Now at last, after days, he was himself again! Alone, all alone, in the night, in his study, while everyone in the house slept, while only the night itself was awake: the night and the immense wind tormenting itself and struggling, raging and tearing round the house. Now at last he was alone and himself again, after Amsterdam and after Haarlem, after the troubles and comings and goings, the excitement—needy patients, visited by stealth; the Merchants' School; the old man, the old man especially!—and, tired as he was, yet he could not make up his mind for bed. In the study which was now getting dusky-brown to his eyes in the light of the lamp, he sat in the low leather chair; and his head wearily drooped on to his hand. Now that he had no more need for action, waves of indeterminate darkness surged and floated all around and within him, bearing on their crests the mood of self-insufficiency. No one else knew him as he now knew and felt himself: not his parents, not his wife, not one of Uncle Gerrit's children, not one of his needy patients, who only saw him composed and steady of nerve, a little sombre-eyed, but so four-square and firm, so calm and confident in his knowledge, always sure what would be good for all of them, who were ill and wretched. . . . No one knew him as he was now, weighed down with such despondency in his leather chair; and all who saw him four-square and firm, calm and confident in his knowledge, would never have believed that he knew nothing at all . . . for himself. Oh, however much
58
