rden. Her sad grey eyes gazed out into the grey
melancholy of the darkling night. The wind rose, moaned softly through
the topmost twigs of the trees.

The old woman looked round at the old man, but he remained sitting in
the wicker chair, lost in the great pages of his newspaper:

"Don't catch cold, Hendrik," she repeated, gently.

"I'm coming."

But the old man remained sitting where he was. Now the old woman
wandered down the passage, listened at the door of the kitchen and of a
small back-room: voices sounded, the voices of the maids and the butler.
Then she went up the stairs, wandered through the bedrooms, wandered
through the empty spare-rooms, with a sigh, because they never came.
Everything was neatly kept, hushed and quiet, as in a house that lacks
life....

The old woman, bent and tottering, sighed, was restless. She wandered
again through all the bedrooms and wearily made her way downstairs
again, crossed the passage, entered the living-room. The old man was
seated there now; the windows into the garden were closed. He had folded
up his paper and, seated by the window, was still gazing out to where
the road of villas grew darker and darker in the chill dimness of the
late-summer evening, now beginning to rustle with the rising wind. Then,
stifling a sigh, the old woman sat down at the other window, wearily
folded her hands, placed her tired feet side by side on a stool.

The room grew dark, the windows turned grey, just outlined by the
curtains. The road was more and more blurred in the dimness of the windy
night. A grey melancholy reigned without and a grey melancholy reigned
within, with those two old people, each sitting silent at a window,
lonely and forlorn, drearily sunk in their own thoughts. They sat thus
for a long time, quietly, without a word. Then the old woman said:

"It is Henri's birthday to-morrow."

"Yes," said the old man. "He will be thirty-nine."

And they said nothing more and stared before them. Then the old woman
grew, restless again and rose from her chair with difficulty, hobbled
through the room, holding on by the chairs as she went, and rang the
bell:

"Light the gas and bring in the tea, Piet."

The butler lit the gas, drew the curtains and brought the tea. The old
man sat down at the table with a book; and the light fell harshly on his
ivory forehead and his blue-shaven face; his gnarled, bony hands cast
large shadows over the book, turned the pages at regular interv