"Are they all like that, so queer? Or is it only Mamma? And why is she so forbearing towards Aunt Adolphine, when she can't bear the least thing from Papa?"
This made him still more of a little man towards his mother, with something protecting and condescending, because she was so weak and irresolute and excitable, but also with very much that was affectionate, because that strange womanliness possessed a charm for his small male soul.
Adolphine, however, on the day when the contract was signed, at the big family-dinner at the Witte Brug and the subsequent evening-party for all the friends and relations, boasted aloud in her self-complacency. She bragged to Uncle Ruyvenaer, to Karel and Cateau, to Constance, to Gerrit and Adeline: those were fine rooms, the rooms of the Witte Brug, much finer than the rooms in the Doelen; that was a splendid dinner, the dinner which she had given: it cost a lot of money, though, and she told how much, but added a couple of hundred guilders to the cost; and did they remember that impossible dinner of Bertha's, at Emilie's wedding, and the queer dishes that had been set before them? Wasn't it a splendid dessert, with beautiful strawberries, which she had given? And so many and at this season, too: but you had to pay for them! And how gay they had been at table, her family—as though that same family were not also Bertha's family—and her friends: so very different from that pretentious set of Bertha's! There was such a gay, spontaneous tone in the speeches and the conversation; and did Gerrit remember that deathly stillness at table at Emilietje's dinner? Such nice people, Dijkerhof's parents, her girl's future father- and mother-in-law.... And how well Floortje looked, didn't she? And the other girls were prettily dressed too. She boasted so breathlessly of everything, of every detail, that neither Uncle nor Gerrit had a single opportunity of expressing their appreciation, of giving voice to their admiration; and it was not until she had passed on, boasting right and left to her acquaintances—"Well, what do you say to my dinner? Well, what do you say to my party? Well, what do you think of my dress?"—that Uncle Ruyvenaer said:
"Any one would think that Adolphine had built the Witte Brug herself!"
"I think," whined Cateau, "Adolph-ine oughtn't to say all those things her-self, don't you, Ger-rit?"
"Well," said Gerrit, "it's a delightful feeling to be so pleased with your own self and your own children and your own dinner. But, if you think as you do, Cateau, why didn't you compliment her yourself?"
"Be-cause I think," whined Cateau, whining worse than usual, "that that dress doesn't look at all smart on Adolph-ine. What do you think, A-deline?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Adeline, good-naturedly.
"Con-stance, you have such very good taste: do tell me, do you think that dress looks smart?"
"I think Adolphine looks exceedingly well to-night," said Constance, irritably.