless, they remained her children, and if she did not know how to guide her sons in their careers, she did know how to sympathise with her poor Gerdi's sobs. Darling, darling, what is it? And dropping into her chair, while Gerdi knelt before her in the folds of her white tulle frock, She held the pale little face against her and compelled the child to speak, to speak.

"'It's nothing,' said Geri, through her sobs. "'I didn't enjoy myself.' "'You didn't? Why? What happened?' "'I hardly danced at all. "'Why not?' "'Mama, it's better to tell you plainly. "'I'm so unhappy. It's about Johan.' "'It's sailor. Has he proposed to you?'

"'Herdie shook her head. "'No, but—but what? "'In the winter, skating. "'I thought he was fond of me. "'It's my own fault. "'It was silly of me. "'It was silly. "'It wasn't anything.

"'He was just the same to me as to other girls. "'And I thought, I thought, "'it's nothing, Mama. "'It's my own fault. "'But I thought, Mama, "'I oughtn't to take it so much to heart, "'but it makes me very unhappy. He danced with me once, but he danced with Matilda the whole time.

He was always with her. People were talking about it. It was just as if she was mad, as if she didn't think that she oughtn't to behave like that, with Johan. It struck Uncle Henry, too. I could see it by his face. They were together the whole evening, and, you understand, he paid her attentions, shamelessly. the way he does to married women. With girls he's different.

I hated him for a moment, but then he came and asked me for that one dance. And then I thought, I oughtn't to have thought it. It's my own fault. I'm very unhappy, Mama. Uncle Henry was very angry too

with Matilda, because she wouldn't come back with us to Driebergen. He gave way and let her stay to avoid unpleasantness. But it was ridiculous of her. The carriage is big enough, and she would not have been so badly creased. Oh, she looked lovely. She looked lovely. She is quite lovely, dressed like that at a ball.

Addie ought to have come with us. She was really beautiful, but not. It's wrong of me to say as I know. Not like us. How do you mean, dear? Not like Aunt Constance and Emily and you. She didn't. She didn't look.

Well bred. She looked beautiful, but she looked coarse. If Addy had come, perhaps she would have restrained herself, not worn her dress so low. She was the only one in such a very low frock. You see, there was something about her that repelled me even more than usual. I can't say what, and it's very wrong of me, because after all she's Addie's wife and we must be fond of her. But really, she didn't look a lady, and I could see it in people's faces. They thought her very handsome, but not, not well-bred. And after that, when she did nothing but dance with Johan, then, oh, mamma, then she looked at me, and looked at me with a sneer, as if she were looking down on me. I knew that I was not at my best, that I looked pale and thin. My shoulders are not good, and Johan behaved so oddly to me in such a queer mocking way. "'Oh, Mama, he was almost cruel. "'I do believe, oh, Mama, I do believe that I, "'that I've in love with him.

"'But I oughtn to tell you, "'and I oughtn't to be like this. "'I oughtn't to cry so, but I couldn't help it. "'I couldn't help it. "'I did my best, Mama, not to show it "'before Uncle Henry and before Guy, "'but oh, Mama, the whole dance, "'the whole dance was a torture.'

"'Adeline mingled her. her sobs with Cherdes. My darling, my poor, poor darling. Mama, oh, mamma, what is it, my poor dear? Listen, Mama. What? Don't you hear the sound upstairs? Hush, hush, the sound.

It's dragging itself. Downstairs, it's like a footstep. It's always like that. Oh, ma'amor, I'm frightened. It's nothing, dear. The wind, a draught, a bored creaking. Oh, but I'm frightened. It's nothing.

I opened the door once to look. You're dead, Sue? Yes, it was nothing. There was nothing to see. No, it was only very draughty. And everything's closed. It's nothing, nothing, dear. Now it's dragging itself away, down below.

It's the draught. Oh, my poor. Poor, poor darling. Oh, Mama, I'm unhappy, and I'm frightened, I'm frightened, I'm frightened. End of Chapter 18, Chapter 19 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. When Matilda returned next morning, she seemed to perceive a certain displeasure, a coldness in her husband, in her mother-in-law, and in all of them.

But she decided that perhaps she was mistaken. She was tired, she was unstrung, and after she had been to see the children, she kept to her own room where she knew that no one would disturb her now that Adi had gone out to his patience. And it was not the surmised displeasure, the unwanted fatigue after the ball that made her nervous, as though she was affected by a nervous thrill from all who surrounded her,

it was particularly because of Johane Zela that she was now walking restlessly around her room, sitting down at the window, getting up again, going into the children, coming back again, sitting down to the piano, looking over her ball programme

and suddenly tearing it up. Now suddenly she reproached herself with all sorts of things that had happened the night before for dancing with Johan so often, even though she had known him all her life as a young girl at the Hague, where he was a subaltern in the Grenadiers,

while his people lived at Utrecht, for flirting with him in so marked away at supper, for allowing him to speak like that with his brazen, sensual fashion of making love to her, for knowing and deliberately encouraging his brazenness. Lastly, for scarcely preventing him from escorting her on foot, because it was so near, to the hotel where she had reserved a room. She had lost her temper, refused, asked for a carriage,

and ridden alone to the hotel where she had spent the night. But his offer and the words in which he had couched it had shocked her, had frightened her all through that night, that short night, so that she had not had a moment's sleep, and now she was angry with herself for not summoning up her usual sound sense, so that he had seen how frightened and shocked she was, and had laughed at it with the caressing laugh of his well-shaped mouth. and because she was angry with herself,

all sorts of nervous excuses went whirling through all her grievances, great and small, came surging up as though to defend her against herself, against her own self-reproach. Why couldn't Addie have gone too? Why must he leave her to her own devices like that? Why was she only good for the one thing?

Why did he hold such long conversations, full of strange intensity, with that ailing Maritja. Why did she sometimes, through his kisses, feel a strange chill come out of him and freeze her, so that the spontaneous word grew still and lifeless on her lips, and she no longer knew what to say. She only knew that she was losing him, again and again,

while all the others down below were winning him, winning him for themselves. Oh, how the grievances whirled up, fighting against her self-reproach, until at last she burst into tears, sheer nervous tears such as she had never shed before. And as though the grievances were winning, she suddenly laid the blame on Addy, on all of them, on her husband's whole family,

on Dreebergen, on the house full of lunatics and invalids, on the eerie, haunted house where she could not breathe, while they all down below found living there so delightful, She blamed them all, blamed the whole house for it, that she was losing her sound sense, and had allowed Johan to say all sorts of things to her, which otherwise she would never have allowed. And in her tears, while still blaming him, because she did not see that there was no blame, that no one was to blame for anything, while she was casting about to whom to impute the blame, she longed for her husband,

felt that she was still very much in love with him, that she would have liked to embrace him, to clasp him close to her, to weep out her sorrows on his heart, to hear his deep, young, earnest voice, to look into his deep, young, earnest eyes, so that she might grow calm again and happy, far away with him and her children.

Now she longed for him to come back, now she looked down the road, and when she saw him, the bell was ringing for lunch because Troucher downstairs had also seen him coming up the road. She ran down and was just in time to kiss him in the morning room and to whisper, Addie, Addy, you do laugh me. Why, of course, darling, he answered gravely, and she thought, almost sadly. And now, sitting silent at table, feeling all sorts of reproaches around her, she asked herself,

was it not his fault? Was it not his fault? But she really imagined to be his fault she did not clearly see, for it was all whirling through her mind. She kept on thinking of Johanna Zela, kept on feeling her self-reproach, and the grievances surged up like lances,

more numerous than before, to defend her against that self-reproach. Hedy had not come down to lunch, She was tired, Adeline said. The tone of the conversation was forced, and Matilda reflected that it was always so when she was there, when they would look at one another askance, in a silent understanding against her, against her. Lunch finished. The children, Yetcha and Constance went out, after Addy had first played with them. Yes, he was fond of the children, but was he fond of her, of his wife?

"'Addy, Addy, you do love me, don't you?' She had found another opportunity of asking him, and he answered, "'Why, of course, dear. Stay with me today.' "'Very well. What would you like to do? Shall we go for a walk? It's fine. Yes, Addy, I'd like to.' They went out together and roamed along deserted paths. She took his arm. "'I'm so glad to be with you. You ought to have come yesterday.' I don't care for dancing, but if you had asked me, you would have refused.

Perhaps not. Yes, you would. I shard to go again without you. I want to dance with you, with you. I like skating better. There, you see, you're refusing already. No, I won't refuse. I shall come with you next time.

I'm happy when I'm with you. Addie, couldn't we go and live alone, with our children? "'Whenever you like, darling.' "'Yes, but you're attached to the house.' "'Yes, I'm attached to it. "'It would be a sacrifice for you.' "'He made a vague gesture. "'Only you'd have to be economical at the Hague.

"'You would soon have a fine practice there. "'But I'm not aiming at a fine practice.' "'Ah, that's just it.' "'He yielded to a slight sense of impatience. "'It's a pity-tilly that you find it so difficult to adapt yourself here. Very well, we'll go to the Hague. But, if you're obstinate

and refuse to earn an income, she said impetuously, we shall have enough. How much? He made a brief calculation. Say, five thousand guilders, no more. But I can't live on that, with two children.

It ought to be enough, Tilly. But it's nonsense trying to live at the Hague on five thousand guilders a year with two children. "'Then what do you want?' he asked bluntly. "'I want you to get a practice. "'You have only to wish for it. "'You would become the fashion at once.'

"'He was silent. "'Why don't you answer? "'Because we don't understand each other, Tilly,' he said sadly. "'I can't give up the practice which I have "'in order to become a fashionable doctor. "'Why not? "'If it pays? "'Because it conflicts with all,

"'with everything inside me.' I don't understand. I know you don't. Then explain it to me. It can't be explained, Tilly. It can only be felt. So, I have no feeling. Not for that. No fellow feeling with me. Why did you marry me? She asked curtly. Because I love you. Because you love me, she echoed curtly. Because I'm good enough. For that. Her eyes flashed. "'Tilly!' he implored. "'It was as though a sudden terror blinded him, "'as though a specter of guilt,

"'suddenly loomed up out of all the black self-insufficiency "'of the last few years, his years of married life. "'Because I'm good enough to bear you children, "'because you want to have children by me, "'healthy children different from your family, "'your mother's family. "'Tilly! Addy!' she entreated. "'Love me, love me.

"'I do love you, Tilly,' he cried in despair. "'Love me, altogether.' "'I do love you altogether,' he lied, in anguish for her sake. "'No, you love me, half.' "'That's not so.' "'Yes, it is. You know it is. "'I want to be loved by you all together, and not only.' "'Hush, Tilly,' he entreated in dismay.

"'Tilly, don't let us spoil our happiness.' "'Our happiness,' she laughed scornfully. "'Aren't we happy then?' And he tried to force her to say yes, but she was suffering too much, and exclaimed, "'No, I am not happy. "'When I embrace you,' she clutched her fingers. "'When I have embraced you,' she went on,

"'it's over, it's over, it's over at once. "'I feel that you are far away from me again, "'that you don't love me. "'I do love you, I do love you, I do. love you. Then talk to me. I do. No, talk to me as you talk to Mary. But Tilly, I talk to her, to calm her. That's a lie. Tilly, it's a lie. You talk to her, you talk to her because you're in love with her. Tilly, stop that. Not as you are with me, but differently. Suddenly he grasped her wrist. She knew his sudden bursts of anger.

They were very rare, but she knew them. And because he was dazzled by the sudden light that shone from her, because, from all the gloom of his self-insufficiency, a consciousness of guilt came looming up to frighten him. And now, silence, he cried, shaking her arm, silence! I command it! He no longer knew things, life whirled dizzily before him, deep as a black abyss. He stood in front of her on the lonely road,

and it was as though his great eyes flashed lightning, shooting blue spark after blue spark of rage and pain. His whole face quivered, his body quivered, his voice quivered with rage and pain. She felt a furious resistance rise within her, together with black despair. She felt an impulse to rush into his arms, to sob out her sorrow on his heart.

But she did not. want his caresses. She wanted the thing that escaped her. It was escaping her now, and, when she said it, when she said it straight out, he commanded her to be silent, not to say it, wasn't it his fault, wasn't it his fault, wasn't she right? She released her hand. You don't love me, she said curtly. No, when you speak to me like that, I don't. I'm not in love with Maricha. I'm sorry for her. His voice was very calm and full of feeling, and she also grown calmer, answered, You feel for her? I do. Well then, but you have no right to bring that up against me. I don't grant you that right, because, Tilly, right, right, what rights have I? I have no rights.

I live in your house on sufferance. Tilly, be careful. Why should you? Why should, I? You? Why should, I? I, should I? You're destroying our happiness. It doesn't exist. Yes, it does. If, he passed his hand over his head, there was a cold wind blowing, and the beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. If you would be reasonable. And share you? Share me? With whom? He roared. But with her, perhaps, she resumed, frightened, but with, with, with whom? With them all. "'All whom? Your family, all of them, whom you love more than me. "'I don't love them more. "'No, but you feel with them, and not with me.'

"'Then feel with me,' he implored, as though to save both her and himself. "'Feel tilly that I can't be a fashionable doctor, "'but that I have a large practice, a number of patients to whom I am of use. "'They don't pay you.' His mouth involuntarily gave a twist of contempt. "'They don't pay you,' she repeated. "'You are wearing yourself out, for nothing.' "'Try and feel, Tilly, that I am not wearing myself out for nothing,

"'just because I'm not making money. "'They teach me to feel it.' "'He looked at her in despair. "'Teach me,' she entreated, "'for your sake, because I love you. "'I will try to learn, try to feel. "'I love you.' "'I love you, Addy.'

"'Dear,' he said gently, "'I'll do my best to teach you to feel it. "'Come with me. "'Where? There, to those little cottages. "'Who lives in them?' "'Poor people, sick people, whom I attend. "'Addy, no, no, no. "'Why not?

"'I'm not prepared for it. "'You know I can't stand that. "'You're a healthy woman. "'Your nerves are strong. "'Come with me.' "'She went with him, not daring to refuse. "'Tilly,' he said gently as they walked on and approached the cottages, "'I will try to have understanding for both of us.

"'If you are to be happy in yourself, with me, happy the two of us, then—' "'Well, then you must learn to understand me, "'to understand me very deep down as I am. "'Then you must try to understand all of us, to love us all. "'My father, my mother. Tilly, tilly, can you?' She did not answer, trembling, frightened, looking deeper into things, after all that he had said. Her fine eyes gazed at him despairingly, like those of a wounded animal in its pain. She could have embraced him now, just ordinarily, clasping him warmly and firmly to herself,

but he led her on as he might lead a child. He knocked, opened the little door and led her in. A sultry heat of mean poverty struck her in the face like a blow, and it was nothing but misery wherever he took her. It seemed to her as if she herself carried that misery with her, in her soul, which had never yet thrilled as it did now. End of Chapter 19. Chapter 20 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Couper.

This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Oh, he was to blame, he was to blame, he was to blame, he was to blame. He saw suddenly in a sort of despair that the only answer to the question which he sometimes had to ask, in vague, black, self-insufficiency, was the assenting, yes, yes, yes. Because he had not known it for himself, entirely for himself, for the two-personation. which he so clearly felt himself to be, he was to blame, because he loved his wife with only half of himself. Was she to blame in any way? Was she not what she always had been? No, she had changed. She had refined herself, as if her soul, despite the antipathy of her environment, had yet become

transformed and grown more like the people and things that surrounded her. And it was his fault. He had brought her into this environment, in which no sympathy was created, and which had given her nothing beyond a refinement of soul, senses and nerves, so that she now suffered through that which he had always thought that she would never perceive. With what sudden clearness in her simplicity she had seen it all, almost unconsciously, and was now flinging it at his feet. He wrung his hands and felt desperate at the thought of it all, of an evening now alone in his study in the soft light of his reading lamp the table with guys books and maps standing in one corner he would walk up and down up and down wringing his hands glancing deep into that despair while the self-insufficiency was no longer vague but soul-torturing in self-disatisfaction because he saw himself at fault in that great action of his life which was still so very young

his marriage. At fault towards himself, at fault towards his wife. To let her marry him because she was healthy and simply normal, with that idea of setting an example. See, this is what we ought all to be, normal, simple and healthy. Oh, to love her, yes, but to love with only the half of himself, without ever giving her anything of the deep, things of the soul, things which he gave to all with whom he felt a sole relationship

without counting in a lavish prodigality. How could he have done it? He who knew things for others, more clearly than ever he perceived that he had never known them for himself, and he clearly perceived that others, his father, his mother, had suspected that he did not know for himself, that he had not known when he brought Matilda to them as his wife,

into their midst, into their house. And now, in his emotion, in this lonely, silent contemplation, they're awakened within him the energy to redress, oh, to redress if possible, to redress everything, everything for her. Now suddenly he went to her room, where she was spending a moment after dinner, before tea was brought in, where he often found her when he wished to be alone with her for a minute,

and he found her now. She was sitting listlessly in a chair and the room was dark. The children were already asleep next door. He lit the gas and looked at her with all the energy that slept up within him like springs, the energy to redress, to redress. And without any preamble, he said, Tilly, we'll go to the Hague.

What do you mean? she asked in surprise. We shall go and live at the Hague, I shall do what you suggest. I shall look for a practice at the Hague. She had him to herself now, for the first time after their talk that afternoon, and suddenly, sobbing, she threw her arms around him, pressed him to her. "'Love me,' she implored. "'I do love you. It won't do for us to stay here. It's better that you should be quite by yourself, in your own house, your own mistress.

us. We've talked about it so often, she sobbed. There will be money enough, Tilly. I shall make money. You said five thousand guilders. No, there will be more. Don't be afraid. Have no care. There will be enough. And you can do as you please. I promise, I promise. But it's a sacrifice for you. To leave the house. Yes, I'm fond of the house, but it's better that we should go to the Hague. Your parents, they will all miss you.

Now don't make difficulties, Tilly. No, Addy, no. How do you mean no? I won't go to the Hague. Why not? It's too late. It wouldn't alter a thing. It's too late.

What's too late? She sobbed and embraced him. She clutched him to her. She covered his lips with glowing kisses. Oh, let it be, she said, in between her kisses, and her voice sounded utterly discouraged. Why, Tilly, why? I want to see you happy. It's decided now. We're going to the Hague. I look out for a house.

She shook her head. Tell me, Tilly, why do you refuse? She shrugged her shoulders. I don't know, she said. You love me, surely. I love you. I doubt on you. I'm bad on you. let us stay here and and love me a little. But Tilly, I do love you.

You know I love you. He kissed her very tenderly, and she accepted his kisses with her eyes closed and lay limply, as though tired, in his arms. Suddenly she thrust him away. Let me be, she said, rising to her feet. Tilly, let me be. Stop kissing me.

Why mayn't I kiss you? I don't want you. want you two, and you say you love me. Yes, but don't kiss me anymore. He looked at her in perplexity, and she said, it's not only kissing. Tilly, he said, stretching out his arms. Whatever it is, we shall find it for each other, with each other. Yes. You think so, don't you? Yes, you believe it, when we are at the Hague, alone, in our own home. Yes, yes, I believe it. And will you then be happy? Yes, when we have found it. And we shall find it. Yes. Come and sit with me in my study. I have work to do. Come and sit with me. I shan't go downstairs for tea.

I have some reading to do. Come with me and stay with me this evening, will you? Yes. Then it will be as if we were already at home, in our own home, at the Hague. She went with him, pale, tired, listless, with his arm round her waist. End of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Easter was at hand. Spring brought a new barminus to the wind, a new softness to the rain,

a new warmth to the air, which hung low in a heavy grey canopy. and much had changed during the past few weeks. The big house, full though it was with all of them, seemed very quiet now that Addy and Matilda had moved to the Hague, though their rooms were always kept ready for them, because van der Velker had said that Addy must always have his rooms ready for him whenever he chose to come home, though it were only for a day. And so the bedrooms and the nursery always remained in mute expectation,

with silent furniture and closed doors. Had only in Addy's big study, one of the best rooms of the house, formerly the old man's library, Guy now sat and worked at the window. And it was as though, in spite of the restfulness induced by Matilda's absence, they were all gloomy because Addy was gone,

as if they had all lost him. True, he came regularly, twice a week, in fact, especially because of Marieta, Mary. But even then he had so much to do outside that they scarcely saw him except at meals, and it was as if they could all have put up with Matilda rather than lose Addy. Clash and no longer pushed her chair away. Gerdie no longer spilt the milk at evening tea,

those small almost ridiculous vexations, with which Constance had had to put up so often, as soon as Matilda entered. But now that all this vexation was gone, Addie also was gone, and seemed lost for all time, and they lived on in a sort of grey harmony, still and peaceful, but now, regularly, without many words, in a dull resignation which mourned in all their eyes and voices, while Gerdi, now silently, silently pined and pined. And it was only Guy and van der Velker who once in a way indulged in loud and forced merriment. Paul also had his melancholy days.

Sometimes he would not put in an appearance for a week, said that he was ill, remained in his rooms, lying on a sofa with a book in his hands, not thinking it's worthwhile to talk brilliantly or to play the piano. But they looked him up, Constance browsed the girls,

they drove him out of his rooms and out of his mood of depression, and he returned, like a victim, grumbled at Gerdie's piano, was always dirty, asked for a duster, scrubbed the keys and submissively played Greek, the melodies dripping slackly from his fingers. And, though everything was grey in the somewhat sultry spring air, still it was strangely happy, with a harmony felt in silence, a family concord, which sometimes brought the tears to Constance's eyes when she sat talking to browse in the twilight

upstairs in her own sitting room in whispered interchange of quick half words which at once understood one another. Then when Addy arrived, he brought with him a certain gleam, a light, a sudden glory, and yet his eyes too were full of somber greyness. But they were also glad to see him that they saw only glory in them. He was happy at the Hague, he said. He had a good practice. Everything was going well, "'Butilda was very cheerful. The children were well. "'He asked them all to come down some time, "'for though they had all been once to see the house, "'they did not come again,

"'withdrawing themselves from him as it were. "'He saw it and was hurt by it. "'His eyes seemed to roam through the dear brown rooms, "'as if this big house remained his house. "'And when Constance embraced him, "'she felt in her son's heart, "'a difficult struggle, a swelling of great sorrow. He never spoke of it. He hypnotized Maricha. He regularly kept up

Clashers' reading lessons, and the books with the coloured letters gleamed into the child's awakening imagination. He talked on Saturdays at great length with Alex, or sat with old grandmama and always thought of something to say to her that made her nod her head with soft, smiling satisfaction. He found a moment for his father, for his mother, for all of them, also for the poor sick people on the silent country roads. Once he interested himself in an old sick horse, which caused Maricha, Mary, great sorrow when she saw it tortured, and bought it for her and let it run about for her sake in a meadow belonging to a farmer whom they knew. And his regular visits were what they all looked forward to once a week as to a delightful day,

and the other days dragged on in grey harmony amid the quiet family life in which they all recognised the same loss in one another. Easter arrived and the three, Constance, Jan and Pete, came home for the holidays, and it was one great emotion, not only for Adeline, but also for Constance and also for Adi when he came, down, an emotion which bound them still more closely together, an emotion aroused by the future of all those boys, an emotion felt over the examinations which they had passed or were about to pass.

Constance, now 17, was to be transferred this year from the secondary school at the Hague to the School of Agriculture at Wagengengen. Jan, now 15, was still at boarding school at Barnavelt, preparing to go up for his naval examination next year. Pete, now 14, was at the Hague, at the secondary school, with a view to the polytechnic. At the Hague, Constantine Pete lived with a tutor, and Addy was almost glad that he himself was now living at the Hague and seeing more of the boys, for the tutor was not satisfied. The boys did their lessons badly, not because they were unwilling, but because they had no head for books, for working, for studying,

any more than Alex, any more than Guy. The three yellow-haired younger ones were even worse featherheads than their two elders. Constance was something of a dreamer, Jan the most solid, Pete's the cleverest of the three, but none of them workers. They all displayed the same incapacity for perseverance,

with the different shades of their different characters. Alex, true, doing his best for Add his sake at the Merchant School at Amsterdam, but full of a secret dread of life, struck as a child with that dread, since, staring through open doors, he had seen his father's dead body in that single moment of horror and blood. Guy, kindly genial merry and light-hearted, constant, inwardly sombre, morose,

with a strange, deep look of suspicion in his eyes. Yan, a boy for games, and Pete, the youngest except Clasha, no doubt the most enlightened intellectually, but delicate, shy, girlish, and reminding Constance most of the flaxen dolls of the old days, the merry careless children romping round the dining room in the banker strat, while Chedit in his uniform and riding boots stood tall and wide-legged in the midst of their fun. And now, now the boys were no longer careless. It was their report, it was their careers opening yonder in the future

that, as it were, compelled them to think of serious things. And it was as though they none of them developed with the blossoming of their years, as though they, Alex, Guy, Constant, and Yan, remained feeble, light-hearted, somber and rough, and peat, so shy and delicate, while cruel life opened out before them, society in which they had to conquer a place for themselves when none of them could persevere in the youthful studies

which prepared their future. It was a great source of anxiety for Adi, and if the boys had not all been so fond of him, the anxiety would have been greater than he could cope with. Was it not he who had really chosen their career for them, because they did not know, because they had no preference, all of them perhaps shuddering with dread of having to take their place in human society,

such as Alex felt it most deeply in the melancholy of his dejection, as though their father's suicide, of which they all knew, had cast a shadow over all of them, a twilight over their childish souls. And Addy, like an elder brother, like a young father, had had, in consulting them to choose for them, had had to discuss the matter with them at least, length. The Indian Civil Service appealed to none of them. Addy thought that not any of them had the brains for college, and so it was decided. Alex, Army Training College, but that had not been a success,

and he was doing better now at the Commercial School. Guy, the post office, Constant Wagen, Jan the Navy, and Pete, in whom Addy saw the brightest intelligence of all, he had stimulated to enter for the polytechnic. But it was not only Alex. Guy also was a source of trouble to him, plodding with gloomy resignation at his maps and books. Constant, somber and morose was doing his best, but the competitive examinations for Willem's Ord

might prove very difficult, Addy thought, for Jan later. While Pete, but the boy was still a child, clinging so dependent to Addy with his rather girlish affection, with his shyness which placed confidence in Adi only. Yes, thought Constance, now that she saw them altogether, they would long be a great trouble, they would still be a great burden to Adi, and Adeline, poor Adeline,

who'd never, unaided, have made men of her boys. It was Easter, and it was strange how much at home they all were in the big house at Dreebergen, which they regarded as their particular, house, regarding Uncle Henry and Aunt Constance next to their mother, as parents also, regarding Addy as an elder brother, as their youngest father, on whom everything really depended. No one ever opposed this view, and in everything down to the least thing, it was quite natural for them to say, I last Addy. They thought their cousin much older in spirit than in

years, and all looked up to him naturally, and with unquestioning confidence, as though he must know things, as though he would be sure to make life smooth for them, that future of career beside career, which opened before them like a battlefield. However much they might differ in character, in this they felt alike, quite naturally, as though they could not do otherwise. And when a stranger sometimes expressed surprise that Addy fathered them so, they eyes would glance up in astonishment as though to ask, What do you expect? Of course Addy does everything for us.

And they were very grateful, almost unconsciously, to Uncle Henry who paid the bills, to Aunt Constance who took care of them in so many ways, to Adi, who would make life smooth for them. But still they thought it's very natural, because it had always been like that, for the girls too, Marieta, Adelaicha, Adelaicha, Khairdi and Klaasha, There it was, Uncle, Ant and Addy looked after them because Mama was so sad and not very capable and devoid of energy. They had been used to it ever since they were very young and small

and it was like that, and it could never have been different. Now when he came down from the Hague, Addy talked to all of them seriously and they listened with serious faces, looking up at him, accepting what he said, promising to work better in future, to show better reports next time, to give him more reason for content in all respects.

Then he would shake hands with them, and that handshake conveyed a promise which they would be glad to keep, to please Addy, because Addy, after all, was bearing the entire responsibility for their lives and their futures. They left it all to him,

but they began to see more and more clearly that they must make it easier for him, He spoke to Pete in particular. Mr. Veichel's not satisfied Pete. This was the tutor with whom Constance and Pete boarded. The boy blushed with a quick flow of colour to his round girlish cheeks. His eyes glanced up shyly and timidly. You must work harder, Pete.

You can when you like, and therefore, if you don't, you can't possibly go to Delft, and you're cut out for a civil engineer. That's what you want to be, isn't it? "'Yes, Addy. We'll see that you get your remove before the summer holidays. You won't get your remove, Pete, if you go on like this. I'll do my best, Addy.' Then the boy became very restless because Addy was not satisfied,

and inwardly he wished that Addy did not see him so clearly, so clever and capable if only he liked. And Pete's thought the polytechnic a very difficult affair. "'It'll never come off,' he thought, in his secret heart. But he did not say so, because, in spite of himself, he hoped that it would, if only because Addy wanted it to, and because it was such a long way off the polytechnic, and because Addy lately had worn such a wrinkle in his forehead, as though he were disappointed, possibly in him. We are a great trouble to you, Addy, what?

If only you work hard, Pete, then it won't be such a trouble and things will look after themselves. But Pete was not the only one to see it. They all saw it, the boys and girls alike, and wondered if it was because of them only, or because of something quite different, himself or Matilda, that his forehead wrinkled so and his grey eyes grew so sombre. End of Chapter 21. Chapter 22 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librevox recording is in the public. domain. At the Hague, Matilda felt a certain gratification, a satisfaction, and the bustle of the early

weeks gave her a pleasant feeling of excitement and made her forget the despairing thoughts of the last few weeks spent at Drebachen. They had an attractive little new house in a side street off the Bezaudenhout itself. It was freshly painted, bright in colouring, and she found it delightful to be able to furnish the house, now that summer was approaching, with light modern furniture, which looked and suggested a doll's house, with the small rooms and the abundance of light-coloured muslin in the drawing-room and conservatory, which he thought looked nice and cheerful. The first spring light entered hard and shrill, and the new colours of the wallpapers showed up in the first sunny days, crying out at Addy when he returned from his visits in his smart little broom.

and she displayed a certain solicitude that above all he should be nicely dressed, that he should look very well groomed. She insisted on his ordering a couple of new suits. He had not a large practice yet, but that was sure to come. She was full of hope. In the afternoons she would go out, rejoicing in the shopping streets, in all the errands which she had to do, in the old acquaintances whom she met,

people whom she had known in her parents' house, they were both dead now, and occupying a somewhat lower social scale than her own at present. And she loved especially to show herself to her relations, a few uncles and aunts and cousins, in her elaborate new dresses, Baroness van der Velka. And in her gratification, in her satisfaction, in her new environment, created by herself, in sympathy with her commonplace illusions, It was as though she had suddenly wiped all Dreebergen out of her life, as though they had never existed,

the nearly three crowded early years of her marriage yonder in the melancholy rainy village, in the sombre house, the haunted house, full of lunatics and invalids. A newness, fresh and commonplace as the paint of her house, rained all around her. She inhaled newness and was grateful to Adi, but that which, despite herself, had begun to grow refined in her,

through her intercourse with antagonistic but yet finer natures than her own, now became blunted at once, and the days of real misery which she had undergone, now, in her superficial thoughts, seemed very far away as though they had been never lived but only dreamed, as read in a book but never felt. The feeling had not burst forth from her like a plant that buds, but had moved slowly around her, like a wind that blows on a drifting cloud.

It had moved her, but had not metamorphosed her. Now in her own atmosphere, she was blossoming up, fully like a flower transplanted to the earth, which it needed in order to blossom entirely. And yet, though she recovered herself, she was not quite herself again. Even though she no longer craved to know and to receive that which escaped her in Addy, yet she continued to know that something in him did escape her.

And, however eagerly, in her simple entreaty, she had begged that he would love her. Now, even though she uttered the same request, almost with a childish plaint, Addy, you do love me, don't you? She had to admit to herself that she now saw him really very far above herself, not only in that which escaped her, but also in that which she understood. the daily sacrifice which he was making by living at the Hague, by acting as she had asked, seeking to establish a practice as she wished, by shifting the tenor of his life, as with a strong grip of the hand, in the direction which would make her happy,

her the woman who no longer loved him as she had done, as she had done when she felt him akin to herself, in the healthy, normal life of physical natures. He was that still, but he was also different, and the same. that different thing was not akin to her, nor was the superiority with which he sacrificed himself. The superiority, the sacrifice, suppressed her. She soon forgot, and when she was out of doors, going along the shops, meeting acquaintances who admired her, she was happy. When she came home, waiting with her two children for Adi's return, she suddenly felt

oppressed. "'I grew melancholy at Dreibergen,' she would think. But now she was in her new, freshly painted house, and she was oppressed and felt unattractive. She dragged with her something that she could not shake off. She often wept, sobbed, as at Dreibergen. But there she knew it was only about Maricha van Satima, whereas here she did not know what she was sobbing for. At meal sitting with him alone she was silent,

or else spoke harshly without intending to. She did not sit with him when he was working, though he asked her to. When he wanted to kiss her, she drew back. At night she often locked herself in, pretended to be asleep. Only in the children did she feel in harmony with him, did she agree with him, with his system of feeding them, of sending them out every day in all weathers. The children united them now and then for a few moments.

When the children were in bed, their life together became strangely unreal, as though both were asking themselves, why, why? And it grew worse daily. He was now living exactly as she wished, and it seemed to him as if he had no life of his own. The keeping up of his reading in the evenings became mechanical, and mechanically he went once,

sometimes twice a week to Dreebergen, remaining there for half the day. They saw him looking strange, unsettled, old with wrinkles in his forehead, and a gloom of despair in his eyes. "'My dear old chap,' Fandervelka said one day, "'I can see that things are not going well with you. Do you remember how your father, not so very long ago, with the only bit of wisdom that ever fell to his share,

advised you to seek your own life for yourself? You're seeking it less and less for yourself. Things are not well with you down there, at the Hague.' "'Father, I have so little right to seek my own life for myself. "'And yet we all do it. "'There was a time once when you didn't. "'You then gave up your life for me. "'I did that quite naturally.

"'I don't know what's happening inside you, "'but it looks to me as if you were forcing yourself. "'Here you're at home. "'Here you feel a man. "'You love this house. "'You love the work you used to do here. "'I don't belong to myself anymore. You never did belong to yourself. As a child you belong to your silly parents, who got the better of you entirely, and now you belong to your wife. I expect it's your fate. If it has to be, I should so much like to see you happy, Addie. Bless my soul, old chap, we should all like to see it. We're all suffering on your account. Your poor mother's suffering. Does she talk about it to you? No, we never talk much together as you know, but still.

Do you understand each other better? No, but that's not the question. The question at this moment is your happiness. Father, I'm not unhappy. Things are really all right with me. You've got that cold, distant voice, my boy, which I know so well in you, which you put on when you're hiding yourself and not facing things.

I never mistake it. Banda Velka got up, walked restlessly across the room, all blue with smoke, walked back again and suddenly stopped in front of Addy and took his son's head in his two hands. My boy, why was it necessary that your fate should be the same as your father's, an unhappy marriage?

Father, don't deny it, why should you? Aren't we two friends who have always known all about each other? As a child you were my friend, we were always like brothers. Why must your fate be the same as your father's, an unhappy man? marriage. You who are so clever where others are concerned. Addy suddenly clutched hold of his father. Fandervalca continued, Why must you always know so little that will help yourself? At the time I raised no objection. You are fond of the woman. You always knew your mind with such certainty. I thought as you knew things for yourself. I let you have your way. I was jealous because you were getting married.

So was your mother. We should have been jealous. of any woman. We didn't like the girl you brought us. We thought, it's our jealousy that makes us not like her. She's Addie's wife. She's taking our boy from us. We had no right to think like that. We tried to stifle our jealousy. We received Matilda, hoping, almost knowing for certain that you were finding your own happiness in her, because you always knew your mind. You didn't know it in your own case. You knew everything so positively in ours. You also knew so positively, so plainly, that the profession which I tried to urge upon you was not the thing for you. You found your own vocation. You were a small boy, and you knew it all so clearly and positively.

When you grew up and became a man, you no longer knew things. Isn't that so? Why should your fate be the same as your fathers? I was a ne'er-do-well when I made my mistake. You were a calm, serious man. It was as if his father were depriving Addy of all his strength, but he merely said, in his almost cool, even restrained tones, Dear father, really, things are all right between Matilda and me, even Mama understood in the end that she did not feel happy here at home, and Mama agreed that she would feel more at home and happier in her own house, however small.

But I'm not speaking of Matilda's happiness, I'm speaking of yours, "'That goes with it. That must go with it, father.' "'And so it always remained. He spoke out no more than that, gave no more of himself than that, and was outwardly almost cold with chill shuddering and repellent when spoken to about himself. That he had made a mistake, that he had not known things for himself, he clearly perceived, but all his efforts were directed towards the attempt to repair what he had made a mistake. That he had his efforts were directed towards the attempt to repair what he had managed through his ignorance where himself was concerned to spoil or destroy in his wife's life.

Because he knew that she soon forgot things, he thought that he would succeed if he devoted himself to her entirely, if he lived with a view to her happiness, and ceased to live with a view to his own higher instincts, his own sympathies, his own vocation and activities. and even if she did not forget everything at once, he would hope that, if he persisted, she would end by forgetting entirely.

On days when she was bright and cheerful, he was satisfied in silence and with a certain inward somberness, because things were going as he was compelling them to go. On days when she was snappish and locked herself into her room, and was evidently unhappy and no longer knew how to explain her melancholy, He suddenly saw his young life before him as a dismal ruin,

as a desolate block of masonry in a dark night, as a desperate climbing and climbing in the dusk, with no goal of light ahead. Then he would look at his young crowing children and wonder whether one day, and that, perhaps soon, they would comfort him and her, their parents, even as he had comforted his.

He did his work listlessly, visited his patience listlessly, even though no one ever noticed anything in him. He would ride through the streets of the Hague in his smart little broom, and his eyes looked dully before them, and he longed for his bicycle, and the Drebbergen roads, the silent, gloomy roads, sodden with rain, and weighed down under by the heavy skies where his sick poor awaited him in their mean little dwellings. in vain, seeing him only for a single moment once a week.

He was filled with bitterness, with a listless sneer at himself, he reflected that he might just as well have satisfied his parents' wishes and grandmamma's wishes in the old days and become a diplomatist. It would have been nearly the same as what he was doing now, putting himself forward as a young, fashionable doctor who practiced hypnotism, and who was sought after, especially by the ladies, because he was good-looking and a baron. He sank into deeper and deeper dejection,

and felt roused only for a moment when treating a serious patient. End of Chapter 22. Chapter 23 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cuperus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain, and a Batilda's healthy mental balance was disturbed. This young and healthy mental balance was disturbed. woman with her rather vulgar aspirations had fallen in love with him because her nature expected to achieve a sympathetic satisfaction through his both in body and soul. Her love had faltered when she

gradually perceived that she was sharing him with so many who seemed to understand him better, when she suddenly saw, in a refinement of her inner perception that he was really escaping her. She had enough common sense to understand and to appreciate that he wanted her happiness above all things, that he was now devoting himself to her entirely, that he had forced their presence life at the Hague into a direction which was hers, not his. Because of this she was filled with a surprised gratitude, and yet this gratitude depressed her. The years spent at Drebachen amidst her husband's family had subdued her to a mere nervous, susceptibility, and now she sought and wept again, and did not know what she sought, nor why she wept. Fits of temper followed on fits of weakness and fits of discouragement. In the question which

he no longer put to Addie, but which nevertheless constantly arose in her heart, the question whether he really loved her, lay hidden a second question whether she really loved him. At such time she thought that even though her love was diminished, they would still be happy now at the Hague and make her life a simple life, the aftermath of physical love. But she saw him grow moodier despite himself, despite all his efforts.

She passed through hours of despair, and if she had not had her children, she would have gone away somewhere she knew not where. Her healthy mental balance, was disturbed. She now thought that it would be a good thing to tell Addy that she did not wish to stay at the Hague like this, because he was not happy there, that she wanted to go back to Drebachen. And the idea of giving back to him what he was giving her, of sacrificing herself, as he was sacrificing himself, gave her an internal glow of exhilaration, as though she had

found a solution, a solution in the near future, in a week or two, a month or two, a month or too. Yes, let her tell him that it would be better, after all, to go back to Dreybergen. The rooms there were always ready for them. They would all be glad to see him back again. She would give him back to his family. But she... She pictured herself once more in the repellent's life which she had led there, and she would not, she could not, suggest it to him. Then days would follow when she avoided him, when she hardly saw him at meals. Sometimes for a few moments they would play with the children,

for there was something really attractive about the fair-haired little mites. Pretty children both, Constant and Yetcha, healthy children such as Addy had wanted. When they were put to bed, she would go out in the evening by herself to take tea with relations or friends. She did not ask him to go with her. He had his work to do, and she came back in a cab.

There was a void in her life, and she tried to argue sensibly with herself and to make light of things. Come, there were hundreds of women in her position, not so very happy with their husbands. Really, happy marriages were rare, and people still managed to get on all right. There were the children, and she was very fond of them.

Perhaps later, when they were a little older, things would be better. Addy might become reconciled to his position as one of the most fashionable doctors of the day. She also might recover her calmness, her balance. Life was so insipid, getting up, dressing, ordering meals, paying visits, shopping. Only the children, still so small, imparted a little gaiety to it. For the rest it was insipid, and it was the same for one and all.

Nearly everybody had to pass through some sort of crisis after a few years. marriage. She would settle down, Addy would settle down, they would go on living side by side. But days of tears would follow, days of despair, and she felt much too young, much too full of vitality just to drag on her life like that. End of Chapter 23. Chapter 24 of Dr. Adrian by Louis-Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. It was spring and Maricha van Satsamo was to go to the Hague for the day to see her father and mother. Constance went with her. How well Maritia was looking, cried Adolphine with delight.

Marcia certainly looked well. She would always remain a little pallid, frail and thin, with narrow shoulders, but her cheeks had filled out. Her eyes showed a duique. calmness, and her lips, pale though they were, blossomed into a kindly smile. She was, as usual, a little subdued, but she joined in the conversation, and her attitude was more natural, less painful and forced. "'But you must leave her with us for the summer as well,' said Constance,

for the poor girl hasn't had much out of the country air during the winter. It is beginning to look lovely now where we are. She'll spend a summer with us first, Adolphine, won't she, before you take her back? Very well, said Adolphine gratefully. But presently, when she was alone with her sister, she found an opportunity to say, at least, if there are no objections. What objection could there be? Because of Adi, what do you mean?

People are so spiteful sometimes, you know. They say, what do they say? They say that Adi is in love. with Maritia, and that Maricha does her best to attract him. I should let them talk, Feene. What do you believe, Constance? I don't believe a word of it. Addy is in love with his wife. That's just it, people say. What do they say now? The things are not going so very well between Matilda and Addy. Every young couple has a difficult time now and again, a little difference of opinion. I assure you, they are happy together.

Is that so? Yes. It was Matilda's wish to come and live here. It was better that she should be on her own, in her own house. Oh, she didn't have a scene with you then. That's what people say. I never had a single word with Matilda. I see her once in a way.

She does not talk nicely of you. She says that she was sacrificed to her its children, that she did not count at home. When she talks like that, I defend you, for I know how nice you and van der Velka are to everybody. She may have had a bitter moment that made her speak like that. She goes out a lot, said Adolphine. When?

Whom does she go to? In the evening, friends, she is hardly ever at home of an evening. She oughtn't to do that, without Adi you know. It's so undomesticated. I know she goes out now and then of an evening to have tea with friends. Yes, exactly. She's always out. But how well Maricha is looking, Constance,

she does addie great credit. He's making a great reputation with his hypnotism. Everyone wants to be hypnotised by him. I'm always hearing him praised. I'm so glad, Adolphine. She went away, arranging to fetch Maricha in the afternoon. and take her back to Drebachen. She had an open fly waiting.

It was beautiful, mild weather, and the spring was weaving verger in between the trees. But a heavy load lay on Constance's breast, and she could have cried, because of her boy, because of Addy. She was going to ride to him now, at the other end of the town, the Emistrat. She meant to lunch there,

and when she had seen the grandchildren to come back to Adolphines, It was 11 o'clock, and she felt so much weighed down with sorrow for Addy, who came home to them looking more and more gloomy every week, that she could not, could not go to him yet. After all that Adolphine had said, Oh, how she always loved saying things that jarred upon your nerves, things that hurt, things that grated against your soul, did she do it purposely?

Was she insincere? or was it because she couldn't help it, because she was tactless, or very likely took an unconscious pleasure in hurting people? Oh, perhaps she did not know how much pain she gave. But to go straight to Addy now, to Matilda was impossible. Cabman, drive a little way through the woods first. The driver turned down the Jarver Strat, went along the Schaveningen Road,

and let his horse roam at will in, the rides of the woods. Oh, the Hague was charming. She loved the woods, even as Addy loved Dreebergen, with an innate inherited love for the house and household, and the fact of living there. He was indeed his grandparents' grandchild, so she loved the Hague greatly. She loved those green villa-lined roads. She loved the briny fragrance of the sea. She was now riding along the ornamental water, now suddenly along the spot where she remembered meeting brows years ago, he sitting on that bench yonder, when, after she had turned round with a start, he caught her up, and her confession that she had suggested a divorce to Henry.

Oh, those days, those days of life and suffering and illusion, so far, so far away in the distant past. And now, now the man drove with his jog-trot, the jog-trot of a Victoria hired by the hour, along the Kirchof-Larn. Now she was riding past the old house. Oh, that old house! It was as though the past, the illusion, the suffering and the life,

the later, later life, were still hanging around it like a low-drifting cloud. It was the trees of yore and the skies of your, and the skies of yore and the green spring life of yore. The house, the house, there was the window, at which she had so often sat musing, gazing at the great skies overhead, while her soul travelled along a path of light.

Up above were Addy's little turret room and her own bedroom. Oh, that's night of illusion at the open window, with the noiseless flashes of hope over the sea, the distant sea yonder. She felt almost inclined to stop, to alight, to ask leave to go over the house, but something in the curtains, in the outline of a woman sketching at the window of her former boudoir, prevented her, and she rode on. Oh, how she loved her hague, and yet, yet she had suffered there,

with what antipathy she had been surrounded. did that antipathy of small souls for small souls go on for ever. Must her poor boy now suffer through it, even though he made his name as a doctor. Oh, what a heavy depression she felt upon her heart, as if her fur cloak were much too warm for the balmy weather with its breath of spring. Now they were going down the banker-shrat, past poor Gerrit's old house,

and suddenly that terrible night of summer, snow stood white hideous before her mind, stained dark with her brother's blood. Here was Doreen's boarding house, and Constance got out and rang, but Doreen was not in. The driver jogged on wearily. She recognised acquaintances here and there, grown older now that her memories were harking back to past years. And the cabmen, doubtless to spin out to the drive, instead of following the canal, turned up the Alexander Strarts. Oh, the house, the old family house, so full of recollections, so full of the past. And she saw that it was empty, that it was to let.

With a quick glance at the uncurtained windows above, she even recognised the plasterwork of the ceilings, and it was as though the past still brooded there, still stared out at her through the white streaked windows. Wearily, the horse now jogged along the Bezaudenhout, and she saw poor Bertha's house, with its tightly drawn veil of chill panes, stiff and repelling a swift penetrating glance.

Yes, the hague was like a grave to her, and yet, even as a grave, the hague was dear to her. A grave? And Addy lived down there. at the end of the street. Would she still care to live in the Hague? She did not know. She did not know. Perhaps she was becoming used to Dreybergen,

becoming used to the big somber house there, because there was so much love around her, even though she continued to feel a stranger there, and a stranger, that was how her boy felt here. The carriage now pulled up outside her boy's house. Strange, the front door was open. perhaps the maid was out on an errand and had left the door open for a minute to save herself trouble.

Constance, telling the driver to come back at half-past two, went inside. Addy could hardly be home yet from visiting his patience. She knocked at the door of the drawing-room and received no answer. Matilda was no doubt busy with the children or with her housekeeping. Constance opened the door and walked in to look for her. She gave a start. Through the drawing room and the dining room she saw Matilda sitting in the conservatory

with Johanez Zela beside her. He sat bending towards her and he was holding her hand in his two. Matilda's eyes were staring into the distance and the feeble hesitation seemed to take away something of the usual strength of her fine, healthy, rather full lines. Constance saw it for one moment,

as a strange vision in that bright, unsoftened, conservatory light, which was made the harder with many-coloured muslin curtains, and coarsely vivid, with the gold and motley of ugly Japanese fans. It gave constance a fright, and in that inexorable light, the fright and the vision were both inexorable. It did not last longer than a second. Her shadow in the drawing-room made Matilda and Johan start up, and they rose to their feet.

Mama, Mrs. van der Velka! It sounded like a greeting, but their voices were unsteady because they understood that Constance had seen. Constance's voice trembled, but she merely said, Good morning, dear. How do you do, Mr. Erzela?

She kissed Matilda, shook hands with Erzela. I came over with Marietja, I left her with her father and mother, and came to look you up, intending to lunch with you, if it suits you. She strove to make her words and her voice sound quite unaffected, and she succeeded, and because she succeeded, she suddenly felt that what she had seen was nothing, a moment of familiar intimacy. Were they not old friends?

Had a Bertilda not as a girl, when he was still a cadet, danced with him often at their dancing club? There was nothing, there was nothing. She was reassured by the tranquility of her own voice. "'So you will stay to lunch,' said Matilda. "'If it suits you? Of course it does. Addy is not in yet. Are the children upstairs? Yes, I'll send for them.' Ed Saylor said goodbye, that he must go, reminded Matilda easily of her appointment to meet him the next day at the tennis club.

Constance glanced at him quickly. In his youth, uniform he was young, broad and short, his complexion fair but bronzed with the sun. Above his powerful shoulders and thick neck, his face stood fresh and strong, smart military, with a pair of glad, childlike, grey eyes. A long fair moustache shaded his lips, which were laughing, glad and warmly sensual, and when he laughed, his small, sharp ivory teeth flashed, his thick fair hair, curled slightly at the tips. It was very strange,

but it struck her suddenly that Etzela's way of looking at Matilda resemble that of her own husband, van der Velka, when he was young, when she met him in Rome. Something in the fresh figure of his glance and of his rather sensual laugh,

something about his figure, about his teeth, reminded her of Henry as a young man. You've known him for a long time, haven't you? asked Constance when he was gone. Oh dear, yes, said Matilda, vaguely. The nurse brought down Yetcha and Constance for Grandmama to see. After that, the children were to go out for a little longer.

They look well, said Constance, huskily. She felt a heavy pressure of inexplicable melancholy on her heart, a pressure so heavy that she could have cried, so heavy that she felt her eyes grow moist in spite of herself. Yes, said Matilda, they are very healthy. It's quite a system that Adi and I are practising with that special diet and the regular time each day in the open air. The other day it was blowing a gale,

and Addy absolutely insisted that they should go out all the same, and I must say I agree with him. Suddenly, while Yetcha was sitting on her lap, and Constant tugging at her skirts, Constance took Matilda's hand. "'There things are all right between you,' she whispered, almost imploringly. "'How do you mean? You are happy now, Matilda, here at the Hague.' "'Certainly, Mama. You yourself understood, didn't you, that I longed for a house of my own?' "'Yes, dear, I understood.'

"'Aimely?' "'What? I'm sorry to have robbed you of Addy.' But, my dear, her son does not belong to his parents. Still, I reproach myself, but I could not stay with you any longer. You understand that it was not because, because you were not kind to me. You were very kind. You tried to be, though I do not believe that Papa likes me, that Emily and Adeline or any of the others like me.

I bear them no malice. I don't like them either. Constance was silent. I'm so different from the boy and girl cousins, and Papa was always jealous. My dear, and you too, but you fought against it. Matilda, I always wished you to feel at home with us. I always hoped that some part of you would blend with us.

Exactly, and that was impossible. I was too different from all of you, and at Dreibergen, in the end, I should have become as full of nerves as Mary, There was a tint of hatred in her voice. No, dear, said Constance, harking back, you were not happy with us, but because, I hope that you are happy now. She had risen nervously. The nurse had entered and was taking the children with her.

They were to have one more turn in the street before lunch. Tell me, Matilda, are you really happy? Do you really and truly love Addy again? I have always loved him. What do you mean? Then it's all right, then it's all right, dear. Why are you so sad? There are tears in your eyes. The Hague always makes me sad. The cabman took me for a little drive,

and I passed all the houses of the old days when we all used to live here. Did you feel a longing to come back to the Hague? No, no, I don't want to come back again. Will you always remain at dream? "'Yes, I think so. You have found happiness there. I did not. I remained a stranger. Tilly, one day perhaps, you will live there as we do now, when we are no longer there. No, never. Why not? I dislike the house and everything in it, down to the very doorposts, and I can't get used to an eerie house, as you all do. But Addy, exactly, he will never forget the house. What can it be to him?

He was not born there. He feels at home there. Just so, and I do not. Oh, I ought never to have married him. Tilly, Tilly, what are you saying? I ought never, never to have married him. And you love him, you love him. I have loved him. Oh, very dearly. But, but I ought to have never, never to have married him. And you love him. I have loved him. I have loved him. but he is far above me. I do not reach his level. He sacrifices himself for me and it breaks my heart to accept his sacrifice. It oppresses me.

Oh, Mama, find something, find something for us. Let him go back to you all and let me stay here with the children. I shall live simply in a small upper part and practice economy. It is all my fault, not his. He is good and kind of. magnanimous, but all that oppresses me. I thought at first that we were, how shall I put it,

akin to each other, kindred natures. When we got married, I used not to think about such things, but I thought in myself, with an unconscious certainty, that we were akin. He was so nice, so straightforward and so manly, and that rather elderly something appealed to me. I used to look up to it without being oppressed by it. Gradually, gradually I began to feel that he was far above me. Things I like leave him indifferent. Little luxurious, fashion, gaiety, society. That hypnotism of his, at first I used to think, this is something new, a new method. Now I don't know. I'm becoming afraid of it. I'm becoming afraid of him. There is something in him that frightens me.

Oh, I know it is only because he is so good and so big, and because I feel very small and ordinary, because I don't understand those fine lofty ideals, about doing good, and about poor people, and about self-sacrifice. To him it all comes natural. He is sacrificing himself now for me. He does not care for the Hague or for his practice here, whereas I could never live at Dreybergen again, and even if I could feel more or less at home among you all,

even then, even then Addy would oppress me. Do you understand? Oh, you are crying. Of course you are angry with me. You see your son above everything. That is easily understood, and I, I still have enough love left for Adi to understand it, to understand it all. But you see, the love I still have for him is an anxious.

love. It's a sort of self-reproach that I am as I am and not different, a sort of remorse caused by all kinds of things I don't understand and can't express, things that make me cry when I am by myself, and oppress me, oppress me until I sometimes feel as if I was suffocating. Hush, dear, here he is. They both ceased and listened. They heard Addy's voice, coming home here, he had met the children outside the house. Constance and Matilda heard his deep voice sound kindly, playfully in the hall. He now opened the door with Yetcha on one arm

and little Constant toddling by his side with his hand in his father's. "'Mamba!' he exclaimed in surprise. "'I had no idea that you were here. "'No, my boy, I came up unexpectedly. "'I brought Maricha with me "'and left her with her father and mother. "'You'll state a lunch, of course. I should like to. Why, what's the matter with you, Mama?

The matter. And with you, Matilda. With me? Nothing.' He saw that they had been talking together. He said nothing more, however, but played with the children for a while, and then released himself and gave them over to the nurse who had come in. "'The youngsters are looking first-rate, aren't they?' "'We shall have lunch in a minute, Mama,' said Missed. Matilda tonelessly. Addy sat down beside his mother, took her hand, smiled. Matilda left the room with her keys. "'Don't fret, Mama,' he said. "'My boy, you're fretting. You look so sad. My dear, my dear, I—' What?' She gave a sob and laid her hand on his shoulder. She was so frightened,

so frightened that it was as though her great dread stifled her and prevented her from breathing. She trembled in his embrace. You won't fret, you won't fret, will you, dear? No. The maid came to lay the table in the dining room. Constance controlled herself. Mama, he said, jestingly, now that Matilda also returned,

You're losing all your vanity. That's a nice old blouse to come and see you. your son in. Look, it's wearing out at the elbows. Do you know, you haven't looked at all smart lately? Oh, my dear boy, this blouse is quite good still. Well, I think it's seen its best days. What do you say, Tilly? Why should I get myself up? An old woman like me, said Constance. You'll never be old, mummy, and a well-turned-out woman must always remain well-turned-out. Do you remember the old days? Yes, when... You brought home that fine photograph from Nice.

She smiled through her tears. My boy, that is all so long ago. You thought me a bundle of vanity then. The photograph never leaves my writing table. Mama, you mustn't let yourself go like that. Very well, I don't wear this blouse anymore, but it costs so much to dress nicely, and we have so many expenses.

"'You were not rich in the old days,' said Matilda, peaked at something that she did not understand. "'And yet Mama wore dresses that cost six hundred francs,' said Addie, chaffingly. "'Yes, and now that you are well off.' "'Now I never dream of doing such a thing,' said Constance gently. "'The luncheon was quiet, a little melancholy, a little constrained. Afterwards, things went a little more merrily, because Yetcher and Constance came downstairs again with their nurse,

suddenly in a very youthful vision of golden hair, seen through the open door. Their little voices chirped like those of young birds, and Constance could not refrain from saying how much they all missed them at Dreibergen. For there also they were always coming down the stairs, looking so young and so golden, like a vision of the future, to go walking out of doors. Even in the winter they brought a hint of sunshine and of spring, something refreshing of youth and beginning,

a promise of future in the old house, which was so gloomily full of things of the past, things that hovered about the rooms, gleamed out of the mirrors, trailed like strange draughts, along the lightly creaking stairs. Matilda did not say much. She was silent and sat with her lips closed,

and her whole face, her eyes half shut, closed, after that sudden irresistible betrayal of her feelings to her mother-in-law, to whom nevertheless she was attracted by no sort of sympathy. A little while later, Constance's carriage came to fetch her, and Addy offered to go to the Van Satas with her and see how Maricha was. "'And what are you doing, Matilda?' asked Constance gently. "'I don't know. I expect I shall go out.' or I may stay at home.

Addy went upstairs to get ready, and Constance suddenly took Matilda in her arms. My dear, Mama, who did well to speak out to me just now, however sad it made me feel, who did right? Why did I do it? I should have done better to hold my tongue.

No, no, speak, oh, do speak to Addy too. I have spoken to him so often, Not lately. Matilda shrugged her shoulders. No, not so often lately. What's the use? It's not his fault. It's six of one and half a dozen of the other, and it can't be helped.

Very likely, only... Only what, Mama. Be careful, Matilda. I implore you. Oh, do be careful. Everything. Everything can come right again. You are sure to come together again later,

but be careful, be careful, don't spoil your life. They looked deep down into each other's eyes. Matilda, I may speak openly to you, mayn't I, just because it's I, dear, your mother, who suffered so very much, because she spoilt her life so, spoilt it so, when she was young, until life became a torture.

I was a young woman as you are, Matilda, and I wasn't happy any more than you are. are, my poor child at the moment, and... I know, Mama, Matilda replied shortly. Yes, you know. You know all about it. Of course you know, dear, though I have not mentioned it to you. But just, just because of all that, I may tell you, may I not.

To be careful, oh, do be careful. You are afraid of things that don't exist. No, dear, there is nothing. I know there's nothing. Only... What? You see, when I arrived this morning, Ed Saylor was with me.

Yes, he's an old friend. I know. He came to make an appointment to play tennis tomorrow. Yes, I heard him. There was nothing else. He was holding your hand. He's an old friend who mind you as a girl, almost as a child. Yes, dear, I know, but what do you mean?

It is dangerous. us. What is? To talk to him too much while you're in your present frame of mind. If you're feeling unhappy, dear, about one thing or another, speak to Addy. I've spoken to him so often. Confide in him. I have. And not, not in Johanna, sailor. Matilda's eyes blazed. Mama, you haven't the right? Yes, dear, I have. I not only have. I not only have. I, but I'm, have the right to tell you this as Addy's mother. But above all, I have the right because I understand you, because I am able to understand you, because I remember my own wretchedly unhappy years of despair as a young married woman, unsatisfied, unhappy, desperate, though for other reasons, alas,

than those between you and Addy. Because I remember all this, Matilda, because I can never forget, just because I remember, because I now remember how I used to talk, to Papa, when I was married to my poor old husband, how I used to talk to Papa, and try to find consolation in those talks, and how we worked ourselves up with those talks, until, oh, Matilda, let me tell you all about it. Let me tell you all about it, quite simply, even though you know, so that I may have the right. to speak to you. I used to talk to Papa, and we fell in love with each other. We thought we loved each other. And if you thought so, why didn't you? Because it wasn't true, dear, because it wasn't a burning fire of feeling, because it was an unreal feeling, arising from unreal words between a young woman and a young man, until, until all those talks drove them into each other's arms, and the awful thing became irrevocable. Mama, I'm telling you everything, dear.

I know everything, Mama, but you say you used to have unreal talks with Papa. Yes, I talk simply to Johann. My dear, my dear, it's not that. I, I myself was unreal in those days, in my feelings, which came out of books which I had read. Papa used to answer, out of those same books. You, you are different. You are simple. Ed Zela, a friend of your childhood, is simple. A simple-minded fellow, your talks are bound to be different.

Our talks are simple. But when I came in, I saw that you were talking, confidentially, intimately, intimately and eagerly, that he was holding your hand, holding your two hands. Yes, you saw that. He was consoling me. "'That's exactly what he mustn't do. "'That's exactly what he mustn't be allowed to do. "'Oh, Matilda, I am an old woman, and I am your mother,

"'especially now that you have no mother of your own, "'and I am Addie's mother, and I understand. "'I understand everything, because I, myself, have suffered so much. "'Addy's coming downstairs, Mama. "'Promise me, dear, to be careful. I, I will be careful. But forgive me, forgive me for everything that I have dared to say. Kiss me.

Oh, I long so intensely for you and Addy to be happy again. She took Matilda in her arms, passionately, and kissed her twice, three times. Addy entered. I'm ready, Mama. The carriage is waiting. I'm coming. I'm coming, my boy. End of Chapter 24.

Chapter 25 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Summer came suddenly. Fine sunny days followed one after the other. All the windows in the big house were opened and the summer seemed to enter and drive everything of winter out of the open windows. The spreading garden became closely leaved with a green and gold, triumph of dense foliage, which, lightly stirred by the wind,

cast shadows over the pond with a play of alternating flexive light and shade. Fander Velka strolling along the paths, found pleasure in watching Clarsha, the big girl of thirteen, tearing round the water, pursued by Jack the new terrier, who barked and barked incessantly with his sharp-throaty bark. She is still just like a child. thought Van der Velka, and she is developing like a little woman.

It is strange the influence that Addy has over her, and the way that the child is perking up, now that the fine days have come. But it is not only the fine days, it is Addy above all that gives her this balance. What's it through, I wonder? Purely through his influence, through a sort of healing magic that flows from him. It is very strange. The other day I had a terrible headache,

and, when he came and just gave me a little massage, it was gone, quite. And the way the fellow has succeeded in developing the child's mind with those picture books, with those coloured things. It's as though he wanted to affect her by means of colourings and glitterings and I don't know what. In any case it came off. She's really learning her lessons very well, and everything she says is more reasonable and sensible. It's as though she were catching herself up.

"'Yes, amuse yourself, child. "'Look how wildly excited she is with that dog, "'like a real child. "'She's enjoying the fine weather. "'She's just like a child of nature, "'and she looks well too. "'She'll grow into a pretty girl, "'though she's a trifle heavily built.

"'She no longer has that stupid look in her eyes, "'and there's something kind and genuine about her. "'In her behaviour towards old Mama and Ernst, "'something motherly and unconst. understanding combined, as if she felt she had something in common with their clouded minds. It's jolly to look at the child, to see her sprouting and blossoming, exactly like a plant that is now receiving just the right light and just the right amount of water. And yet she owes it all to Addie, and will very likely never know that she owes it to him.

Yes, the fellow wields a wonderful influence. Alex is keeping his end up now in Amsterdam and seems to be losing some of his melancholia since Addy had been talking to him so regularly. Poor chap, he was ten years old when he saw his father lying dead in all that blood and it affected him for all time. We were right to take all those children to live with us.

That sort of thing gives a man an object in life, even me, though I myself do nothing, though it's Constance and Adi who act. I feel a certain satisfaction, even though I just let them do as they please. Who would ever have thought that it would become like this, the big, lonely house, where father and mother lived so very long,

and sadly by themselves, now so full as a refuge for Constance's family? It turned out so strangely, so very strangely. Oh, if my boy were only happier, Who would have thought that he, he who has everything in his favour, should go falling in love with a woman who cannot make him happy? I'm always thinking about it. I get up with it.

I go to bed with it. I see the two of them and the smoke of my cigarette, and I am beginning to worry and worry about it, proof that I'm getting old. And I can see that Constance also worries about it, that the thought of Addie, and that woman is always with her. Oh, everything might have turned out so happily, but it was not to be, it was not to be. A lovely summer morning like this almost makes a fellow melancholy.

Yes, it makes you melancholy, because you know for certain that it won't long remain so, that calmness in the air, that beautiful, clear sky, that green and gold of the trees, and that it will soon become different, soon become different, full of, of sadness and of gloomy things. He suddenly spread out his arms, for Clarsha, pursued by the dog, came rushing down the path in his direction without seeing him,

as it were blinded by the game which he was playing. Uncle Henry! Uncle Henry! Let me go! Jack will catch me! Mind and don't tumble into the water! Vandevalka warned her, but she had already released herself from his arms and was running on with the dog after her. She's gone wild, he thought, wild with the joy of life. She's beginning to wake up, physically and mentally.

It's as though a twilight were there, withdrawing from her, a twilight which is beginning to steal over me. What is the matter with me? What do I feel? Oh, I long to go bicycling, to go for a long spin. But Addy's not here, and even when he is he has no time. time, and guys working.

Suppose I asked Clardy, she's fond of a little run. He went in through the conservatory. The old woman was sitting there, staring quietly out of the window, and her late show was busy with the plants. Well, mummy, how are you? What do you say to this fine weather? What? What do you say, ma'am, to this fine weather?

The old lady nodded her head contentedly. "'Love, lovely,' she said. "'The wet monsoon is over, "'but tell Gertrude to be careful of the river, "'behind the palace.' "'Her voice sounded like a voice from the past "'and spoke of things of the past. "'Where is Hedy?' Van der Velka asked Adelaidecher.

"'In the drawing-room, Uncle Paul's in there playing.' "'He heard the piano. Paul was improvising. Van der Velka found Gerdi, leaning over the back of her chair, very pale. I say, dear, come for a ride with me. It'll freshen you up. She looked at him dejectedly, shook her head. I have a headache. That's just why you ought to come, dear. Come along, do, to please me. He stroked her hair. She took his hand and put it to her lips.

Come. Really, uncle, my head's too bad. "'Then why don't you go and sit in the garden? "'It's so hot in here. "'And Constance is taking me for a drive-presency, "'and bear is coming with us. "'Paul, can't you ride a bicycle? "'There's one of Addies which you could have. "'No, my dear chap, it makes you so hot,

"'and all that perspiring is such a dirty business. "'Well, in that case,' thought van der Velker, "'I'll go on my own. "'But it's not particularly cheerful. If only Guy weren't working, I can't very well take him from his work to come cycling, so I'll go on my own. Lord, Lord, how boring, how boring everything and everybody is, without my boy. How that poor head he is moping.

No, I can't endure it. I can't do it. I can't go bicycling by myself. I'll ask Guy to come. It'll do him good. The boy is too healthy to be always sitting. with a pile of books round him. Van der Velka went upstairs,

reflecting that Addy would not approve at all if he knew that his own father was taking Guy from his work, to go bicycling, as he had often taken Addy himself in the past. But Addy has so much method. He used to divide his time so splendidly between his work, his mother and me, thought Van der Velka. Still, today, I simply cannot go bicycling on my earth,

and so I'll just play the part of the tempter. He had reached the first story, and here too the windows on the passage were wide open, and the summer, fragrant and radiant, entered the gloomy old house whose brown shadows vanished in patches of sunlight. The sunlight glided along the dark walls, the oak doors, the worn stairs,

along the faded carpets and curtains, and through the open doors. And it was strange, but all this new summer, however much Van der Velka had longed for it throughout the long, dreary winter, the winter of wind and rain, thou'd failed to cheer him, on the contrary, depressed him with inexplicable sadness. He now opened the door of Addy's study. Since Addy and Matilda had moved to the Hague, the room had remained the same as regards furniture, but somehow dead. Only in the morning, Guy usually sat working,

at his table by the window, and Van der Velka was sure to find him there. But he was not there, and the books and maps had obviously not been opened or looked at. "'Where can the boy be?' thought Van der Velka. He can't still be in bed. The room did not look as if anyone had been there that morning. There were a couple of letters on Addie's writing table, where the maids always left any that arrived for him at the old address, so that he might find them when he came down.

once or twice a week for the brief visit to which everyone at home looked forward. Fander Velka moodily closed the door. I'd better see if he's still upstairs, he thought, going up the second flight. Since Guy had given up his bedroom to Maricha van Satima, he slept in a little dressing room. The door was open, the bed was made. The fellow must have gone out already, thought Fander Velka. It's a dirty trick not to let me know. "'Well, I shall go by myself. I need some air.'

Angrily he went downstairs through the hall to the outhouse, where the bicycles were kept. "'Guise was not there. "'There, I said so. He's gone out and never even let me know. "'Oh, it's always like that. Those children are always selfish. "'We do everything for them, where they've got no claim on us, "'and what sort of thanks do we receive?' The boy knows that I'm fond of him, that I like cycling with him when Addie's not here, but he doesn't so much as think of looking for me and asking me to go with him.

It's all egoism. It's always thinking of your own self. If there's any pain to be done, that's all right. That's what Uncle Henry is there for, but the least little thought for me, not a bit of it. That's the way it goes. I've lost Addie, and tried to find him again in another. and it's simply impossible and ridiculous. Still young and active, he slung himself on his bicycle,

and for a minute or two enjoyed the motion of the handsome glittering machine as it glided down the summer lanes. But very soon he began to think, gloomily, a motor car I should have liked to have. I'm not buying one because of those everlasting boys. Life is expensive enough as it is, and instead of guys thinking of me now and again, "'Ah, well, if you want to do good to others, you must just do it because it is good,

for to expect to the least bit of gratitude is all rot.' "'No, cycling alone did not console him. His handsome, glittering, nickel-plated machine, glided listlessly down the summer lanes, and he suddenly turned round. "'That's enough for me, all by myself, without anybody or anything.' and he rode back home slowly, put the machine away, and looked at the empty stand where Guy usually kept his machine. Have you seen Guy? asked Constance, meeting her husband in the hall.

He's out, said Van der Velka, curtly and angrily. He hasn't been working, she added. I always look into Addie's study to see if Guy is at work. Addy asked me to. No, he has not been working. He's out. "'Yes, with his bicycle. "'Then why didn't he ask you to go with him?' "'I'm sure I don't know,' said Van der Velka, angrily, shrugging his shoulders.

"'Constance, too, did not think it's friendly of Guy. "'What does it mean?' she wondered to herself. "'He ought to have been working, but if he wanted to go cycling, "'he might really have let his uncle know.' "'And her soul, too, became filled with melancholy, because young people were inevitably so ungrateful, but she said nothing to Van der Velka, and they never knew that they often thought and felt alike,

as in an imperceptible harmony of approaching old age, that found only a negative expression. They so seldom quarrelled nowadays, at most exchanged a single irritable word, even though no deep sympathy had ever come to them. Constance went to her room to put on a hat. The carriage was ordered. She was going for a drive with the girls.

She felt worried about poor Gerdi, who no longer took pleasure in anything. It will pass, she thought. We have all of us in our time been through a phase of melancholy. Adeline told me that Gerdi was in love with Ed Zela, but he doesn't appear to think about her. Oh, how I worry and worry about it all,

about my poor boy, about Matilda. Ed Zela is bad. "'is bound to be attracted by her. "'Come, I need air in this fine weather, "'and yes, this warm air oppresses me. "'The summer is always oppressive in our country. "'The weather in our country is always becoming something. "'It never has become anything, like the weather in the south.

"'It is becoming, always becoming something. "'It's sultry now, the sun is scorching. "'We're sure to have a storm this evening.' "'She now left her. room ready and thought, Addie is coming to lunch today. It's his day, and oh, how I always long for that day. Last time he had to answer some letters and ran for ink for his writing table.

I'll just see if everything is in order now. She entered the room that used to be Addie's study. Yes, the ink's there, she told herself with a glance at the writing table. How uncozy, how cold the room looks, with nothing but the old furniture, the old man's furniture. There are letters for Addie again. The poor boy never has any rest. Casually she took a step towards the table and was struck by the appearance of the letters. What is that? she thought. The letters, there were three of them, were without stamps or postmarks. It was this that had struck her. Bills? She wondered for a moment. Then she shivered

and began to tremble so violently that she dropped into Addie's chair. She had recognised Guy's hand. There were three letters. One was addressed to herself and her husband, to Uncle Henry and Aunt Constance, the second to, Addy, the third to, Mama.

She sat distraught, staring at the three letters vacancy, without putting out her hand. A cloud of white squares seemed to, to whirl about her. It was as if the envelopes were flying round in a circle before her eyes, and she felt suddenly faint. "'What is it? What does it mean?' she asked herself aloud. She looked at Guy's worktable. The books were there neatly arranged on the big atluses. She got up and trembled so violently that she felt herself sinking away into an abyss.

She rang the bell. The door was open. She heard the maid on the stairs. Troucher. Yes, ma'am. Troucher, I'm here in Mr. Addy's study. What is it, ma'am? Call your master at once. But how pale you look, ma'am. What is it, ma'am? Nothing, Troucher. Call the master at once. Aren't you well? Yes, yes, only call the master. The maid went away in dismay. The stairs creaked under her hurried tread. Constance had sunk back into the chair again and sat waiting. Downstairs the piano sounded under Paul's fingers,

and she followed the tune, Sigman's love song. He plays well, he plays well, she thought. She was half fainting, the white square still surrounded her because of the three letters there on the table. She now heard a footstep on the stairs. She followed the creaking as it came nearer. It was her husband at last. What's the matter, Constance?

Her throat would not allow a word to pass. She merely pointed to the table. Well, what is it? Letters? For Addie? She continued to point. He looked, recognised Guy's hand. He glanced at her.

She said nothing. He now opened the letter to Uncle Henry and Aunt Constance. "'Has the boy got mad?' Constance looked up with a question in her eyes. Every kind of thought raced through her, so rapidly that she could not follow them, and yet she seemed to see one thought flash across them, slantwise. Had three letters from Alex been lying there, from Alex, who was always so much obsessed by the vision of terror and blood that had shocked his young imagination, she would have feared the worst.

Fander Velka handed her the letter without a word. She read it greedily. Guy wrote briefly, wrote difficult, sincere words of gratitude. Oh, it was not want of gratitude to Uncle Henry and Aunt Constance that had made him go without taking leave of all who were dear to him. He was not ungrateful to Addy, but it was just because, and all his cheerfulness, he had felt himself quietly growing sad. and all their kindness, while he found it impossible to go on working.

And of course he knew that if he had said to Adi, I can't work at books. What I want very vaguely, and I don't know how, is to make my own way. Addy would have let him go, because Addy understood everybody and everything so well. But it was just this, the conversations, the leaf-takings that he feared, because within him there was so much in hurt weakness, because he could never have gone if he had had to speak, if he had had to take leave, and that was why he was going away like this,

with his bicycle and his bit of pocket money. But the boy's mad, cried van der Velker, to clear out like this at his age, with no money and just his bicycle. The boy's mad. I must telegraph to Addy at once. "'He will be out, and on his way to us, this is his day for coming down.' "'Which train does he come by?'

"'The half-past eleven as a rule.' "'The girls, Gerdi and Mary, came in with their hats on. "'Are you coming, aunt? The carriage is there.' "'The carriage?' "'When we've been for our drive, we can fetch Addy from the station,' said Mary. "'Constance burst into sobs. "'Auntie, auntie, what's the matter?' Fander Velka left the room, taking the letter for Addy with him.

How are we to tell her? he thought to himself. Constance upstairs had an attack of nerves. She sobbed as violently, felt as miserable in the depths of her being, as if it had been her own child that had left the paternal house for good. End of Chapter 25. Chapter 26 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. In the midst of the sunshine on that summer day,

a spirit of melancholy descended upon the whole of the big house and set the nerves of all the inmates tingling. Addy had been, had read Guy's letter, had left at once, for Rotterdam. Downstairs in the morning room, Adeline sobbed without ceasing, and from the sunlit conservatory, the old grandmother stared at her, the vista of the rooms, because she did not understand. Adeline lay sobbing in Emily's arms. Marie and Paul were with her too. Upstairs, Adelaicha and Mary remained with Constance. Browse appeared at the door. What has happened? he asked in a whisper.

Fandervelka seized him by the arm, took him into the garden. Clarsha lay half asleep against the thick trunk of a beach, with Jack nested. in her little skirts, both tired with playing. The child was humming a tune, looking up at the sky, dreaming away amid all the gold that rained down upon her between the leaves like glittering coins. What has happened? Browse asked again. But Vanda Velka could not speak.

His throat refused to let the words through. Good morning, Uncle Browse, cried Clasher dreamily. Look, Uncle Browse, I'm very rich. It's raining golden sovereigns over me. Out of the beech tree. Out of the beech tree. Out of the beech tree golden sovereigns are raining over Clarsha. She hummed rhythmically.

Hans, asked Browse. What's the matter, old fellow? It's that idiot of a guy, said Fandervelka at last hoarsely. I was looking for him this morning. Couldn't find him at least. Anywhere, his bicycle was gone. He has cleared out. He left three letters behind him, for his mother, for Addy and for us.

He writes that he can't work at books, that he wants to try his own way. I've read all the letters. He tells Addy that he feels he must stand alone, that he must stand alone if he's to do any good, that, in this house, Fandervelka gave a sob. Well, he feels himself growing full. flabby, because there's too much affection, too much leniency for him. That's the sort of thing he writes. Who would have thought the boy was so silly? He writes that he won't do any good

if he stays here, that he wants to go and face the world. A boy of his age, the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard of. The boy may be right, said Browse very gently, but Van der Velker was not listening. I shall miss him. He confessed. I miss him now. He was my favourite. Among them all. He consoled me for the loss of Addy.

I loved him as my own son. So, so did Constance. Browse was silent. Life is a damned rotten encumbrance, said Vandervalca, explosively. We do everything for those children. We do everything for that boy,

and all of a sudden he goes away. instead of, instead of staying with us, causes us sorrow, breaks his poor mother's heart. He writes about America. Addy went straight to the station to make inquiries. He was going on to Rotterdam. Addy, Addy never has a moment's peace. He was looking tired as it was, tired and sad, and instead of having a day's rest, with us, with all of us. I wanted to go with him, but he said he preferred to go alone. Why not have told Addy that he would rather do something else than go into the post office? God, we'd have been glad enough to help him. He, Addy, does everything, does every blessed thing for the children.

Oh, Browse, it's as if a son of my own had run away, run away in a fit of madness. Addy has gone to Rotterdam. It was Addy's idea, Rotterdam. But a guy can just as well have gone to Antwerp, to La Averra, to God knows where. He hadn't much money with him. What will he do? What were his plans?

The sunny summer day passed gloomily, just a telegram from Addy, coming tomorrow, without any further explanation. Constance had found the strength to go to Adeline in her room. The girls were overcome with a silent stupefaction at the thought that Guy,

their cheerful guy, kept so much hidden under his light-heartedness. A deeper dis-sastened. with life, vague and unclear to all of them who were so happy to be with Uncle Henry and Aunt Constance, in what had so long been their family house, since they had been quite small children. And when Alex arrived in the evening from Amsterdam, he too could not understand why Guy had felt a need so suddenly to go away from all of them without taking leave, with that queer idea of making his way in the world alone. On the contrary, he, he was a

He, Alex, valued in the highest degree all that Uncle, Aunt and Addy did for him, without them he would never have made any headway in the world, and he was making headway at last, he thought. He was now working methodically at Amsterdam, and almost methodically making his melancholy yield ground. It was as though Addy inspired him with the love of work, and the love of life, wooing to life in him the strength to become a normal member of society,

Oh, he felt it so clearly. After every talk with Addy, he felt it once more, felt strength enough to stay one week in Amsterdam, to work, to live, to see the dreaded life which his father had escaped by suicide, come daily closer and closer, nearer and nearer, like a ghostly vista, at first viewed anxiously and darkly,

but later entered, walked into, inevitably, until all the ghostliness of it was close around him. And when he thought of his father, and always saw him lying in a pool of blood with his mother's body flung across the corpse in all terror of despair, then at the same time he would think of Adi

and reflect that life, no doubt, would not be gay, but that nevertheless it need not always hark back out of black spectral dread to his youth, because Addy spoke of being strong and becoming a man gradually. And Guy had gone, had evaded just that beneficial strengthening influence of Adi. No, Alex could not understand it, and that evening he remained sitting gloomily between his sisters, not knowing what he could say to comfort his mother.

The next day was Sunday, and if he did not see Addy on Sunday, he knew that the following week would not be a good one, for him in Amsterdam would be a bad black week. And it was only Grandmama and Ernst and Clashire who did not feel oppressed by the somber, sudden, incomprehensible and unexpected event, which the others were all trying to understand and explain.

To them the summer day had been all sunlight, and the gloom had passed unperceived by them. Next morning Addy returned. Constance, who was quite unstrung, had been twice and three times to the station in vain. At last she saw him. You didn't find him, she asked with conviction. Yes, I did.

What? You found him? How? How is it possible? I had an idea that he couldn't go farther than Rotterdam. He hadn't much money on him. I hunted and hunted until I found him. And you haven't brought him back with you? No, I let him go. You let him go? I think it's best. He was very anxious to go. He was angry at my finding him. I talked to him for a long time. He said that he wished to be under no more obligations, fond though he was of us, grateful though he felt. Constance, trembling, had taken Addy's arm. They went home on foot. The road lay in a bath of summer under the trees. He spoke sensibly. He had a vague idea of working his passage on a steamer.

as a sailor or stoker. I took a ticket for him. He will write to us regularly. I told him that Mr. Browse, if he liked, could certainly give him some introductions in New York. He said he would see. He showed a certain decision, as if he were doing violence to something in his own character. It was rather strange. I thought I ought not to compel him to come back. He told me that he was certain of not passing his examination, and that this was what got on his mind and upset him, that he couldn't concentrate on his books, that he would now look after himself. There was a boat going to London. I gave him some money. It's better this way, Mama, let him stand on his own legs. Here, the way things were going, he might have gone drudging on.

She wept distractedly. We shall miss him so. He was the life of the house. But part of his. But Papa, Papa will miss him badly. Oh, it is terrible. Poor, poor Adeline. They reached home. Let me speak to Aunt Adeline first. My dear, my dear, make everything right. Oh, put it so that aunt's thinks it's right and accepts it. You can do everything, dear. No, Mama, I can't do everything. You can do everything. You can. What should we have done without you? Now that you have found him and talked to him and made things smooth for him. Perhaps everything will be all right for him. If you hadn't found him, how did you know that he had gone to Rotterdam? I felt almost sure of it, mummy, but I didn't know anything for certain. I might have been mistaken. You look so tired.

I've had a tiring day. Addie, to people outside, to the family, we will say that he has gone to America, a sudden idea, with introductions from Mr. Brown. My dear, how can you talk of it so calmly? Mummy, perhaps it's better as it is for him. He was doing no good here. He wasn't working, and he was getting enervated in the midst of all his relations. He has developed a sudden energy. It would be a pity to stifle it.

I simply could not bring myself to do that. My boy, do you tell your aunt, tell Papa too, tell all of them, tell his sisters and Alex. "'I, I can't tell them. I should only cry. I'm going upstairs to my room. "'You tell them, won't you? You'll make it appear as if it's all right, as if it's quite natural, as if it's all for the best. Yes, my dear, you go upstairs. I, I'll tell it them. I'll tell all of them.' "'End of Chapter 26. Chapter 27 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cooperus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain.

The oppressive, sultry, rainless summer days followed one after the other, and the night also waited in oppressive expectation of oppressive things, which were to happen and never happened, as though what we expected to happen immediately withdrew and withdrew farther and only hung over houses and people with heavy stormy skies, skies of blazing morning blue

until great grey-white clouds blew up from a mysterious cloudland and drifted past on high. Only on the more distant horizons was there any lightning and that came soundlessly later in the day. The threat of a thunderstorm drove past

the foliage became scorched in the dust of advancing summer and faded with the approach of decay and there was almost a sort of longing for autumn and for purple death in autumnal storms. A nature tired with heavy trailing summer life that had never finally become anything and was always becoming something, never flashing forth in bright achievement of summer,

but dragging her incompleteness from heavy day to heavy day under the heavy immensity of skies, towards the later bursting delights of autumn, Heavy wind, heavy rain, followed by the heavy death struggle and unwillingness to die of that which had never been the glory of the sun, and yet left no golden memory behind. Often in those oppressive nights, Maricha von Satsama could not get to sleep or else woke up with a sudden start. She had been dreaming that she was falling down an abyss, or gliding down a staircase, or bumping her head against the same. the ceiling like a giant blue bottle. Then she would get up, draw the curtains and look out at the heavy night of trees, grey with darkness melting into darkness. The road beyond the house

was grey, like an ashen path. The oak and beaches showed grey, their leafy tops and ruffled by the wind. In the front garden the dust-covered standard roses stood erect as pikes, and the roses drooped from them, greyed with the tired, pining attitude of heavy flowers, hanging from limp stalks. All was grey and silent, only, in the very far distance, a dog barked, and the bedroom, still dark with the night.

The nightlight had gone out, began to stifle them reach her so much that she softly opened the door and went through the attic, though Addy had forbidden her to wander about like this at night. She went carefully in noiseless slippers, pale in her nightdress, staring wide-eyed into the great indoor twilight. She passed the doors of the maid's bedrooms and down the first flight of stairs, stepping very lightly so that the stairs did not creak. Once on the staircase, she breathed more freely with relief at feeling something more spacious than the air of her room, the relief of unfettered movement, although the grey silence wove such strange cobwebs all around her,

through which she walked down the endless passages. She now went past Uncle's door, aunt's door, Mama's door, the girl's doors, past Addis and Matilda's empty rooms, and she felt that she was very much in love with Addy, silently and without desire, and was always thinking of him, even though she did not always do as he told her, because she simply could not remain in her room and longed even for the outdoor air to feel it blowing through the filmy tissues that covered her young body.

And however much without desire, because Adi remained to her the utterly unattainable, yet they're blossomed up in her a nervous passion, like some strange flower or orchid or lily, seen in a waking dream, a blameless girl's dream of love, of soft, wistful lying in each other's arms, and feeling the pressure of breast against breast or mouth against mouth,

and ecstatic thrills through all one's body. Then Maricha would long for Adi, so that he might lay his hand upon her head. No more, that was enough for her, because she was also very fond of him, of his voice, and his glance and his speech, of his care, of his sympathy, of everything abstract that came from him to her.

She knew that, on his side, it was no more than gentle interest, but it was enough for her. She lived upon little, like a bloodless lily, her body and soul needing no excess. She well knew at the moment that she was doing what she should not, wandering like that through the house, half awake, half asleep, because it was so fresh and cool to walk about like that, half naked. The night grew grey with dusk, and there were deeper shadows in the corners. But she was not afraid, after she had once talked to Addie about the house, and he had explained to her that, if there was anything of the past hovering about it,

it could not be malign or angry, but rather well-disposed and on the alert, in case it could be of use. He spoke to nobody but her like this. She knew that, and it gave her a deep love for him, especially because, because he had said it so very simply, and without any sort of exaggeration, as though it were the very simplest thing that he could have wished to say. Nor did he speak like that often. Once or twice at most he had spoken so, but it had reassured her greatly,

ever since she had been frightened into fainting on the little staircase, all because of a sudden shadow which she thought that she saw, and yet did not know if she really saw. She was now going down by, that same little back staircase, almost longing to see a shadow and always thinking of Addy, but she saw nothing. White and as though walking in her sleep, she felt her way down the narrow little stairs. They creaked slightly. She next opened a door, leading into the long hall, which was like that of an old castle, so fine with its old wainscoting. The long Devonser carpet

was paled by many years traffic of feet. The front door seemed to vanish in the grey vista. On the oak cabinet, the Delph jars gleamed dimly. She walked in a waking dream on her noiseless slippers and now opened the door of the morning room, all dark with the blinds down. She was very white now in the darkness and could see her own whiteness, and she looked through the drawing room into the conservatory where Granny was always accustomed to sit. The conservatory windows showed faintly like transparent greynesses, and behind them, in the dawning light of very early morning, something of the dusk of the garden melted away.

In the very early light it was all ash, the conservatory full of fading ash, and the garden full of ash. Not an outline was visible as yet, and she gazed and gazed, and thought, it so strange, and yet, perhaps, not so very strange, that such outlines as did stand out in the conservatory against the grey windows, were motionless as the outlines of two dark shadows, sitting each at a window, as it were an old man and an old woman, looking out at the birth

of morning, which, very far in the distance, gave just a reflection of paler twilight. Maricha now closed her eyes for an instant, then raised her lids again, and stared at the conservatory, and it was always that, the outline of the dark brooding shadows, so very similar to unconsciousness, as if she were looking through atmosphere within atmosphere, invisible at other hours than those of the greyness of the ending night at the beginning of the morning melancholy. The two irrealities remained grey against grey, and suddenly Maricha felt very cold and shivered, half-naked as she was. And, in her shivering, it seemed to her that very quickly the shadows themselves shivered, as with the start of surprise, and disappeared because she had dared to stare at them.

Nothing was outlined any more against the conservatory windows, only the morning between the trees grew paler. there was even a streak of whites. Maricha was cold, she left the room, forgot to shut the door after her, and going down the passage, made for the little back staircase, and here also forgot to shut the door. Up, up she crept,

shivering with the noiseless tread of the soft slippers, across the attic now, and she stole into bed, quite cooled, and, after just thinking about what she had seen dimly outlined, perhaps, against the great conservatory windows, she fell asleep peacefully and dozed until late in the morning, peacefully and like a cold virgin now,

with the bedclothes drawn up to her chin. End of Chapter 27. Chapter 28 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Addie was out in the afternoon when Matilda opened Constance's telegram. Please come see Emily. There's always something, Matilda grumbled to herself. Addy is physician in ordinary to his relations.

When it's not Clarsher, it's Adelaide, or Mary or Emily. There's always something. What can be the matter with her now? He's only just been home. Oh, of course, she's always in. ill in the summer. I expect it's the same as last year. She had an angry impulse to tear up the telegram and say nothing to Addy to tell him later that it must have gone astray. She did not destroy it, however, but laid it on the table where he would see it, and then went out to the

tennis club. As a rule, she took the steam tram and alighted at the Viterbruch. This time she ran against Ezeler with his racket in his hand in the Bezaudenhout. I was waiting for you, he said. How nice of you, let's take the steam tram. Why not walk? They stepped out along the Herten camp. Is anything the matter? he asked. Why?

You look so preoccupied. Oh, it's nothing. You're out of humour. Did I say they want Addy again at home? Who's ill this time? Emily. Mrs. Van Ravan? Yes, she calls herself Mrs. Van Narchel now. I know. She's the one who ran away with her brother years ago. There was rather a scandal about that, wasn't there? People didn't exactly know. I don't like her. She's ill every summer. Then she becomes funny, and then she has to see my husband, of course. Hence the telegram for Mama. The other day, Mrs. van der Velker saw. saw what? That I was holding your hand.

What about it? You're a friend. We've known each other for years, since we were quite young. Do you know, my bar warned me against you. Against me? She was afraid that,

What? You would fall in love with me. I am in love with you. Now, Johan, you're not to say that. You know, I always have been. You were in love with Gerdi. for a minute only, with you I have always been in love, long ago, at our Cinderella dances. In love,

I've always loved you. You must not talk like that. I, I love my husband. Yes, I know you do, but he doesn't make you happy. She was silent. She did not wish to go on and say that she felt Addie so far above her, unattained and incomprehensible, that everything was coming to escape her, that her love was escaping her, that she felt herself sinking slowly, slowly, in a vague abyss, that it was only the children who made her find Addie again every day for a moment. She was silent, but there were tears in her eyes. Her healthy temperament, now slightly unnerved, had a need of much happiness for itself, even as a healthy plant needs much air and much water,

and does not know what it means to pine. The melancholy that sometimes overcame her was not native to her. Let's take the tram, she said. I feel tired. It's better for you to walk, he said. His voice was authoritative, and she allowed herself to be coerced. It was a hot afternoon, and she dragged herself along mechanically beside him, both carrying their own rackets.

Mama's quite right, Johann, she said, abruptly, it won't do for us to see each other so often for me to talk to you so intimately. And why not if you feel unhappy, if you want to unburden yourself to me? No, no, it doesn't do. Come, let's take the tram. We shall be too late for our tennis. He looked out mechanically for the tram. They were at the corner of the Valsdorp Road, and he said, Look here, walk a little way with me. I don't feel like tennis, do you? She let herself be dragged along and turned down the lonely green road. She seemed to surrender feebly to his wishes, and she became aware that she was in a profound state of melancholy, a hesitation of not knowing things, of wavering, of feeling unhappy.

Everything could have been so different, she said, almost crying. What do you mean? When? If Addy? If he what? I don't know, she said. I'm tired of thinking about it. It is not his fault. No, it's your fault. My fault? Yes, nothing would keep you from marrying him, and I loved you. You, but you never asked me.

But you knew that I loved you. Yes, everything could have been different. Oh, everything could have been so very different. She suddenly began to cry. Tilly. Oh, she said sobbing. Don't let us talk like. this, let's go to the tennis club. No, no, I don't want to. She turned. Tilly, no, I won't go any farther.

I'm going to the club. It'll distract me to play tennis. She turned back. He followed her. Tilly, you're so unstrung. If you were a little calmer, I should tell you. What? That I can't bear to see you unhappy. Oh, I love you. I love you. Let us go away. "'Together. Go away. Where? With each other. I love you. I love you. I have always loved you.' She stopped with a start. "'You're mad. Why? To suggest such a thing,' she said with a scornful laugh. "'You're mad. You think that I want to be unhappy all your life. That I should consent to run away with you. I love my husband and my children. Did you imagine?

Yes, he said. It was mad of me to suggest it. You love your husband, not me. You never allow me anything, not anything. Nothing at all, she asked scornfully. Nothing that counts, he retorted, hoarsely, roughly. She shrugged her shoulders. You men always want that.

Our happiness does not always consist of that. No, but if you loved me entirely. Johan, she cried, they crossed the bridge and entered the woods. If you ever dare speak to me like that again, very well, I won't. But you're always doing it. We'd better not see each other at all. Not see each other. No, I won't have that, he said. I won't have that either. And if I insist, Even so. You don't make me any happier by talking like that.

You make me even unhappier than I am. Oh, Tilly, I can't bear to see you unhappy. What are we to do? What are we to do? I don't know, she said in a dead voice. You don't care for me. Not in that way. Why shouldn't we be friends?

That's nonsense. Friendship between a man and a woman. That's one of those notions which you picked up, I dare. say, a driebergen, among neurotic people. Between a man and a woman, there's only yearning. I want you, and I'm in hell because I haven't got you. Yes, it's always that, she said, and she thought of Addy, oh, if you would only go with me, out of this. Would that make me happy? I should live for you entirely. I have a little money. That would make me happy, would it, to leave my husband, to leave my children, your husband, your children, but I should be

there. Yes, but, you don't care for me. Not like that. All the same, you would become happy. You never found happiness in your husband, you say so yourself, because you don't understand him. You would understand me. She began to cry again. Oh, she said, don't go on talking like that. Do you care for me, Tilly? Do you care for me? Yes, Johan, I do care for you. Well, she stood still. Listen, she said, looking him straight in the eyes. I care for you.

Her voice sounded loving in spite of herself. I care for you, very much indeed. At this moment, perhaps even more than for Addie, I'm not quite sure. A time may come, may come, when I shall care for you even more. or certainly more than for Addy. Oh, he cried, but then, don't speak, she said, listen to me. What you're asking of me?

I refuse. Why? Because I'm an honest woman, because I am naturally an honest woman, because I always mean to be an honest woman. I could never do what you ask me to, because, even if I had to say goodbye to my husband, I should never, never be willing to say goodbye to my children.

"'You love your children better. "'Better, I love them in a way which a man like you "'simply cannot understand. "'Tilly, Tilly! "'Be quiet. "'There are people coming. "'Be quiet. "'Oh, Tilly, what then?'

"'I don't know,' she said, dully. "'Oh, come along to the club. "'We'll play some tennis.' "'She quickened her pace. "'He followed her, lurching like a drunken man. "'Translator's note. The steam tram, running from the Hague to Schaveningen, through the dunes, as opposed to the electric tram, running through the Schaveningen woods.

End of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. When Addy found the telegram, he at once took the train to Dreybergen. It was evening when he arrived. What's the matter with Emily? He asked his mother. She's crying all day long, said Constance.

It's just like last year. He went straight upstairs to Emily's room and found her sobbing, sobbing in Adeline's arms. I'm at my wits' ends what to do with her, said Adeline. Leave me alone with her for a moment, aunt, whispered Addie. Here, feeling in his pocket, here's a letter from Guy, posted in New York, you'll see that he has found work, thanks to Mr. Brow's introduction.

Adeline left the room. Emily went on sobbing. She flung herself on the floor with her face against a chair, and her hair dishevelled, her thin hands grasping the chair. Addie, she cried. Addie, is that you? Yes, Emily. Oh, it's suffocating me.

It's suffocating me. Let me tell you about it. He sat down, and she came to him with the movement of an animal creeping towards him. She stammered incoherent words, but he understood them. He knew the words of old. He knew what she was saying. It had been the same thing last year and the year before. At the beginning of each summer, there was some fit of madness which mastered her,

a fit in which she lived all over again, through things that had happened in the years long ago. Oh, it was a terrible secret which she always carried about with her, which no one knew, which no one had ever known. In the dark room with the closed sun blinds, the secrets stifled her and had to be told, because it stifled her in her heart and throat. I must tell it you, Addy, it was during those last days, those terrible days in Paris. "'Eduard, my husband, was in Paris, and he had been threatening me. "'You remember, you must remember. "'I told you as much as that, didn't I?

"'He had to come to look for me in Paris. "'He hated me, and he hated, oh, how he hated Henry. "'Henry, my poor brother, my brother. "'Addy, Addy, let me tell you everything. "'Whatever people may have thought, whatever people may have said, none of it is true. It's all false. He was my brother, my own brother, and I loved him as a brother, though perhaps too much, and he loved me as a sister, though perhaps too much. Oh, people are so wicked, so utterly wicked, they thought, they said, as for me, I would never speak. Oh, Addy, your parents,

and you, your kindest and dearest of parents, never asked me a question. but took me to live with them in their house, which has become my sanctuary, where I can lead my cloistered life. Oh, Addy, I shall be grateful for ever and ever to your dear parents, and to you. They never asked me anything. They have been like father and mother to me. I have been able to live under their roof, though my life has been nothing but remorse and pain.

Oh, Addy, let me tell you everything. Henry was a clown in a circus. You know about that. And I, I made money by painting. We lived. We lived together. We were both of us happy. Then, Edward came.

Oh, he was like an evil spirit. Oh, when I dream of him now, I dream of a devil. Adi, Edward came. And it was he. It was he. I know, Emily, I know. The words burst from her in a scream. It was he, he, he, he.

He who murdered Henry. Hush, Emily. Oh, I can't keep silent. I can't keep silence forever. It chokes me. It chokes me. Here. She uttered loud hysterical cries, twisting herself against the chair. Her eyes stared distractedly out of her face. Her hair hung loose about her cheeks. Her features were pale and distorted. It was after an evening when he had been playing in the circus. And Edouard, Edouard. I know, I know. Hush, Emily.

He waited for him in the passage in front of the house where we lived, and he called him names. They quarreled. Then, then he stabbed him with a knife. Hush, Emily, hush! But she screamed it out. Her screeches rang through the room. She wriggled like a madwoman against his knees.

He stroked her disheveled hair to quiet, her. Oh, your parents, your dear parents, Addy, they never asked me anything. They came and fetched me. Oh, Addy, that journey home with a coffin between us. Oh, those formalities at the frontiers. Oh, Addy, your dear parents, they saved me. I was mad, I was mad, I was mad at that time. Now it's all coming back to me. I can't keep it to myself any longer. You see, He waited for him. They began quarrelling about me, and suddenly they were like two wild animals.

Henry rushed at him. Then Edward stopped him with his knife. The villain, the villain. He has been missing since then. I have never seen him again. Only at night. At night I see him with his knife. Oh, Addy, Addy, help me.

He gripped her by the arms with all. his might and sought to control her, but she resisted. She was like a madwoman, in the sultry summer heat. She was overmastered by the day-long vision that loomed up regularly with the first balmy warmth of spring. She was like a madwoman. She saw everything before her eyes. She lived the past over again. Nobody has ever known, Addie, except you, except you. Hush, Emily, He tried to look into her eyes, but they avoided his. She twisted and turned as though she were in the grasp of a raffisher. She dragged herself along the floor, while his hand held her arms. Suddenly, his eyes met hers, and he held and pierced them deeply with his grey-blue glance. She fell back,

helplessly against a chair, her features, now relaxed, hung slackly like an old woman's. Her lips drooped. She lay huddled and moaning with a monotonous moan of pain. Then she began to shake her head up and down, up and down, grating the back of her head against the chair. Get up, Emily. She obeyed. Let him help her up, hung like a rag in his hands.

She fell back on her bed with her eyes closed, and he rang the bell. It was Constance who entered. We will undress her now, Mama. "'She's much quieter. "'I'll ring for Aunt Adeline to help you.' "'He rang again and asked Troucher to go for Mrs. Van Lua, "'but as soon as Emily felt the touch of Constance's fingers,

"'she began to moan anew and opened her eyes. "'Oh, Auntie, Auntie, you're a dear, you're a dear, you never, never asked me.' "'Perhaps it will be better to leave her now, Mama,' whispered Addie. Constance left the room, promising to remain within call with Adeline. Emily lay on the bed, her eyes staring straight before her, as though she still beheld all the horror of the past, as she went on moaning in fear and pain. Addy, Addy, it was Edward, it was Edward, who murdered Henry.

Oh, nobody knows, nobody knows. Uncle and aunt never asked me. People at the Hague say that it was I who made Edward unhappy, that that is why he has gone away, disappeared. Perhaps I did. Perhaps I did make him unhappy. I don't know. I don't know.

You see, I didn't know what I was doing when I married Edward. I thought, I thought it would be all right. I thought I cared for him. Sh, Adie, don't tell anybody, but I cared for Henry. for my brother only. I swear, it was all quite beautiful what he and I felt for each other. There was never anything between us,

never anything to be ashamed of. But my life, Addy, my poor life, oh my poor little life, was quite wrecked, because I did not know, because I felt so strangely, because I fought against the common things of life, against my marriage, against my husband, "'and because all that was stronger than what I tried to do,

"'but I myself did not really know, nor Henry, nor Henry either.' "'The heart-broken lamentation over her life moaned away in plaintive words, "'and it was as though, after uttering herself, "'she sank into a dull vacancy with her eyes wide open, "'staring through the room as if she still saw all the things of the past, as if they were now vanishing after she had uttered herself. And it was the same every year. Each time Spring came round,

the same strange, mysterious force compelled her to tell it, to tell it right out, to tell all the sad secret of her piteous reckoned failure of a woman's life. She, her very small soul, crushed under too great a tragedy, under too great an affliction, something too strange, which had crushed her, and yet not crushed her to death.

She lived on, she had lived on for years, living her life devoid of all interest, and yet still young. Bonds seemed still to bind her body and soul to life, and there was nothing left for her except the pity of those who surrounded her, and a dull resignation, which only once in each year, as though roused by the warm torrents of spring or summer, forth into a thunder of storm. It's gathered, it's gathered. She felt it threatening days beforehand, as though it were bursting within her brain. During those sleepless nights she lay with her head clasped in her

hands, and it's gathered, it's gathered, a fit of nerves, a violent attack of nerves, and she called for Addie, the only one who knew, and she told him, she told him again. And after she had told and fallen asleep under his eyes, she woke a little calmer. Then, after days, after long, slow days, her quivering nerves became restful. She surrendered herself, and that dull resignation wove itself round her again. The summer beat hot and sultry upon her, the slow course of the monotonous days, dragged her on and on. Nobody talked of it all, and then, one evening,

in the garden, she found herself recovered, feeling strange and resigned, limp her hands, limp her arms, with poor Aunt Adeline beside her, quite cheered, and receiving a short letter from Guy, while the girls and Aunt Constance put Granny to bed, and then Clasher, that great big girl who still always insisted on being taken to bed, and while Uncle Ernst wandered round the pond, talking to himself, and while Paul had not shown himself for three days, locking himself in his room, in the villa over there, lower down. That was how she recovered, as if waking from a hideous dream. That was how she came to herself in the evening, sitting in the garden with Aunt Adeline,

reading and rereading Guy's letter beside her. And a little further away sat Mr. Browse and Uncle Henry. Uncle Henry, who could not get used to Guy's absence, and who fretted over it sometimes, with the tears standing wet in his eyes. End of Chapter 29. Chapter 30 of Dr. Adrian by Louis Cupertus. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Add he returned to the Hague that evening, and seldom had he felt so heavy and listless,

as if he knew nothing for himself. No, he knew nothing, nothing more for his poor self, as if he, as he grew older, daily lost more and more of the knowledge that is sacredly imparted for a man's own soul, like a far-lighting lamp casts its rays over the paths of his own destiny that lie dimly in the future. Though he knew for others so often and so surely, for himself he knew nothing nowadays, nothing. Once he had known himself to be a dual personality. Today he no longer knew which of the two he was. He felt like a prematurely old and decrepit young man, prematurely old and decrepit because life had become too serious for him, too early, and opened out to him too early, so that he had fathomed it through and through, prematurely old and decrepit, because his own life later had not trembled in the pure balance of his own twin forces of soul. He had felt fettered to the one, and it drew him down,

while the other had not the power to lift him up to the height of pure self-realisation. He walked home from the station, late in the evening. He dragged himself along. His step was heavy and slow. Over the dark masses of the wood hung a sultry pearl-gray summer night. The houses in the Bezaudenhout faded away, white in the evening silence. Light rain clouds dreamed in the sky. It would doubtless rain tomorrow, and far behind them lurked the threatening summer storm. For the present, the evening somberness drifted on, as low in hushed expectation. Everything was still, the trees, the houses, the clouds.

There was hardly anyone about. A last tram came rumbling out of the distance from Schaeveningen, and its bells seemed to ring through the space of the evening, very far behind him. He walked on, dragged himself along past the houses. He was tired out, as he was every time that he practised hypnotism. In addition to this, it always broke his heart to leave Drebachen. How united he was with everybody and everything there.

The house was his fathers and his, the family was his mothers and his. As the child of his two parents, he felt at home there, in that great somber house. But he no longer lived there, no longer worked there. In the crudely bright, small, motley painted house towards which he was wending, his wife awaited him, and he would find his children. Healthy children, a healthy wife. He had all that. what he had longed for in his anxiety at what he saw in his mother's family, he now possessed,

a healthy wife and healthy children. How they both of them loved the children, how united they were, where the children were concerned, all their difference arose from a spiritual misunderstanding, because at first they had not known. No, did he know now? Did he know that he ought never to have taken a wife like Matilda? did he not know that it was his fault? There was nothing else for him to do than to continue the sacrifice all his life long.

But the sacrifice was very heavy, living and working in contradiction to his impulses in a sphere that was not his. It was this that made him ill and prematurely old. He saw no future before him. The sacrifice was killing something deep down in himself. He felt a sudden rebellion. It was not a man's business to sacrifice himself like that.

What was done was done. Matilda must accommodate herself somehow. He would tell her that it wouldn't do, that the Hague was killing him, that he must go back to the house out there, to the village, to the district where he was of use and able to work. She would have to go with him. But he saw her as a sacrificial victim,

offered up for a faith which he did not share because of his mistaken life. No, no, he could never do it, could never tell her that the Hague was killing him, that she must accommodate herself and make the best of things. It was for him, for him to make the best of things. If he wished to remain in any sense just, he must continue to sacrifice himself, though it wore him to death. How sombre and joyless it all was! How grey it all was, far and wide around him,

like the very night that hung pearl-white close by, and, farther away, dug itself into abysses of threatening darkness. As he drew near a home, his feet lagged more heavily, and suddenly, before turning down the street in which he lived, he dropped onto a bench and remained sitting as though paralysed, with his head in his hand. How hard and heavy it was for him to have to go back like that to his own house.

Oh, to remain sitting, just sitting like that until he had attained certain knowledge. He closed his eyes. He felt himself conquered, overcome. Suddenly, as in a dream, voices struck upon his ear and he seemed to recognize the voices.

He rose mechanically and passed the houses along the silent pavement, saw approaching the dark figures of two people walking slowly, a man and a woman. Their voices sounded clearly, though he could not catch the words. He recognised the leisurely forms. It was Johanna Tzele and Matilda.

They did not see him. They walked on very slowly, and Adi followed behind them. Johann seemed to be persistently pleading, Matilda seemed to be refusing something. Addy's heart beat fearfully as he followed after them, and a jealousy suddenly flared up amid his dull dejection. Was she not his wife? Was she not his wife?

And why lately was she always looking for Johann and he for her? Was it not always so? Always these tennis parties together, always meeting at friends' houses where he, Adi, never went. "'Where were they coming from now? Where had they been? Was he bringing her home? How intimate their conversation sounded, how sad almost. Had they grown fond of each other in a dangerous, increasing friendship? He followed them, unobserved, almost glad to have surprised them, suspicious in his jealous grief. Did he not still love his wife, notwithstanding their deep-seated

differences. He slackened his pace and followed very slowly. After his first access of jealousy, he seemed rather to feel a certain curiosity, to observe in silence, to make a diagnosis. His nature got the upper hand of him, the nature of one who is born to heal, and who, before healing, diagnoses the disease. Yes, jealousy still smouldered within him, but he felt even more distilled. distinctly the craving for knowledge. Did he not still love Matilda? Ah, but was she indispensable to his life? That suddenly became clear to him.

Indispensable to his life she was not. His children, yes, they belonged to all of them, to all of them yonder in the old house, the old family house. She, his wife, did not. His children were indispensable to his life. He felt that, clearly. Matilda, Matilda was not. For Matilda, as he now walked behind her and Johan,

he felt only the curiosity to analyse and classify the nature of the disease, nothing but that. Even the jealousy died away in him, the child of his jealous parents. He continued to follow them, he saw Ed Saylor put his arm through Matildas. He now quickened his pace slightly, his heels rang on the pavement through the night air, regularly faster than before. The two in front looked round, they gave a start. He caught them up. "'I seem to recognise you, in the distance,' he said calmly and naturally, while they were unable to speak, and Azela withdrew his arm. "'I've come from the station.' "'I didn't expect you till to-morrow,' said Matilda, faintly, in spite of herself.

"'I finished earlier.' "'Emily is much more peaceful. How are the children?' "'All right. Where have you been this evening?' "'I went and had tea at Johan's sisters. "'Johan was seeing me home.' "'But now that Vanda Velka's here, to see you home,' said Hercela. "'Not at all,' replied Addy. "'Come a little way farther.'

"'They walked on, Matilda, between the two men. "'Addy talked conventionally. "'They hardly answered. "'Meanwhile he observed them. His curiosity roused him, gave him a sudden new interest, as though he was treating a case of serious illness. "'I'll say goodbye here,' said Etz-Sailer as they turned down the side street. They both shook hands with him and walked home more silently, suddenly dragging their feet.

Addy felt in his pocket for the key. "'It's late,' he said mechanically. "'Geting on for twelve,' replied Matilda, dully. He saw that her eyes were red with weeping. He said nothing. They went upstairs without speaking. On reaching the nursery, they both crept in for a moment on tiptoe and looked into the little cots. The nurse was sleeping in the next room with the door open between. They exchanged a smile because the babies were sleeping so prettily. Then they went to Matilda's bedroom. Once they had crossed the threshold, it seemed to

him as if they were strangers. I'm tired, said Matilda. So am I, said Addy. He kissed her, left her, and went to his own bedroom. Through the closed door he could follow her movements, heard her undressing, heard the rustle of her clothes. He sank into a chair and stared straight in front of him. I know, he thought, with his eyes very wide.

She loves him, and he's. He loves her. I, I no longer love her. She has never been indispensable to my existence. I made a mistake. I did not know for myself. He did not sleep that night. Next morning, early, he said to Matilda, Tilly, I want to talk to you. What about? About ourselves. She raised her eyebrows impatiently. What for? She asked. We have had that sort of talk so often. often. It leads to nothing. It tires me. Yes, you're looking tired and ill. You're not happy. Oh, never mind my happiness. But what else did we come here for, Tilly, except your happiness? That's true, she said without interest. You did it for my sake. It was nice of you.

But it did no good. No, it did no good, and it would be better. What? For you to go back to Driebergen, Addy. I agree, he said gently. She started, What do you mean? I was thinking the same thing. What? That I ought to go back to Driebergen.

She looked at him in surprise. And I, she asked, You remain here with the children. I don't understand. You stay in the Hague, you and the children. And you? I'll go down there. I don't understand, she repeated.

"'I mean what I say, Tilly,' he said. "'It's better. "'What? "'That we should separate.' "'Seperate? "'Perhaps, for a longer or shorter period.' "'She stared at him. "'Do you want a divorce?'

"'I think so.' "'She continued to stare at him and choke down her tears. "'Addy, do you no longer love me?' "'No,' he said gently. "'She looked deep in his eyes, affronted. "'What do you mean?' But I don't love you any longer, enough to live with you. I beg your pardon, Tilly, if I have spoiled your life, if I have shattered your life.

I have spoiled and shattered it. I beg your pardon, if you can forgive me. Only a little while ago, you told me that you cared for me. I thought so at the time. It seemed to mean so much to me. And now? Now I don't. She rebelled with injured pride.

then why did you ask me to marry you? Yes, that was just it. Just what? The mistake. Tell me, do you still love me? No, she said proudly. So you see, it's better that we should be divorced. Don't you think so yourself?

And the children? She asked. That's my punishment, he said gently, they will remain with you. You entrust them to me. I do. "'Addy,' she cried with a sob. "'You still love me a little, Tilly.' "'She only sobbed.

"'But not so much as you did,' he assured her. "'You are in love with Edseila.' "'Etzela?' "'Yes. "'He's a friend. "'He may become more. "'Later,' he forced himself to say, "'uncleansed as yet of jealousy,

"'because she was still his wife.' "'Addy,' she said, "'I am to blame, "'if I could only have got a couple, custom to things, like all of you, at Driebergen, I should have been happy. Yes, but it's not your fault that you couldn't. I don't want a divorce, she said. Why not? For my sake, and the children's. The children's? For their sake, especially. No, Addy, I don't want it, unless... What? Unless you want it, for your own sake, to be free, to marry somebody else. No,

"'Then I don't want it either, if you assure me. "'I do assure you. "'Then I don't want it either.' "'And at sailor?' "'No,' she said, shaking her head. "'It's not as people say. "'What do they say? "'That he is my lover.

"'He's not that. "'I never supposed he was. "'I value his friendship, "'but I could not be his wife. "'Why not? "'Because I am your wife. "'Do you feel that? "'Always.'

"'My poor child,' he said in spite of himself. "'Why do you pity me?' she asked proudly. "'Because I've done you a wrong, because I'm unable to atone. "'You've done me no wrong. "'We loved each other very much then. "'At that time I thought I understood you. "'Now, I no longer understand you. "'You breathe too rare if I'd an air for me.

"'No, it isn't that, but—' "'What? "'Nothing.' "'So Tilly. you don't want us to be divorced. She looked at him anxiously. No, she entreated. Well, dear, then we won't be, he said gently.

Only, our presence life is no life at all, so it will be better if. If what? If I don't stay with you, if I go away. And I, you remain here in this house, where everything is as you like it. You stay with our children. Our, our children.

She stammered. Perhaps later. What? Because of our children, we shall come together again, when all misunderstanding has disappeared. I don't follow you. Perhaps you will later, but perhaps also you will become so fond of Ed Salem

that— She shook her head, stared before her. We never know, said Addie gently. No, she said pensively. I know nothing, nothing now. I used to think that you knew everything. I do sometimes know things. For others, I have not known for myself.

And now, now I know better for you. For me. Yes, now I know, Tilly, that it is better for you, that I should leave you. For good. Perhaps, perhaps for a long time, only, and the children, won't you be longing for them? It was more than he could bear, and he said nothing. only nodded yes.

Then he said, But they will be all right with you, Tilly. It was more than she could bear either. She fell into a chair sobbing. Don't be unhappy, Tilly, he said. We must make a change. If we remain as we are, we shall end by hating each other.

Don't be unhappy about parting. When you reflect that it is really out of the question for us to remain together, you are right, she said coldly. So, you will start. stay here. You will live here. That is, if you like. And you? I, I shall go home. She felt her jealousy of all of them out there. Yes, he said gently. If you don't love me, she burst out, they will not need to console you long. I shall feel regret, because I have spoiled your life,

and because I shan't see the children anymore. Spoilt my life, she said proudly. You have done that. He did not answer. The children, she continued, why should you not see them when you want to? Would you allow that? Allow it. They are your children. I have nothing to say in the matter. In fact, in fact, I should not think it's right if you did not see them often. Then I shall come. Of course, but to go and living here would be too expensive. No, not at all. I shall want nothing out there. Whatever I make is yours. I can't accept it. Yes, you can. For the children, it is better, Tilly, that everything should remain as it is. Very well, she consented. Only, Addy, it's not a solution. There can be no solution, until you know that you care enough

for Johanette Saylor. No, no, I don't. That you care enough for Johanette's sailor to, I don't know, I don't know, and I refuse to discuss it. I understand that, Tilly. Then, there can be no solution yet, can there? We know nothing about a solution. I am simply giving you back your life, as far as I can, and you are doing the same to me. Later we will see what happens.

It will all come of itself. What do we know? We know nothing, for ourselves. Knowledge will all come of itself. Do you understand? No. You will, later. You will live here with the children.

You will see me hardly at all. I shall not see the children for a time. It will be as though I were on a journey. They are so small. Oh, I hope that they won't miss me, and that when they do see me again, they will know me. So you will be alone with the children. It may be that you will want to be back then,

that the former love will return, in my case too, perhaps. We shall see. It will. It will all come of itself. And we, we know nothing. Perhaps in years to come we shall be living quietly together again, with the children, or else. What? Or else you will be far away from me, and will have found your happiness with another. She put her hands before her eyes. I don't see it. I don't know. Now you are being honest. No, you don't know if you will come to care so much. as that for Johann, and I, I will be honest too. I don't know if I shall ever care for you again, but we must wait, Tilly, and the best thing, therefore, is to leave each other, and, and not to talk to each other again, until it has come of itself, and until we know. You will not be alone in the world, for if ever I can do anything for you, I will come to you, I shall never forget you. Yes, perhaps that will be best,' she said in a dead voice.

voice. I shall try to look at it like that, and to live alone. With the children, I shall not see Johann again. No, no on the contrary, you must see him. Why? So as to know, you will never be weak. No, I shall never be that. You know how he feels towards you. How do you know? I know you do. You know what he feels for you, but you do not know what you feel for him. "'Oh, Addy, don't deny it. Be honest. These are the last words, perhaps, that we shall exchange for quite a long time. I'm going away now. Now? Yes, write to me when there's any occasion. Very well. Goodbye, Tilly.' She was silent, sat staring before her, with her hands clasped over her knees. No, she did not understand him, but she could not act otherwise than he wished. He was gone, and suddenly she felt very lonely.

She heard him upstairs packing, rummaging in his cupboards, and she began to reflect sadly. He acts differently and speaks differently from anybody else. Divorced, oh no, I don't want that, if he doesn't want it for himself. I, at least, not yet. No, no, nor ever. Oh, I don't know, I don't know. I am fond of Johann. If I were free now, if I were a girl still. But, Addy, the children, I don't know, I don't know. That was why Addy thought it would be well, for us not to see each other for a time. How he will miss the children. Oh dear, is he really, really going? Yes, I hear him upstairs, packing. What will people say? Not that it matters.

We can say that he has to read, quietly, out there, at Dribergen. We can tell people something of the kind, even if they do understand. I simply can't go back to Dreebergen. Oh, how will it work out? How will it all work out? That is just what Addy doesn't know either. Do I? No, heaven help me.

I don't know any more than he does. I am fond of Johann. Shall I grow fonder of him now that I am less fond of Addy? I don't know. I don't know. Oh, if only I hadn't my children. As it is, I could wish,

my God, how I could wish, for his sake and the children's, that I knew how to be happy at Dreybechen in that house of theirs, with all of them, and that I could go back to it. Shall I ever go back to it? Shall I be Johann's wife one day, after all?

Oh, it is all so dark and uncertain. Addie says a solution will come of itself. We know nothing, he says. Must I let it come as it will? But how will it come? Oh, even Addie, who is so wise, can find no solution. There is. There is no solution yet.

Will there ever be one? Oh, if I could go back to the house down there, Should I ever be able to? Perhaps years hence, perhaps never, who can tell? Is Johann really fond of me? Not only because he admires me, not only for that. Oh, that was the only reason why Addy loved me. I know it's now, I know it, that was his one idea, to have healthy children. Now we are parted, parted forever, or shall we come together again one day, shall we ever become husband? Shall we ever become husband and wife again, or not. I do care for Johann. He is so matter of fact, so simple. I should have become very happy and simple with him, without all this thinking about things which I can't

grasp or feel, and which came haunting me down there, at Dreybergen, gradually. Oh, if I could only force myself to live there again, but perhaps I never can, perhaps in three or four years' time, I shall be Johan's wife and have to give up the children, the poor children, to Addy. Now she sobbed because she did not know. The days and months would drift past slowly and slowly before she knew. There is a sacred knowledge for ourselves, a knowledge so sacred that we know it only when the future is here. End of chapter 30.

Chapter 31 of Dr. Adriane by Louis Cupertos. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The months drifted by. It's strange, said Browse. The two haven't heard from Adelaide. How long is it since we did? asked Constance vaguely. Nearly a week.

Yes, it must be close upon a week. His last letters were brighter. Do you think the travelling is doing him good? He doesn't travel as enough. other man would, in the three months that he has been away. Yes, he will have learnt a good deal that would be useful to him, in his profession. His letters were cheerful. I'm longing badly to see him again. Listen to the wind. That's the autumn coming. The summer is past. This is our typical weather. Look here, out of my window. You can see the clouds coming up over the moor,

as you never do downstairs, because the trees in the garden hide on. all the view. Up here, it reminds me sometimes of the Hague, the Kirkoflarn. But it's wider, wider, and finer. There, they're coming up, the clouds. That must be rain. They're all grey and dark purple. I have never seen such purple as in our skies down here. You are able to live under them now. Now I am, but it took so long that I had to get old first. I'm old now, and it's all right. And it's all right. now. Look, look, the clouds are drifting along. That means storm. The day's on end. Oh, I am yearning for Addy. How long is it since we saw him? Three months, isn't it? Three months? What an age? We are all yearning for him. His father is counting the days till he returns, poor Hans.

Poor Henry. Even Mama was asking the other day, where Addy was. She always knows him. Ernst and Paul can't get on without him. And he has an excellent influence on Alex. The boy's doing very well. Yes, he's grown so calm and manly latterly. Guys' letters are satisfactory, are they not? Yes, it's kind of you browse to take so much interest in all of us.

Well, I'm living with you all. You belong to us. It's like one family. Family. Yes, there is such a thing as family. In the old days, I often used to think it was just a word. No, it's there, only... Yes, I understand what you mean.

Sometimes it does not begin to take shape until we ourselves are no longer young. It was there for Mama, whereas for us, at that time. But for Mama it was an illusion, and... For us, it is indeed a reality. Insofar that we think so, We old people. No, no, it is so.

I am quite willing to believe it is. Yes, Addy ought soon to be home again. And then? I think he will stay here. And Matilda? There, with the children. That is not a solution. No, but Addy says.

That it will have to come. Later, of itself. I dare say he's right. How is she? Reconciled. More reconciled. I saw her the other day. Don't leave her to herself.

No, we are not doing that. It is not her fault, and she is a good mother to her children. As you say, it's not her fault. Nor Add is either. It's our fault, Henry's and mine. Why? I don't know. I feel it is.

It's all our fault. It's still the punishment, dragging along. No, no. Yes, it is. Our child was doomed not to be happy because of us. No. You know quite well that you too look on it like that. Not entirely, if he had had certain understanding for himself.

He couldn't because... Hush, say no more on that subject. There is a knowledge which is so sacred. Which of us has that certain understanding for himself? We all just let it come. Look how dark it is growing. Here comes the rain. It's lashing against the windows.

Strange, that even in this weather, the house and this room don't seem sombre, to me. There is an air of so much affection in the house. If Addy would only come, if he would only come now. Tell me, Brouse, what is your opinion? What will be the end of it? Will they ever go back to each other? Possibly. Later? You can't say it positively.

Oh no. Do you think that she cares for Etseila? It's difficult to say. She doesn't know herself. Only the other day she told me so herself. She herself doesn't know. Will the children prevent her? Who can say? Is it right that Addie should let things decide themselves?

Perfectly right. Say that. Say that again. I sometimes doubt. Is it right that Addy should let things decide themselves? Yes, I am firmly persuaded that it is right. Is she strong enough? I think so. In that way, of course she mustn't sit still with her hands folded.

She will have to find herself. Oh, if she could only feel in sympathy with all of us, if she ever comes back, I swear that I shall... What? Nothing, I was thinking. Then I begin to hope that she and all of us will feel alike, and strangely enough, I see that in everything. We all want it. If she comes back, I'm almost sure that we shall all do a great deal to make her ours. And to make her happy. If she comes back, how delightful it would be,

if she came back with the children. Delightful? I mean, yes, I mean delightful, lives that have once been interlaced. A bad to pull apart. I have. I have. I have. I Agree. And Hans? Oh, even he. Even he will try. Who knows? Perhaps one day it will be like that. For the presents there's nothing to be said. No, nothing. It's all still mystery and darkness. Listen to the rain. The sky is black. What's the time? Almost dinner time. There goes the bell. Shall we go downstairs? They went down the dark staircase. The wind howled round the house. The old lady was sitting at the window of the conservatory at the back,

when Constance and Brows entered. It's blowing hard, she said. There are great branches falling from the trees in the garden. Aren't you too cold in here, Mama? The old woman did not understand, and Constance put a shawl over her shoulders. Will you come in, Mama, when you feel too cold? The old woman nodded without understanding.

She remained sitting where she was. She already had something to eat, with Marieta to wait on her. She never sat down to table with the others. The second bell rang. Come, said Constance. Paul was there and noticed how miserable Vandervalca looked. What's the matter? he asked. Van der Velka was carving.

I know the carving, he said. "'Had he always used to do it, or guy.' "'I never learnt how,' said Paul, secretly fearing the gravy. "'Give it to me, Hans,' said Browse. They were silent round the table. The wind howled outside. "'The gus is burning badly,' said Constance.

"'How nice-looking Mary is growing now that she's down here,' said Paul. "'There, who needed to go blushing? "'Your old uncle may surely pay you a-case.' compliments. Well, Uncle Paul, I'm not as young as all that to myself. I'm getting on for 30. And you, Clasher, said Paul, who are eating like a grown-up person. I do eat nicely now, don't I, Auntie, said Clasher proudly. Constance nodded to her with a smile. Only, heerd, she's not doing well, thought Paul. How pale she looks. Ah, well, perhaps it'll all come right later for the poor child.

he or another. Love, it's a strange thing. I never felt it. He felt a shiver pass through him and said, It's cold today, Constance. Yes, we shall start fires tomorrow. It's blowing bitterly outside, and what a draught. I'm sure there's a draught in the house.

What do you say, Ernst? Ernst looked up. There's no draught, he said. I'm quite warm. Who people are always feeling. "'Ealing things that don't exist.' "'Why is it so dark today?' asked Adeline, "'as though waking from a dream.

"'The gas is burning badly,' said Constance. "'Troucher,' said Vandavelka. "'Take the key and see that the metre is turned on full.' "'Kramabar was very tired today,' said Maricha. "'Cramabar hardly ate anything at all,' said Adelaidea. "'She's getting very old,' said Constance sadly. The meal dragged on. They exchanged only an occasional word.

We're very cosy, among ourselves, like this, said Constance fondly. Oh, I wish that Doreen would come and live here too. Nothing will induce her to, said Paul. No, I'm afraid not. A carriage drove up outside, drove through the garden. Hark, said Constance. It's Addy, said Vandervalca. but he never wired.

Gerdi had got up. She rushed outside, leaving the door open. A cold draught blew in. They all rose. The bell had rung, Troucher opened the door. Oh, Addy! Addy! Cherdie exclaimed. Is that you?

Have you come back at last? We have missed you so frightfully. It was he. She flung herself into his arms and embraced him with a little sob. They all welcomed him home. They no longer noticed the draft, no longer heard the wind. They hardly ate anything now, hurriedly finishing their dinner.

"'Come into the drawing-room,' said Constance. "'It's warmer there. I don't know why the dining-room should be so chilly.' "'We'll set the stove going to-morrow,' said van der Velker. His face had brightened up, out of recognition. "'Let's see how you're looking, old chap.' he the father was so much excited that the tears came to add his eyes the others left the two of them together in the drawing-room with van der Velka while in the dimly lighted dining-room the old woman seemed to be asleep how are you my boy very well indeed dad and now you're staying here yes i'm staying with all of you yes this is your home and your wife we shall see that will settle it's

So, there's nothing certain yet about Matilda. No, nothing certain. I write to her once a month. She writes rather oftener, about the children. She's very good to them. So, no talk of a divorce. No, no talk of that. Perhaps later, all will come right between us. Perhaps, on the other hand, she will feel that she would sooner be free, in spite of the children. They both thought of Ed Saylor. So, you don't know anything yet. No, not yet. It will settle itself. It must settle itself some day. You see, my boy, I'm different. In your place I should have fought a duel with Ed Sailor. I should have had a divorce. If my wife didn't care for me, if she cared for Ed Sailor. Yes, father, I know. That's you. I'm different. You're better. No, not better, but whatever I may be,

I'm first of all your son. You, my son, you're my friend, my pal, always have been. And suppose I now wanted to be your son. I've come back feeling very sad and very tired, because I feel that I am much to blame. Nothing has happened? No. What has happened?

Nothing at all. You're too fond of thinking. What you have to do now is to seek your own happiness, just selfishly. "'Perhaps, if I can, "'perhaps that will become Matilda's happiness, too. "'We shall see. "'But I don't feel certain of myself. "'I don't know things.

"'And I now feel, "'not your friend and pal, but your son, father. "'I seem to feel it for the first time. "'You always used to know things. "'For you, Daddy, for a mama, "'but now, now, now you're my son. "'Yes, my big boy. "'Father.'

Vanda Velka was standing in front of him. Addy was sitting down, and Vandervalca now took his son's head in his hands. "'Father,' said Addy, "'I wonder if you realise how devotedly I love you. "'It's something that I feel only for my parents and for my children, "'not for any woman.' "'You're a funny chap,' said Vandervalca, "'but it's not your fault. It's your parents' fault.'

"'If you only knew,' Addy repeated, how devotedly I love you, and Mama, and all of them here a bit too. If I had my children here, then, perhaps, perhaps they will come back later, very much later, with Matilda. Look here, if that ever happens, we must all of us, behave differently to her. Yes, my dear boy. Or try to. Yes, old fellow, I know what you mean.

We'll all do it, for your sake. You see, she is my wife. I am to blame for everything, if you will try. Yes, if she comes back, perhaps she won't come. Do you want her to? Yes, I do. I can't do without my children like this. But you'll see them now and again.

Yes, so if she does come back, you promise Dad, that I'll try. And if they will all try, then, then I shall be happy. Yes, they'll do it, for your sake. But if she comes back, I honestly believe that she will have learnt also to try, to like us all a little. You mustn't be angry, Addie, that it was not like that at once. She is so different from all of us. Yes, it's my fault.

No, my boy, don't go thinking that and worrying about it. No, father. What you've got to do now is try to be happy among us all to work, to pick up your work again, you know. Yes, just so. and then gradually to let things come, as you say. Would it upset you very much if she and her Zela? Yes, because I should then feel my shortcomings towards her still more strongly,

and also because of my children. Perhaps things will come right later, my boy. Perhaps. Take it all calmly now, and don't worry, and just do your work here quietly. Yes, father. Oh, I feel that you are my father. "'Perhaps for the first time. "'A different part for your old ruffian of a father.

"'You're not an old ruffian, you're—' "'Addy stood up and embraced his father. "'Don't squeeze the breath out of my body,' said Vandavelka. "'You're strong enough still, and you're looking well, too. "'Your eyes look interested again, "'even though they're a bit too pensive, "'and they were always calm. "'Did you have an interesting time abroad?'

"'I saw a great deal of misdemeanor. but also a great deal of goodwill. That's it. Do what you can here, just simply, in your own surroundings. Oh, my dear chap, how glad I am that you're back. Geri looked in at the door. May we never come in? Uncle Henry, you're being selfish about Addy. You may come in, dear. Addy took her hands. Will you be strong, Cherdie? She sobbed and laughed through her tears. "'I've tried to be all the time, Addy,' she whispered. "'But for you.' "'You know, life isn't all your first suffering.'

"'No, so you've told me.' "'And you must believe it. It will help you. "'You have such a long future before you.' "'Yes. Oh, Addy, Addie, but for you.' "'What?' "'I should have died. I have suffered so. I have suffered so.' "'And you see so much suffering around you, but life. Isn't all your first suffering, as you say, and you must believe it. Yes, I'll try.

Constance entered. Am I to see nothing of my boy this evening? She asked, banteringly. He took her in a clinging embrace. You've got him home for good now. She gave a sob. My poor child, then I haven't lost you. Lost me? Why? A son. You've always been. been afraid of losing me, but you never have lost me. No, never. Tell me, dear, am I to blame. I am I not? How? About Matilda. No, you're not to blame, but if she comes back later with the children, Mama, let us try. Yes, dear, yes, we will, won't we? We must try, to bring ourselves into harmony with her as far as possible. Yes, yes, I will try.

And all of us? Yes, all of us. That's so, Heardy, isn't it? We must all. What did you say, Addy? I was saying, Geri, if Matilda comes back, later on. Yes. Would you be willing to try, with all of us,

with Papa and Mama, with every one of us, to get into harmony with her as far as possible, so that she... Yes, every... Addie, yes, I'll try. You will? Oh yes, if she comes back. I'll try, Addy, I'll try. My dear, listen to it's blowing. That's our wind, Mama. Yes, always. Marisha and Adelaidea had now gone into the dining room. Adeline and Emily came after them. Why is it so dark in there? asked Marietia. Grandmama's taking a nap. We must take a

to bed, said Constance. Adelaidecher turned up the gas. "'Artie!' cried Maricha in alarm. "'What is it, dear? Oh, Artie, Artie, come here!' Constance came in with Addy and Gerdi. "'Is Grandmama! Is Grandmama? Stammered Maricha, aghast. They all looked at the old woman. She was sitting, as usual, sitting quietly in her big chair, with her veyma'amor, and wrinkled hands folded in her black lap, her head hung back, framed white in her white hair. All knowledge was hers now, and her old mouth smiled because of it, encouragingly. End of Chapter 31.

End of Dr. Adrian, the final volume of the books of the Small Souls by Louis Cupertus. Read by Phil Benson in Sydney, Australia.