Slowly, in the course of years, she had read her Bible less and less, because she was wicked after all and because she had never resigned herself to the sacrifice which she had made, which it was her duty to make, before God and man. Then she chanced on a wonderful book which described what happened to people after death. And this book she read every evening.
But she was unable to read, this evening. As a rule, the old pair read, over their cup of tea, till ten o’clock, in silence, and then got up and went to bed. But the old woman could not read this evening. Her aching feet fidgeted on the stool, her bent body moved in vague discomfort. And she asked, still casually, nervously:
“Will Henri be thirty-nine to-morrow, Hendrik?”
“Yes.”
She knew quite well that he would be thirty-nine, but she wanted to say it again, wanted to talk of her son. For fifteen long years, she had not seen him; and his birthdays, the anniversaries of the day on which she had borne him, her only child, had passed while he was very far away, too far for her to reach him and take him in her arms. For many years, she had hoped:
“Now it will come, now it will come nearer.”
But it had not come nearer. Until suddenly it was very near, until suddenly it was there. Now it was here, after long, long years; and yet it was not here, it was far away. . . .
