"Look here now, here's a 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 text-books or hardened in the operating-room—had felt the mysticism within him temporarily fading; and it was especially during those intervals of materialism that the young doctor had experienced Mathilde's attraction, the attraction of a healthy, pink-and-white woman who would give 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 these 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 is 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, 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 to-day—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 it concealed weeping souls, complaining souls, and were their one manifestation: souls blowing up again and again, souls which now, in the night, tapped with soul-fingers at the trembling panes.... Round about this house, in which his grand-parents 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 flapped to 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.... Adriaan, 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 panes.
That night he did not sleep, tired as he was. And he kept thinking:
"Am I at fault?"