Days had come of endless flaking snow; and the hard frost kept the snow tight-packed in the garden, alongside the house, the silent, massive building whose thick white lines stood out against the low-hanging snow-laden skies: one great greyness from out of which the grey of the snow fell with a sleepy whirl until it was caught in the grip of the frost and turned white, describing the outlines of villa-houses and the branching silhouettes of black and dreary trees with round soft strokes of white. The road in front of the house soon soiled its whiteness with cart-tracks and footprints; and with the snow there fell from the sky, like so much grey wool, the pale melancholy of a winter in the country, all white decay and white loneliness: days so short that it seemed as though the slow hours slept and, when awake, but dragged their whiter veils from grey dawn to grey twilight, so that dawn might once again be turned to night. And the short days were like white nights, sunless, as though the light were shining through velvet, as though life were breathing through velvet, velvet cold as the breath of death, the breath of death itself, striking down and embracing all things in its chill velvet. . . .
In the big house reigned the silent warmth of domesticity in big heated rooms and passages, with the rich browns of the heavy old carpets and curtains which had lived long and were beginning to grow worn in weary attitudes and folds of chamber contemplation, as though the dead stuffs looked down and dreamed and breathed in sympathy with all that lived among them, while in the snowy light reflected from outside the mahogany furniture also gleamed with its own life or cast back things of long ago, past sufferings of small people and past sentiments. The silent moods of old and lonely people seemed to rise up from the old, solemn furniture, which smiled good-humouredly because so much new life had come into the midst of it from the outside: the chair-springs moaned, the cupboard-doors creaked, the looking-glasses grew dull and bright in turns, the china became chipped, the silver became scratched, full of the serviceable humility of those very old, wearing things of daily life, which had long been used and were dying off slowly, while all around and about them blossomed the new movement of the new life from without. And yet, despite that new movement and that new life, a soul of the past seemed to hover through the long passages, up the brown stairs, to skim along the dark doors, even though these, when opened, gave admission to the rooms of the new life. Even in the rooms themselves, something still hovered of that soul of the past; and the furniture reflected that soul, as though it were vaguely clinging to material things, a soul catching at earthly things when itself had not yet died out entirely. . . .
In among these reflections of the soul-things of the past there lingered a remnant of biblical piety, because of the titles of certain books in the bookcases, because of certain old-fashioned engravings in the dark rooms; and at certain hours of silent twilight there passed through the house a sort of hover of prayer, which Constance sometimes felt so intently that, on Sunday mornings, she always insisted that the girls at least should go to church, as though they were almost bound to do so out of reverence for the old people who used to live and pray here . . . and especially for the old man. And the thought that she herself did not go troubled her so greatly that, very occasionally, she accompanied the girls, though she continued insensible to any impression derived from liturgical religion. And the things of the past that flickered and hovered and formed the intangible atmosphere of the dark passages and the rich-brown rooms, in which the only gay note was struck by the blue-and-white of the Delft pots and jars: those things of the past all unconsciously harmonized with the mood only of Van der Welcke, because something of his childhood was wafted and reflected in them, and of Addie, because of his vague sense of inheriting not only the material but also the immaterial things with which the big house remained filled. Though he felt a stranger to the old man, he felt related to the old woman, with a strange retrospect of what he knew of her and remembered of her later, silent, mystic years, when liturgical piety was not enough to satisfy her.
But for the rest the house remained as it were one great hospitality, though alien in blood to so many who had found a shelter in it and a sanctuary: the old, doting woman at the window, peering out at the snow-grey garden-vistas; the mourning and still young mother, with her grown-up children; and Emilie, full of silent mystery. And, the other day, in a drifting blizzard, Constance had brought home Marietje van Saetzema—Mary, as they decided to call her—and they had given her Guy's room, now that Guy worked in a corner of Addie's study, where he heaped up his books on a little table. The house gradually became very full. The daughter-in-law also remained alien to the big house; but the children, Constance and Jetje, were always like golden sunbeams, sometimes whirling in a sound of yet stammering voices of early springtime, as they went along the stairs and passages with their nurse—one already toddling on foot, the other still carried—to go for a drive in the governess-cart or to play in the conservatory, where the old great-grandmother, at the window, looked on with vague smiles at their playfulness, which was that of very small children. And, the day after Constance' arrival with Marietje in the grey-white blizzard, how surprised they all were when Addie telegraphed that he was coming, next day, with Uncle Ernst! Two or three words only in the telegram, with no explanation: how astounded they were that Addie had managed to get that done! Constance and Guy went at once to the little villa where they took in patients: yes, the doctor had already wired for the two rooms, they were told, and everything was being got ready, that was to say, the bedroom; for the gentleman would furnish the sitting-room himself. And on the next day Addie and Uncle Ernst actually arrived. Ernst's furniture was being sent on from the Hague; his china had been packed up under his own and Addie's supervision; and, though Ernst at first looked at the bare sitting-room with great suspicion, tapping at the walls, listening at the partition and declaring that the people—the man of the house, himself a male nurse, and the trained nurse, his wife—were spying behind the door, just like the landlady and her cad of a brother at the Hague, nevertheless he was pleased, surprised to find the room so large, though he missed the sombre canal in the Nieuwe Vitley, which he loved for the gloom of its colouring and atmosphere. As he passed through the garden with Addie, leaning on Addie's arm, he thought it strange that he saw walking through the white snow, accompanied by the nurse, an old lady, the only patient at the moment, though there were several in the summer, and he looked at her with suspicion; but he was pleased again and surprised when Addie explained to him how very near he would be living to all of them; and, when Addie brought him to the house, Ernst stood by the garden-gate gazing at it and looked up at the snow-corniced gable, at the soft snow on the straight lines of the windows and above the door. The great house seemed to look down upon him benignly with all the eyes of its window-panes; and he went on, leaning on Addie's arm, through the garden and inside. He had never been there before. He took an immediate interest in the antique cabinet in the hall, the engravings, the Delft jars and nodded his head approvingly, admitting that this was beautiful. Constance welcomed him cordially; and, though he had not seen Mamma for years, he greeted her in all simplicity, as if he had parted from her only yesterday. She held his hand, looked him in the face, recognized him for a son of hers but did not know his name, imagined that he had come from Java, asked after things and mentioned names. . . . They did not understand each other; and Constance felt very sad, especially because of little Klaasje, playing at Mamma's feet with lovely coloured picture-books which "Uncle" Addie had given her:
"Look . . . a blue man . . . yellow woman . . . red! And outside . . . everything white . . . everything white . . . everything white! . . ."
And suddenly so heavy a melancholy arose in Constance that she could have burst out sobbing because of her mother, her brother, because of that child of her poor brother Gerrit! But she made a violent effort of self-control, put her arm round Ernst's shoulder and led him away from Mamma; and Adeline and Emilie came to speak to him. Oh, the things of the past—not the past things of which the atoms still hovered about this house, those of the old people, but the things of their own past, of the bygone dead years of all of them, years of a youth not so long ago—how they crowded in amongst them all, how they filled the atmosphere of the faintly sombre room, while the snow reflected its gleams indoors to water away brightly in the old mirrors! . . . How did they all come to be here like this, how did they all come to be here like this, as in a refuge, as in a sanctuary, a silent haven of simple love? . . . How nerveless she became, how nerveless, when she saw her husband and her son come in, those two who . . .! She could not pursue her thoughts of nervelessness and sadness any further. Alex also now entered; and in him, so young, so young, she also saw all the past, flashing at her suddenly out of his eyes, with the vision of his father's death. . . . But now the girls came in too, and, when Guy and Gerdy came, both laughing, she also laughed, because of their gaiety, their flaxen-haired joy in living, young and strong and healthy and simple, both of them. . . . How happy, how happy those two were! Oh, the more the past heaped itself up, the more the present was overcast with shadow; but those two, Gerdy and Guy, were young and strong and healthy and simple! . . . Happy, happy! And, with a laugh almost of happiness, however intensely she might feel all the things of the past, she asked Addie:
"Isn't it too much for Uncle Ernst, now?"
"Yes, I shall take him home," said Addie.
"Can't he stay and dine one day?"
"Perhaps later on; he must get used to it first. The great thing is not to force him."
And he suggested to Ernst that they should go back.
But Ernst said:
"When will my packing-cases come?"
"To-morrow, Uncle."
"You see, if I'm to get everything in order . . ."
"I'll help you."
"Will you help me unpack?"
"I'll help you too, Uncle," said Guy.
"Yes," said Ernst, "that's right. . . . You see," he whispered to Addie . . .
"What, Uncle?"
"It's not good . . . for the vases to remain in the cases so long. . . . You don't believe it, of course, but . . ."
He did not complete his sentence, would not say that the vases were suffocating in their cases, with all that paper and straw; he would not say it, because Addie was so kind, a kind-hearted fellow, really, but devoid of understanding, stupid, just as stupid as all the rest of them. . . .
"We shall unpack as quickly as we can, Uncle, and make the room comfortable for you."
"Yes. I have only the bedroom at present."
"The bedroom's all right, isn't it?"
"Yes. Am I to have my dinner there to-night?"
"If you don't mind . . . as your sitting-room isn't ready. . . ."
"Yes. I don't care for dining in my bedroom. Can't I stay and dine here?"
"Certainly, Uncle. We should like that above all things. Aren't the troop of us too noisy for you?"
"They are a bit noisy, but . . . no, they're very good. Tell me, Addie, they're all children of Uncle Gerrit, aren't they?"
"Of Uncle Gerrit, yes."
"Yes, yes, I remember. I should like to stay and dine, if I may. It's because the sitting-room isn't ready, you see."
"Very well, Uncle. Then come upstairs now, to my study. Then you can rest a bit and read, or sleep if you like, on the sofa."
"No, I never sleep by day."
"It'll be quiet for you there."
"Yes, it's quiet where you are."
"Come with me."
He took Ernst upstairs.
"This is a nice, quiet room," said Ernst.
"Then I'll leave you by yourself. You'll find books and papers. . . . Can you manage to occupy yourself alone?"
"Yes, my dear boy; I want to be alone. You're kind, you're very kind. You understand me. I shall be glad to stay and dine."
"Would you like your dinner up here?"
"No, downstairs, with all of you. They're Uncle Gerrit's children, aren't they? You see, it's all family. I'd rather dine downstairs."
"All right, I'll come and fetch you."