Page:Later Life (1919).djvu/288



came to herself with a start and did not know whether she had been unconscious or asleep. At the same moment, she heard the bell and through the curtain she saw Brauws, standing outside the door.

"It is he, it is he!" an exultant voice cried inside her.

But at the same time she felt too nervous and overwrought to receive him, just ordinarily and naturally. She stopped Truitje in the hall, said that she had a headache and the girl must say not at home; and she fled to her bedroom and locked herself in.

"It was he, it was he!" the voice still sang, almost sorrowfully.

But she could not have talked ordinarily and naturally. . . Suddenly she did what she had not yet done that day: she thought of herself. If they were to separate, Henri and she, then she herself would be free! . . . Free! A violent longing surged up in her to see Brauws, to speak to him, to say just one word to him, to ask his advice, to abandon herself, as it were, to that advice! . . . At this moment, for the first time, the thought occurred to her that he must love her too. Would he come so often, if not? Would he speak as he did, reveal himself