"I know you do."
"She won't look after herself. As you know, she goes to extremes. Le bon Dieu doesn't expect us to go to such extremes as madame does. I don't pray a quarter as much as madame. Madame is always praying. I shouldn't have time for it. Le bon Dieu doesn't expect it. We have our work; I have my nursing-institute, which keeps us very busy. At this moment, nearly all the sisters are out nursing. Then I have my servants' registry-office. We can't always be praying."
"Mamma can," said Theo, with a laugh.
"Madame prays too much," said the reverend mother. "Madame is an enthousiaste ..."
"Always was, in everything she did," said Theo, staring in front of him.
"And she has remained so. She is an enthousiaste in her new creed, in our religion. But she oughtn't to go to extremes ... or to fast unnecessarily.... The other day we found her fainting in the chapel.... And we have our little trucs: when it is not absolutely necessary to fast, we give her bouillon in her soupe-maigre or over her vegetables, without her noticing it.... Here is madame...."
The door was opened by a sister; and Mrs. van der Staff, Aunt Thérèse, entered the room. And it seemed to Lot as though he saw Grandmamma herself walk in, younger, but still an old woman. Dressed in a smooth black gown, she was tall and majestic and very slender, with a striking grace in her movements. Grandmamma must have been just like that. A dream hovered over her dark eyes, which had remained the eyes of a creole, and it seemed as if she had a difficulty in seeing through the dream; but the mouth, old as it now was, had a natural smile, with ecstasy playing around it. She accepted Theo's kiss and said to Lot and Elly, in French:
"It's very nice of you to look me up. I'm very grateful to you.... So this is Elly? I saw you years ago, in Holland, at Grandpapa Takma's. You were a little girl of fourteen then. It's very nice of you to come. Sit down. I never go to Holland now ... but I often think, I very often think ... of my relations...."
The dream hovered over her eyes; ecstasy played around her smile. She folded her thin hands in her lap; and their fingers were slender and wand-like, like Grandmamma's. Her voice sounded like Grandmamma's. As she sat there, in her black gown, in the pale light of that convent-parlour, permeated with a chilliness that was likewise pale, the resemblance was terrifying: this daughter appeared to be one and the same as her mother, seemed to be that mother herself; and it was as though bygone years had returned in a wonderful, haunting, pale, white light.
"And how are they all at the Hague?" asked Aunt Thérèse.