His voice sounded faint and weak. In the next room, which was now dark, nothing stirred. He rose out of his deep chair with difficulty, like an old man, groped round for the door of the other room. A feeble light still entered from outside.... There she sat, there she lay, his wife: she had fallen asleep with weariness and anxiety for him, her arms on the table, her face on her arms.... Was it his imagination, or had she really changed? He had not noticed her for weeks, since his illness, had not looked at her, though she had nursed him all the time.... Certainly he was very fond of her; but she was doing her duty as his wife. She had borne him his children and she was nursing him now that he was ill. Had he been wrong in thinking like that? Yes, perhaps it had not been right of him.... Gad, how she had changed! How different from the young, fresh face that she used to have, the little mother-girl, the little child-mother! Was it the ghostly effect of the faint light or was it so? Was she so pale and thin and tired ... with anxiety about him, with nursing and looking after him?... He felt his heart swelling. He had never loved her as he did now! He bent down and kissed her ... with a fonder kiss than he had ever given her. She just quivered in her sleep: she was sound asleep.... Lord, how tired she was! How pale she was, how thin! She lay broken with worry and weariness, her head in her arms....
"Adeline...."
She did not answer, she slept.... He would not wake her; he would ring for the fire and the lamp himself.... But what was the good? Lamp and fire would make things no brighter around him, now that the great twilight was descending.... Oh, the great inexorable, pitiless twilight! Would it fall around him as it had fallen around Ernst ... around whom it was now slowly clearing? Did the twilight clear again? Or would the shadows around him gradually deepen into darkness, the darkness that was now gathering around his mother? Or would it just remain dim around him, with the same wan light that glimmered around Paul and Dorine? What, what would their twilight be?...
The house was very cold and he felt chilly. Was there no fire anywhere? Where were the children? Were Marietje and Adèletje and the two boys not back from school yet?... He now heard Gerdy and Constant playing in the room downstairs—the nursery and dining-room—heard them talking together with their dear little voices.... Oh, his two sunny-haired darlings!... But Gerdy was afraid of him.... He was becoming afraid of himself.... He was no longer the man he used to be.... People now saw him as he was.... He could no longer put on that air of brute strength.... His voice had lost its blustering force....
He did not know why, but he roamed through the house.... It struck him as lonely, dreary and quiet, though the children were playing below.... He stood on the stairs and listened. What was that rushing noise in the distance? No, there was no rushing.... Yes, there was: something came rushing, from outside, to where he stood; something came rushing: a melancholy wind, like a wind out of eternity.... An immense eternity; and immense the wind that rushed out of it; and chilly and small and dreary the house; everything so small; he himself so small!... He did not know what was coming over him, but he felt frightened ... frightened, as he had sometimes felt when a child.... He was so afraid of that rushing sound that he called out:
"Adeline!... Line!..."
He waited for her to hear and answer. But she did not hear, she slept.... Then he roamed on, shuddering ... upstairs ... to his own little room.... And it was all so dreary and chill and lonely and the sound of rushing from the immense eternity outside the house was so melancholy that he sank helplessly into a chair and began to sob.... He was done for now.... He sobbed.... His great, emaciated body jolted up and down with his sobs; his lungs panted with his sobs; and, in his great, lean hands, his head sobbed, in despair....
He was done for now.... He knew now that he would not get well.... He knew now that he ought really to have died ... and that he had gone on living only because his life had gone on hanging to a thread that had not broken. Would that last thread soon break? Or would his darkened life go on for a long time—he always ill—hanging to that last thread? Would he yet be able to be a father to his children ... or would he ... on the contrary ... become ... a burden to his dear ones? Was it growing dark, was it growing dark? Was not that eternity rushing along?...
He heaved a deep sigh, amid his sobs. His eyes sought along the wall, where a rack of swords and Malay krises hung between prints of race-horses and pretty women. He had a whole collection of those weapons. Some of them had belonged to his father. At Papa's death they had been divided between him and Ernst.... Among the krises and swords were two revolvers....
He stared past the swords and krises ... and his eyes fastened on the revolvers.... In among the swords and krises, in among the race-horses and the pretty women whirled all the heads of his children—he did not know if they were portraits or spectres—as they had been, children's heads of six months, one year old, two years old: growing older and bigger, radiating more and more sunlight, his golden dawn of nine bright-haired children?... Would he be able to be a father to them, or would he on the contrary become a burden?...