it's a beastly business, just one sickening mass of filth. . . . The only pure, unsullied thing that I have found in the world is music. Ah, what a pure thing music is! . . ."
"Paul, I must just go down to the store-room and have a talk with my cook about the filth which I'm to give you this evening," said Constance; and the girls laughed.
"All right, I'll come with you . . . I sha'n't be in the way. Ah, what a pure thing music is!" he continued, in the store-room, while the cook opened wide eyes. "Look at painting, for instance, how dirty: oil-colours, turpentine, a palette, paintbrushes, water, all equally messy. Sculpture: clay and damp cloths; literature: what's more loathsomely dirty than ink, the oceans of ink which an author pours forth? . . . But music: that's tone, that's purity, that's sheer Platonism. . . . Oh, no, since they've taken to building public conveniences at the street-corners in the Hague, I can't go on living there!"
"Paul!" said Constance, warningly; but he was too much worked up to understand that she was rebuking him. "Run away now, with the girls and leave me with Keetje.[1] Look at her, staring at you and not minding a word I say. . . . Keetje, listen to me, I want to order the dinner; and you, Paul, ajo,[2] be off!"
"Come away, Uncle!" said Marietje, "Keetje, at Driebergen, isn't accustomed to hear everything called so dirty."
"Keetje's proud of her kitchen, aren't you, Keetje?" said Gerdy.
"Oh, well," said Keetje, "I expect meneer doesn't mean all he says."
"Not mean all I say!" Paul shouted at the
