Novel
Een liefde
Not translated into English
Lodewijk van Deyssel · 1887
Opening lines
—Doe nou de deur maar dicht, kind, anders vat-je kou.
“Shut the door now, child, or you'll catch cold.”
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Mathilde, a young woman of about twenty, brought up in seclusion, who keeps her father's house, awaits Jozef van Wilden, whom she has admired since childhood and who has just confessed his love to her. The narrative follows what she feels, in her body as in her thoughts: joy, then anxiety when Jozef's absence drags on, and the longing for a happiness that her upbringing, made of piety, charity and ladies' needlework, has never taught her to name.
Context
The novel appeared in 1887; its author was twenty-three and claimed Zola as his model. The narrative concerns itself less with events than with the perceptions and sensations of the heroine, recorded with minute care. Contemporaries were shocked by the description, veiled in imagery, of a sexual experience of Mathilde, and the book was as much admired as it was loathed. The first edition was reissued in 1974 by Bert Bakker, in The Hague, and its text can be read online in the digital library of Dutch letters.
Who it is for
A psychological novel in a highly ornate prose, which dwells at length on sensations. There is no French or English translation.
Prizes and reception
The best-known book by its author and one of the first successful Naturalist novels in the language; cited in the canonical survey of 2002.