"I knew him as a boy of fourteen, when we used to play in the river at Buitenzorg. Gerrit is still always flying into ecstasies about that time and my little bare feet! Then I knew Gerrit as a cadet and as a young subaltern, twenty years ago; and he was always pleasant and gay."
"And I remember Gerrit, ten years ago, lugubrious and melancholy."
"Oh, every one has an occasional mood! Perhaps he had an unhappy love-affair: why not Gerrit as well as another?"
"I may be wrong, of course."
"When I see Gerrit, in his big chair, with all those children climbing over his legs and chest, he looks to me the very personification of happiness. Oh, Paul, and I too, I too feel happy: I can't tell you, Paul, how happy I am to be back here in the Hague! And now, now you do all care for me a little again: even Adolphine was very nice lately, before she went away; and I am happy, I am so happy!"
"You have a very gentle, noble, pastoral nature, with a strong atavistic tendency!" said Paul, teasing her. "Look, here are your husband and your boy back with their bicycles, just like two brothers, an elder and a younger brother. They make a good pair. Now, if you're so happy, don't be jealous and try and remain as pastoral all the evening as you are at this moment ... even if your husband should enter the room presently!..."
CHAPTER XXVI
The old woman walked with slow steps along the paths of the garden, carefully examining each separate rose with her grey eyes. Her legs seemed to move with difficulty along the narrow gravel-paths that wound through the front-garden; and her frame was bent, as though deformed. In a wicker-work chair on the verandah sat the tall, old figure of the husband, his ivory forehead bulging above the pages of the newspaper which he held in his large, shrivelled hands....
Evening fell. A nameless grey melancholy fell from the pale summer sky over the country-roads, along which the peaceful villas faded into the shadows of their gardens. The old woman looked up at the sky, looked out over the road, with her hand shading her eyes, walked on again, slowly and painfully, carefully examining each separate rose.... Then she went back to the house: