Page:Dr Adriaan (1918).djvu/281

Rh blossomed up in her a nervous passion like some strange flower or orchid or lily, seen in a waking dream, a blameless girl's dream of love, of soft, wistful lying in each other's arms and feeling the pressure of breast against breast or mouth against mouth and ecstatic thrills through all one's body. . . . Then Marietje would long for Addie, so that he might lay his hand upon her head: no more, that was enough for her, because she was also very fond of him, of his voice and his glance and his speech, of his care, of his sympathy, of everything abstract that came from him to her; she knew that, on his side, it was no more than gentle interest, but it was enough for her: she lived upon little like a bloodless lily, her body and soul needing no excess. She well knew at the moment that she was doing what she should not, wandering like that through the house, half awake, half asleep, because it was so fresh and cool to walk about like that half-naked. The night grew grey with dusk and there were deeper shadows in the corners, but she was not afraid, after she had once talked to Addie about the house and he had explained to her that, if there was anything of the past hovering about it, it could not be malign or angry, but rather well-disposed and on the alert, in case it could be of use. . . . He spoke to nobody but her like this; she knew that and it gave her a deep love for him, especially because he had said it so very simply and without any sort of exaggeration, as though it were the very simplest thing that he could have wished to say. . . . Nor did he speak like that often; once or twice at most he had spoken so; but it had reassured her greatly, ever since she had been frightened into fainting on the little staircase, all because of a sudden shadow which she thought that she saw and yet did not know if she really saw. . ..