Louis Couperus

“ A whole past lay hidden behind the joviality of the voluble doctor. Oh, to grow old, to grow old! He shivered at the thought on that first autumnal day.... They now entered the room: there they sat, Grandmamma, Grandpapa Takma and, in between them, so strangely, like a child, Lot's mother. And Lot, walking behind Elly, modulated his tread, his gestures, his voice; and Elly also was very careful, he thought, as though she feared to break that crystal, antique atmosphere with too great a display of youth. ”

“ Roelofsz, viciously. "Well-well-well, here are the children...."
"Can we go up?" asked Elly, entering with Lot.
"Yes, go upstairs, miss," said Anna. M Mr. Harold is just coming down; and there's no one upstairs but Mamma ... and Mr. Takma."
"Grandmamma's holding a court," said Lot, jestingly.
But his voice hesitated in joking, for a certain awe always oppressed him as soon as he entered his grandmother's house. It was because of that atmosphere of the past into which he sometimes felt too hyperimaginative to intrude, an atmosphere from which bygone memories and things constantly came floating. ”

“ But, if it was so, then they both knew it; then, if they were not quite dulled, they were thinking of it at this moment. They were not in their dotage, either of them, those old, old people. It seemed to Lot that some emotion had always continued to sharpen their wits ”