Peter turned to his father. For hours he had sat grimly watching the landscape by Cuyp, where the comfortable burgher walked forever unperturbed by the banks of the gray canal.
“Father.”
“Yes.”
“We’re not doing right.”
“Right!” He shrugged his shoulders. His gesture accused God defiantly.
“No, father—not doing right. One of the last things she said was that she’d know and be unhappy if we broke our hearts about her. She does know, and—and I think we’ve been making her sad.”
For a long time his father sat brooding. He stretched out his hand, “Your imagination, Peter—you’ve never outgrown it. But—but we don’t want to make her sad.”
The house was hushed. It was some hours since they had climbed the stairs. He crept out of his room into the one that had been hers. It was the same as when, years ago, they two had shared it. He gazed across the lamp-lit gulf to where Hampstead lay shrouded beneath the night. And he remembered: the moon letting down her silver ladder and bidding him ascend; the windows in streets he had never traversed, which had seemed to watch him like the eyes of cats; the mysterious whistling from the powder-cupboard, “Coming! Coming! Coming!”
He tried, as of old, to eliminate barriers by the magic of imagination. It was true, surely, and he hadn’t grown up. Soon he would hear the angel whistle. On the straight unruffled bed he would see the gentle little body, with the tumbled honey-colored hair.
He forgot his promise not to break his heart about her. Throwing himself down, he knelt beside the pillow, with his empty arms spread out.