FICTION.
SMALL SOULS.*
M. Loom Courznus is no stranger to English readers. It is a good many years since an English version of his novel Majesty was reviewed in these columns. In that powerful romance M. Oonperus gave a wonderful picture of the conflict between human emotions and the traditions of State in the mind of a modern autocrat of amiable instincts but wavering purpose. But while impressive in its portrayal of the miseries of greatness, Majesty suffered from the inherent drawbacks of portrait fiction. The originals, though skilfully disguised, were easily recognizable, and to that extent the novel could not be regarded as a work of the highest creative imagination. In Sinai/ Souls, which is now given to us in the admirable translation of Mr. Teixeira de Mattoe, the Dutch novelist reveals himself in an entirely different light. The atmosphere of Majesty was primarily that of a foreign Court ; Small Souls could only have been written by a Dutchman, and is exclusively concerned with Dutch types. One might describe it as a study of Dutch society in transition; in which the connexion of Holland with the East Indies, and the influence of contact with France and Belgium and England, new views on the education of the young and their emanci- pation from the old-fashioned chaperonage, all combine to modify the old patriarchal family ideal. In regard to the first influence, it is extremely interesting to trace the analogy between what we may call the ludo-Dutch and the Anglo- Indian element. In their relations with the natives the severance of the races is less sharp than with us, and the translator reminds us in his introduction that Dutch not only sometimes marry native wives, but that these nihilo obstants are "received" by the "family" at home. This fact receives pointed illustration in the story before us, which is primarily concerned with the solidarity of Dutch family life—a solidarity which, though impaired by self-criticism and discontent and intestine jealousies, is still a fine as well as a formidable factor in Dutch social life. M. Cm:Terns treats his subject on a grand Beale, since his dramatis personae include representatives of four generations,though the time occupied by the events described in the narrative only covers a few months. There is the great-grandmother, " Mamma" Van Lowe, widow of a Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, still active and a power in the family ; there are her eight children —Karel, the ex-burgomaster; Gerrit, a captain of hussars ; Paul the dandy and Ernst the collector ; Bertha, who carries on the traditions of the family by her marriage to Van Naghel, the Colonial Secretary; Adolphine, married to a plodding legal official; Dorine, unmarried, the self-appointed drudge of her brothers and sisters ; and Constance Van der Welcke, the daughter with a past, long expiated by years of exile. But this is not all, for Bertha is a grandmother and is about to marry another of her large brood ; Adolphine has grown-up daughters; Gerrit has a young family of seven; and a good many of the young people take an active part in the story. There le also " Mamma's" brother, Uncle Euyvenaer, with his amiable native wife and good-humoured " Indian" nieces. But whatever their age or generation, the measure of their souls is in every case to be taken by their attitude to Constance Van der Welcke. Constance's story is easily told. As a young, handsome, and socially ambitions girl she had made a brilliant mariage de consonance with a distinguished diplomatist, a contemporary of her father's, nearly forty years her senior, and while at Rome, where her husband was Minister, had fallen in love with a young Secretary of Legation. For a brief hour of passion she had paid with fifteen years of exile and ill-assorted union with her lover, who bad married her after the divorce at the bidding of his parents, old-fashioned, upright people of ultra-orthodox views. The scandal had broken his career, and, on the other band, his wife, though she was glad at the time to regularize her position, could never forgive Van der Welcke for marrying her under compulsion. For thirteen or fourteen years they had lived at -Brussels, pensioners on the bounty of their parents, and at the opening of the story, impelled by an irresistible desire to revisit her old house and renew the family associations, Constance
_ ginolt Souls. By Louis Couperue. TransLsted by A. Teixeira de Katt.. Loudon: William liteluemeoa. Les.]
had persuaded her husband to return to the Hague. The story sets forth with a minute particularity that is never wearisome how she was received and treated by her mother, brothers, and sisters ; how, in spite of external friendliness and individual cases of generosity, they contrived to make her feel her outcast condition, refused to aid her social rehabilita- tion, envied her for her grace and elegance, and put the worst construction on her innocent hospitalities. Constance is far from being a true heroine. She is herself terribly irritable and jealous. Yet she clings with a pathetic loyalty to her belief in her family until her eyes are opened to their small. souled, self-protective natures. In the hour of her deepest humiliation she shows a dignity, a self-composure, and a strength of character for which her endless bickerings with her husband had hardly prepared us. At her worst she never forfeits the sympathy of the reader. But if there is no heroine in Small Souls, there is a hero, and what is more, a hero of a new, original, and altogether delightful type in the Van der Welckes' little boy Adriaan, the only bond of union between his parents, and at all points worthy of their passionate affection. The situation is best described in the author's own words:— " Strange, this family-life in the little house, where the parents, through grudges and grievances heaped up for years, could hardly exchange the least word, could hardly even be silent, without a tension in both their faces and in both their souls; where every detail of domestic life—a piece of furniture displaced, a door opened or shut—at once led to a discord which turned the tension into an offence. The very least thing provoked a bitter word; a reproach flashed out on the instant; resentment was constantly boiling over. And amid it all was the boy, adored by both with a mutual jealousy that made their adoration almost morbid, each hoping simultaneously that the boy would now speak to him or her and award his caress to her or him; and, if this hope were disappointed, at once an averted glance, uncontrolled envy, a nervous discomfort that was almost a physical illness. . . . And, by a miracle that had become a forbearing and compassionate grace, the boy, who was still the child of their love, was only a little older, for all this everlasting discord, than his actual years; had only grown a little more serious, feeling himself, at a very early age, to be the mediator ; and, now that he was a couple of years older, now that he was thirteen, accepted this mediation, almost unconsciously, as an appointed task and a bounden duty, with only very deep in his childish heart the ache of it all, that things wore so, because he loved both his parents."
The spectacle of this wise little fellow, holding the balance between hie parents, granting them favours not as a spoilt child but as a man, dividing his precious time systematically between his work and his father and mother, and conscien- tiously allotting what was due to each, is extraordinarily moving and beautiful. Small Souls is only the first of four novels which describe the fortunes of the Van Lowe family, and no one who has read the opening instalment can fail to look forward with keen expectancy to the sequeL
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