1
Cecile did not go out for a few days; she saw nobody. One morning she received a note; it ran:
“Mevrouw,
“I do not know if you were offended by my mystical utterances. I cannot recall distinctly what I said, but I remember that you told me that I was going too far. I trust that you did not take my indiscretion amiss.
“It would be a great pleasure to me to come to see you. May I hope that you will permit me to call on you this afternoon?
“With most respectful regards,
“Quaerts.”
As the bearer was waiting for a reply, she wrote back in answer:
“Dear Sir,
“I shall be very pleased to see you this afternoon.
“Cecile van Even.”
When she was alone, she read his note over and over again; she looked at the paper with a smile, looked at the handwriting:
“How strange,” she thought. “This note ... and everything that happens. How strange everything is, everything, everything!”
She remained dreaming a long time, with the note in her hand. Then she carefully folded it up, rose, walked up and down the room, sought with her dainty fingers in a bowl full of visiting-cards, taking out two which she looked at for some time. “Quaerts.” The name sounded differently from before.... How strange it all was! Finally she locked away the note and the two cards in a little empty drawer of her writing-table.
She stayed at home and sent the children out with the nurse. She hoped that no one else would call, neither Mrs. Hoze nor the Van Attemas. And, staring before her, she reflected for a long, long while. There was so much that she did not understand: properly speaking, she understood nothing. So far as she was concerned, she had fallen in love with him: there was no analysing that; it must simply be accepted. But he, what did he feel, what were his emotions?
Her earlier aversion? Sport: he was fond of sport she remembered.... His visit, which was an impertinence: he seemed now to be wishing to atone for it, not to repeat his call without her permission.... His mystical conversation at the dinner-party.... And Mrs. Hijdrecht....
“How strange he is!” she reflected. “I do not understand him; but I love him, I cannot help it. Love, love: how strange that it should exist! I never realized that it existed! I am no longer myself; I am becoming some one else!... What does he want to see me for?... And how singular: I have been married, I have two children! How singular that I should have two children! I feel as if I had none. And yet I am so fond of my little boys! But the other thing is so beautiful, so bright, so transparent, as if that alone were truth. Perhaps love is the only truth.... It is as if everything in and about me were turning to crystal!”
She looked around her, surprised and troubled that her surroundings should have remained the same: the rosewood furniture, the folds of the curtains, the withered landscape of the Scheveningen Road outside. But it was snowing, silently and softly, with great snow-flakes falling heavily, as though they meant to purify the world. The snow was fresh and new, but yet the snow was not real nature to her, who always saw her distant landscape, like a fata morgana, quivering in pure incandescence of light.