p
his pen in defence of some outcast, as Zola did. But even then there is
very little; and I at once see the human wretchedness through it all:
the pose, the affectation--even that of soberness--the ambition to
succeed, or to imitate some one or other. No one has a pure thought for
purity's sake ... except a fellow like Zola. There's no beauty anywhere.
Have you ever noticed, in a train, or in a tram-car, or at a theatre,
all those stupid, ugly faces, those crooked bodies, either too fat or
too thin, one with a blink--like this--another with a squint--like
that--this one with little hairs in his ears and that one with hands
that make you sick. I don't know if you understand me; but all of this,
with politics and the social question and those swarms of fat stomachs
like our friend's just now: all of this is what I call human
wretchedness.... I may write a book about it some day; but perhaps my
book itself would be merely human wretchedness...."

In the meantime, he had been following his sister into three shops, one
after the other, and she had managed to make her purchases in between
his philosophizings. Whenever he saw his chance, he went on speaking,
walking aslant beside her and talking into her ear, constantly having to
move off the narrow pavements of the Hoogstraat and Veenestraat, losing
her for a moment, because they were separated by a couple of carriages
going at a foot-pace, but soon catching her up again. And he never lost
the thread of his thoughts:

"I see that you have never reflected much, just like most women. What I
say is quite new to you. You have not even observed much. You should
observe, you should note all the queer things and people about you. Not
that you and I ourselves are not queer and behave queerly. We can't help
it. We too stumble along in our human wretchedness. But in your boy--it
was quite attractive--I saw something funny; and yet he was very
serious, much too serious for a child. Your boy, your boy is certainly a
man of the future. Sometimes you see a thing like that in a child: then
you say to yourself, 'He'll be this, he'll be that, he'll be the other,
later on, when he grows up.' Do you follow me? No, I see you don't
follow me. It's just your motherly vanity that feels flattered! Oh, how
small you are! That is your human wretchedness! Don't you see the
sunniness in your boy? No, you don't see it. I saw it at once. It was
most attractive. Not one of Bertha's or Gerrit's or Adolphi