That night, Marietje van Saetzema had a dream which was like a nightmare. She was running down a sloping mountain, deep as an abyss; she rushed and rushed and Addie came rushing after her and Mathilde after Addie, rushing with delirious screams. After Mathilde, Johan Erzeele came rushing and, last of all, Gerdy; and before any one of them reached the other, Marietje, who was running in front, plunged into the deep abyss; and they all plunged after her. The echoing fall, in the black depths, made Marietje wake with a start to find the darkness of her bedroom quivering all around her, the strange inner darkness of the night; and she was cold and clammy and sat up wide-eyed, while the wind blew fiercely outside. Her first impulse was to get up and run out of the room for help, to Aunt Constance, to Addie. But, growing calmer, though her head and heart were still 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 Addie. Hadn't he said so himself:

"Marietje, 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 hypnotizing her:

"The body is growing heavy.... The hand is growing heavy.... You can't lift your hand...."

And, though she did not fall asleep, she became very quiet and smiled contentedly. True, she knew that he said the same thing to all the patients whom he hypnotized:

"Think of me, whenever you feel your nerves give way."

But she, when she thought of him ... was she in love with him? Perhaps; she didn't know: 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 Mamma, Floortje and Caroline used to snub her, as they always did. In the noisy, uproarious, vulgar house, she had grown up quietly, like a little pale plant, humble, oppressed, as it were hiding herself, until suddenly some impulse in her blood had made her scream the house down with neurotic cries. They all asked whether she had gone mad; and she had locked herself up since, hidden herself, in her room.... And, after these attacks, she would remain behind as in a dream, seeing nothing, hearing nothing around her, just staring. And, when she saw that her condition at last made an impression, she at once became proud of that impression, lifted herself out of the Cinderella humility, became the interesting figure at home, now that she aroused her father's fears, her mother's pity, her sister's annoyance. And she had grown proud of her neuroticism; she let father, mother and sister feel fear, pity and annoyance, with a sort of vindictive satisfaction. Yet she had a vague feeling of deep unhappiness, because her soul was sinking as into an abyss, her hands groping vaguely in the terrible void.... She would spend days in tears. Then Aunt Constance had come, so kind, so gentle, so sensible; and she had resisted, because perhaps she was very fond of Addie and always had been, in obedience to some modest dread, did not wish to live where he lived. But Aunt Constance had insisted and she had yielded; and Addie, Addie was now curing her: oh, he cured her when he merely pressed his hand softly on her forehead! And she confessed to him the wicked, arrogant pride in her illness, which at last created an agitation in the paternal house where Marietje had never counted....

He had listened so earnestly, telling her that this was very wrong, that it was the worst of all and that, with such wicked feelings she would never get well. And, after that, he talked for days, oh, so earnestly! And she listened to him in ecstasy, as though her soul were rocking on his deep, soothing voice. And gradually, gradually, she had discovered in him—oh, no affection for her, no ordinary affection or love, for she was plain and thin and without charm, while Mathilde was so handsome: a beautiful woman!—but a real harmony between some of his feelings and views with what she, in her silent life as a lonely, down-trodden little girl, had thought about all sorts of people, animals, things, about everything which had aroused her compassion in her youthful earnestness and hypersensitiveness: about the wind lashing the leaves; about a driver ill-treating a horse; about Aunt Adeline, Granny, Emilie, little Klaasje; about poor people whom she would sometimes go and visit with Aunt Constance and AdÈletje. And thus, slowly, out of all these small, simple feelings something had thrilled in unison with his feelings, had roused kindred feelings in him, until they had talked of all sorts of strange presentiments and dreams, of existence before life and after death, of an invisible world and life crossing their threads with the visible world and life. And, when sometimes she had been a little fanciful, Addie had always understood her, but at the same time, with all his restfulness and strength, his seriousness and smiling earnestness, had quieted her in her hypersensitiveness and hyperimagination, 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 Mathilde. She thought that it would always keep flowing on like this; and she was greatly surprised when she suddenly heard of a ball at Utrecht to which they were all invited.

"Which of you want to go?" asked Constance. "I shall stay at home, but Uncle will chaperon you."

Mathilde loved the idea, even though Addie did not give it a thought. Of the girls, however, only Gerdy cared about it; but Guy would go with her.

"So none of you: AdÈletje?... Mary?... Marietje?"

No, they did not feel inclined, even though Aunt Constance urged them, said that they very seldom had any fun, that they ought really to go, now that the chance offered. But the girls didn't want to; and Aunt Constance said:

"Well, then, you and Uncle will just make four; so you can go in the carriage."

But Mathilde preferred to dress at Utrecht, in an hotel, because her dress would get creased in the carriage; and she decided to go in the afternoon, with a box.

On the evening of the ball, Constance grumbled at AdÈletje, Mary and Marietje, because they took no pleasure in dancing, and said that, if this went on, they would move to the Hague, because the girls were growing so dull in the country. Constance' nerves were raw; and she said angry, unreasonable things; her eyes filled with tears.

"But, Auntie," said Marietje, "we're all so happy here together! Why talk about the Hague? What do we care about a dance?"

"That's just it. I think it unnatural."

"Listen to it blowing!" said AdÈletje.

"And raining!" said Marietje—Mary.

"That's what Uncle and Gerdy and Guy are driving through," said AdÈletje.

"The poor horses!" said Marietje—Mary.

The others laughed.

"Yes, the horses will get wet, poor things!" said Marietje—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 rain!" said Mary, reproachfully.

Paul was there, playing softly on the piano. Ernst was there; and it was very strange to see the friends which he had silently made with Klaasje. Together they looked in her picture-books: the 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 Addie is teaching me to read. Look, in these books, with pretty letters, blue, yellow, red. That's violet. And that, Uncle Addie says, is purple. That's purple: a lovely colour, purple. Uncle Addie teaches me to read."

And laboriously she spelt out the highly coloured words.

"So Uncle Addie teaches you to read with coloured letters?" asked Ernst.

"Yes, I don't like black letters. And look at my books: all with beautiful pictures. That's a king and a queen. It's a fairy-tale, Uncle. This is a fairy. The king and queen are purple ... purple; and the fairy—look, Uncle, look at the fairy—is sky-blue. Uncle Addie says it's a-zure."

She drew out the word in a long, caressing voice, as though the names of the colours had a peculiar meaning for her, rousing in her strange memories of very early colours, colours seen in gay, faraway countries, down, down yonder....

"Mr. Brauws won't come," said Emilie.

"No, it's raining too hard," said Adeline. "He won't come this evening."

"He's become so much one of the family."

The evening passed quietly; the old grandmother and Klaasje were taken and put to bed; but, because 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: Addie, Emilie, Adeline, Marietje; but Addie sent AdÈletje 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 Welcke, Gerdy and Guy entered.

"Mathilde is spending the night at the hotel," said Van der Welcke.

"And Uncle made a very sweet chaperon," said Guy, chaffingly.

But Gerdy did not say much, looked tired, very pale, constrained. They went upstairs, to their rooms, and Gerdy kissed her mother. But, without the others seeing it, she followed Adeline to her room and suddenly, unable to contain herself, burst into a paroxysm of tears.

"Darling, darling, what is it?"

And the mother, long since broken, took the girl, now breaking, into her arms and it was as though she suddenly wakened from her apathy and felt 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 Welcke, Constance and Addie she could not have made anything of her children! Nevertheless, they remained her children; and, if she did not know how to guide her sons in their careers, she did know how to sympathize with her poor Gerdy's sobs.

"Darling, darling, what is it?"

And, dropping into her chair, while Gerdy knelt before her in the folds of her white-tulle frock, she held the pale little face against her and compelled the child to speak, to speak....

"It's nothing," said Gerdy, through her sobs. "I didn't enjoy myself."

"You didn't? Why, what happened?"

"I hardly danced at all."

"Why not?"

"Mamma, it's better to tell you plainly. I'm so unhappy! It's about Johan...."

"Erzeele? Has he proposed to you?"

Gerdy shook her head:

"No, but...."

"But what?"

"In the winter ... skating ... I thought he was fond of me.... It's my own fault: it was silly of me, it was silly.... It wasn't anything.... He was just the same to me as to other girls; and I thought, I thought ... It's nothing, Mamma, it's my own fault, but I thought ... Mamma, I oughtn't to take it so much to heart ... but it makes me very unhappy.... He danced with me, once.... But he danced with Mathilde the whole time.... He was 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 Henri too: I could see it by his face. They were together the whole evening and ... you understand.... He paid her attentions ... shamelessly ... the way he does to married women.... With girls he's different.... I hated him for a 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, Mamma.... Uncle Henri was very angry too ... with Mathilde ... 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 it, I know—not like us."

"How do you mean, dear?"

"Not like Aunt Constance and Emilie and you.... She didn't ... she didn't look well-bred.... She looked beautiful, but she looked coarse.... If Addie had come, perhaps she would have restrained herself, not worn her dress so low. She was the only one in such a very low frock.... You see, there was something about her ... that repelled me even more than usual: I can't say what and it's very wrong of me, because after all she's Addie's wife and we must be fond of her; but really, she didn't look a lady; and I could see it in people's faces: they thought her very 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, Mamma, he was almost cruel!... I do believe, oh, Mamma, I do believe, that I ... that I'm in love with him! But I oughtn't to tell you and I oughtn't to be like this ... I oughtn't to cry so; but I couldn't help it, I couldn't help it!... I did my best, Mamma, not to show it before Uncle Henri and before Guy, but, oh, Mamma, the whole dance ... the whole dance was a torture!"

Adeline mingled her sobs with Gerdy's:

"My darling, my poor, poor darling!"

"Mamma! Oh, Mamma!"

"What is it, my poor dear?"

"Listen, Mamma!"

"What?"

"Don't you hear? The sound ... upstairs!"

"Hush!... Hush!... The sound...."

"Is dragging itself...."

"Downstairs. It's like a footstep. It's always like that."

"Oh, Mamma, I'm frightened!"

"It's nothing, dear: the wind, a draught, a board creaking...."

"Oh, but I'm frightened!"

"It's nothing.... I opened the door once ... to look."

"You dared to?"

"Yes. It was nothing."

"There was nothing to see?..."

"No. It was only very draughty."

"And everything's closed!"

"It's nothing, it's nothing, dear."

"Now it's dragging itself away ... down below."

"It's the draught.... Oh, my poor, poor darling!"

"Oh, Mamma, I'm unhappy ... and I'm frightened, I'm frightened, I'm frightened!..."

When Mathilde returned next morning, she seemed to perceive a certain displeasure, a coldness in her husband, in her mother-in-law and in all of them; but she decided that perhaps she was mistaken: she was tired, she was unstrung; and, after she had been to see the children, she kept to her own room, where she knew that no one would disturb her, now that Addie had gone out to his patients. And it was not the surmised displeasure, the unwonted fatigue after the ball that made her nervous, as though she was infected by a nervous thrill from all who surrounded her: it was particularly because of Johan Erzeele that she was now walking restlessly round her room, sitting down at the window, getting up again, going in to the children, coming back again, sitting down to the piano, looking over her ball-programme and suddenly tearing it up.... Now, suddenly, she reproached herself with all sorts of things that had happened the night before: for dancing with Johan so often, even though she had known him all her life as a young girl at the Hague, where he was a subaltern in the grenadiers, while his people lived at Utrecht; for flirting with him in so marked a way at supper; for allowing him to speak like that, with his brazen, sensual fashion of making love to her; for knowing and deliberately encouraging his brazenness; lastly, for scarcely preventing him from escorting her on foot—because it was so near—to the hotel, where she had reserved a room.

She had lost her temper, refused, asked for a carriage, and ridden alone to the hotel where she 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 Marietje? Why did she sometimes, through his kisses, feel a strange chill come out of him and freeze her, so that the spontaneous word grew still and lifeless on her lips and she no longer knew what to say: she only knew that she was losing him, again and again and again, while all the others, down below, were winning him, winning him for 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 Addie, on all of them, on her husband's whole family, on Driebergen, 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 out down the road; and, when she saw him—the bell was ringing for lunch, because Truitje downstairs had also seen him coming up the road—she ran down and was just in time to kiss him in the morning-room and to whisper:

"Addie, Addie, you do love me?"

"Why, of course, darling!" he answered, gravely and, she thought, almost sadly.

And now, sitting silent at table, feeling all sorts of reproaches around her, she asked herself, was it not his fault, was it not his fault? What she really imagined to be his fault she did not clearly see, for it was all whirling through her mind; she kept on thinking of Johan Erzeele, kept on feeling her self-reproach; and the grievances surged up, like lances, more numerous than before, to defend her against that self-reproach.

Gerdy had not come down to lunch: she was tired, Adeline said. The tone of the conversation was forced; and Mathilde reflected that it was always so when she was there, when they would look at one another askance, in a silent understanding against her, against her....

Lunch finished, the children, Jetje and Constant, went out, after Addie had first played with them. Yes, he was fond of the children, but was he fond of her, of his wife?...

"Addie, Addie, you do love me, don't you?"

She had found another opportunity of asking him; and he answered:

"Why, of course, dear."

"Stay with me to-day."

"Very well. What would you like to do? Shall we go for a walk? It's fine."

"Yes, Addie, I'd like to."

And they went out together and roamed along deserted paths; she took his arm:

"I am so glad to be with you.... You ought to have come yesterday...."

"I don't care for dancing ... but, if you had asked me...."

"You would have refused."

"Perhaps not."

"Yes, you would.... I sha'n't go again, 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 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 spectre of guilt suddenly loomed up out of all the black self-insufficiency of the last few years, his years of married life.

"Because I'm good enough ... to bear you children. Because you want to have children by me, healthy children, children different from your family, your mother's family."

"Tilly!"

"Addie!" she entreated. "Love me! Love me!"

"I do love you, Tilly!" he cried, in despair. "Love me altogether!"

"I do love you altogether!" he lied, in anguish for her sake.

"No, you love me ... half!"

"That's not so!"

"Yes, it is, you know it is!... I want to be loved by you altogether and not only...."

"Hush, Tilly," he entreated, in dismay. "Tilly, don't let us spoil our happiness!"

"Our happiness!" she laughed, scornfully.

"Aren't we happy then?"

And he tried to force her to say yes, but she was suffering too much and exclaimed:

"No, I am not happy! When I embrace you...." she clutched her fingers. "When I have embraced you," she went on, "it's over, it's over, it's over at once; I feel that you are far away from me again; that you don't love me."

"I do love you, I do love you!"

"Then talk to me."

"I do."

"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 grey eyes flashed lightning, shooting blue spark after blue spark of rage and pain. His whole face quivered, his body quivered, his voice quivered with rage and pain. She felt a furious resistance rise within her ... together with black despair. She felt an impulse to rush into his arms, to sob out her sorrow on his heart. But she did not want his caresses: she wanted the thing that escaped her. It was escaping her now; and, when she said it, when she said it straight out, he commanded her to be silent, not to say it. Wasn't it his fault, wasn't it his fault? Wasn't she right?

She released her hand:

"You don't love me," she said, curtly.

"No. When you speak to me like that, I don't. I'm not in love with Marietje. I'm sorry for her."

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 I?"

"You're destroying our happiness."

"It doesn't exist."

"Yes, it does ... if...."

He passed his hand over his head. There was a cold wind blowing; and the beads of perspiration stood on his forehead.

"If you would be reasonable."

"And share you?"

"Share me?... With whom?" he roared.

"Not with her, perhaps," she resumed, 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 am not making money."

"Then teach me to feel it."

He looked at her in despair.

"Teach me!" she entreated. "For your sake, because I love you, I will try to learn, try to feel ... I love you, I love you, Addie!"

"Dear," he said, gently, "I'll do my best ... to teach you to feel it. Come with me."

"Where?"

"There ... to those little cottages."

"Who lives in them?"

"Poor people ... sick people ... whom I attend."

"Addie ... no, no ... no!..."

"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.