Old People and the Things that Pass — Chapter XXII

CHAPTER XXII

AUNT ADÈLE TAKMA, with her key-basket on her
arm, came fussing quietly from the dining-room into
the passage, for she had seen the postman and
was hoping for a letter from Elly. Lot and Elly
were at Florence, both of them working busily at
the Laurentiana and the Archives, where Lot was
collecting materials for an historical work on the
Medicis. They had been as far as Naples and,
on the homeward journey, tired of so much sight-seeing—Italy
was quite new to Elly—they had
stopped at Florence, settled down in a pension and
were now working together. Elly seemed happy
and wrote enthusiastic letters.

Aunt Adèle looked in the letter-box. Yes, there
was a letter from Elly, a letter for Grandpapa.
Aunt Adèle always read the letters out to Grandpapa:
that was so nice; and after all the letter was
for her too. Yes, the children were sure to be
away three months longer—it was the beginning of
January now—and then the plan was that they
would quietly take up their quarters with Steyn
and Mamma, for a little while, to see if it answered;
and, if it did not answer, they would quietly turn
out again and go their own way: they were still
keen on travelling and were not yet anxious for a
settled home. Ottilie was in London, where she had
her two boys, John and Hugh Trevelley: Mary
was in India and married. Mamma had been quite
unable to stand it by herself; and there was certainly
no harm in her going to look up her two
sons … if only those two sons had not been
such sharks. They were always wanting money:
Aunt Adèle knew that from Elly and Lot.

Aunt Adèle finished what she had to do downstairs,
spoke to the cook, locked the store-cupboard,
smoothed a tablecloth here, put a chair straight
there, so that she need not come down again and
might have time to read Elly’s letter to the old gentleman
at her ease. He always liked hearing Elly’s
letters, because she wrote in a clever and sprightly
style; they always gave him a pleasant morning;
and he often read them over and over again after
Aunt Adèle had read them out to him.

Aunt Adèle now went upstairs, glad at having the
letter, and knocked at the door of the old gentleman’s
study. He did not answer and, thinking that
he had gone to his bedroom, she moved on there.
The door was open and she walked in. The door
between the bedroom and the study was open and
she walked in. The old man was sitting in his
usual chair, in front of the writing-table.

He was asleep. He sat limply in his chair; and
it struck her how very small he looked, as though
he had shrunk in his sleep. His eyes appeared to
be closed and his hand lay on an open drawer of
his desk. A waste-paper-basket stood beside him;
other papers and letters lay scattered over the
table.

“He’s asleep,” she said to herself.

And, so as not to wake him, she stole away on
tiptoe through the open door. She did not wish
to disturb his rest, if he did not wake of himself
through the mere fact of her entering. He was so
old, so very old….

She was sorry at having to wait before reading
Elly’s letter. She had nothing more to do, her
housekeeping-duties were finished; the two servants
were quietly doing their work. And Aunt Adèle
sat down by the window in the dining-room, with
her key-basket beside her, glad that everything
was nicely tidied, and read the morning paper, which
had just come: she would take it up to him presently.
It was snowing outside. A still white peace
slumbered through the room and through the
house. The voice of one of the maids sounded for a
moment and died away towards the kitchen. Aunt
Adèle quietly read the four pages of the newspaper.

Then she got up, took her basket, the letter and
the paper and went upstairs once more. She
knocked at the door of the study. But the old man
did not reply. She now opened the door. He was
still sitting in his chair, in the same attitude of sleep
as just now. But he looked even more shrivelled—oh,
so very small!—in his short jacket.

Aunt started and came nearer to him. She saw
that his eyes were not closed but staring glassily
into distant space…. Aunt Adèle turned pale
and trembled. When she was close to the old gentleman,
she saw that he was dead.

He was dead. Death had overtaken him and a
slight touch had sufficed to make his blood stand
still for good in his worn veins. He was dead and,
as it would seem, had died without a struggle,
merely because death had come and laid a chill
finger on his heart and head.

Aunt Adèle trembled and burst into sobs. She
rang the bell and called out in fright for the maids,
who came running up at once, the two of them.

“The old gentleman is dead!” cried Aunt Adèle,
sobbing.

The two servants also began to cry; they were
three women all alone.

“What shall we do, miss?”

“Keetje,” said Aunt Adèle, “go straight to
Dr. Thielens and then on to Mr. Steyn de Weert.
I don’t know of any one else. Your master had no
relations. But Mr. Steyn de Weert is sure to help
us. Take a cab and go at once. Bring Mr. Steyn
straight back with you. Mrs. Steyn is in London.
Go, Keetje, go, quick!”

The maid went, crying.

“He’s dead,” said Aunt Adèle. “The doctor
can do nothing for him, but he must give a
certificate. Door, you and I will lay the master on
his bed and undress him gently….”

They lifted the old man out of the chair, Aunt
Adèle taking his head, Door his feet: he weighed
nothing in the women’s hands. He was so light, he
was so light! They laid him on the bed and began
to undress him. The jacket, when they hung it over
a chair, bulged out behind, retained the shape of the
old man’s back.

Keetje had found Steyn de Weert at home; and
he came back with her in the cab: they left word
at Dr. Thielens’ house; the doctor was out. Aunt
Adèle met Steyn in the hall. A still, white peace
dozed through the big house downstairs; outside,
the snow fell thicker than ever.

“I knew of no one but you, Steyn!” cried Aunt
Adèle, sobbing. “And I also sent for you because
I knew—the old gentleman told me so—that you’re
his executor. Yes, he’s dead. He went out like a
candle…. This morning, I brought him his
breakfast, as usual. Then he went and sat at his
table, looking through some papers. I got a letter
from Elly and came upstairs and found him …
asleep, as I thought. I went away, so as not to wake
him. But, when I came back, he was still sitting
like that. He was dead. He is dead, Steyn….
He was close upon ninety-four.”

Steyn remained with Aunt Adèle until the doctor
had been and signed the death-certificate; Steyn
would see to everything that had to be done. He
telegraphed to London to his wife: Aunt Adèle
asked him to do this; he telegraphed to Florence
to Lot and Elly: they certainly could not get back
to the Hague in time for the funeral. And he went
on at once to his brother-in-law Harold Dercksz,
whom he found at home after lunch:

“Harold,” he asked, “what are we to do about
Mamma? We can’t tell her, can we?”

Harold Dercksz had sunk back into his chair.
It was one of his bad days, he was moaning with
anguish and, though he did not complain, his face
was wrung painfully and his breath came in dull
jerks.

“Is …is the old man … dead?” he
asked.

He said nothing more, sat moaning.

“Do you feel so rotten?” asked Steyn.

Harold Dercksz nodded.

“Shall I send for Dr. Thielens to come and see
you?”

Harold Dercksz shook his head:

“There’s nothing he can do. Thank you, Frans.
I know what to do for it: the great thing is to pay
no attention to it….”

He was silent again, sat staring in front of him,
holding his hand before his eyes because the light
outside, reflected by the snow, hurt his face. And
he went on breathing with dull, irregular jerks.

The old man was dead. The old
man was dead…. At last…. The
Thing, the terrible Thing was passing, was not
yet past, was trailing, rustling, staring at him with
its fixed, spectral eyes, which he had known ever
since his childhood; but it was passing, passing.
… Oh, how he had looked and looked for the
old man’s death! He had hated him, the murderer
of his father, who had been dear to him when a
child; but, first as a child, afterwards as a young
man, he had been silent, for his mother’s sake, had
been silent for sixty years. Only now, quite lately,
he had spoken to Daan, because Daan had come
from India in dismay, knowing everything, knowing
everything at this late date, after the death of
the baboe, who had spoken to her son, the mantri.
… He had hated him, in his secret self, hated
his father’s murderer. Then his hatred had cooled,
he had come to understand the passion and the
self-defence of the crime; then he had felt pity for
the old man, who had to carry the burden of his
remorse for all those years; then his pity had grown
into compassion, deep, quivering compassion for
both of them, for Takma and for his mother….
“Give him a stab; rather he than you!”
Oh, that passion, oh, the hatred, of years ago,
in the woman that she had then been, a still young
and always attractive woman, she who was now
dragging out the last years of her life: did she
remember? Did she remember, as she sat in her
straight-backed chair, in that red twilight of the
window-curtains? … He, Harold Dercksz, had
longed for the death of Takma, longed for the
death of his mother … so that for both of
them, the old people, the thing, the terrible Thing
might have passed entirely and plunged into the
depths of what had been…. He had longed;
and now … now the old man was dead!

Harold Dercksz breathed again:

“No, Frans,” he said, in his soft, dull voice, “we
cannot tell Mother…. Remember how very
old she is….”

“So I thought. We must keep the old man’s
death from her at any rate…. It won’t be
possible to keep it from Dr. Roelofsz … but
it will be a blow to him.”

“Yes,” said Harold Dercksz. “You’ve telegraphed
to Ottilie?”

“Adèle said I was to.”

“Yes,” said Harold Dercksz. “She’s …
she’s his daughter.”

“Did she know it? We never spoke of it.”

“I never spoke of it to Mamma either. I believe
Ottilie suspected it. You’re the executor….”

“So Adèle said.”

“Yes,” said Harold Dercksz. “He’ll have left
most of his money … to Elly … and to
Ottilie. When’s the funeral?”

“Monday.”

“Lot and Elly won’t be here.”

“No. It won’t be possible to wait for them.”

“Will the funeral procession go through the
Nassaulaan?”

“It’s on the way to the cemetery.”

“You had better let it go round … not
past Mamma’s house. She’s always sitting at the
window.”

“I’ll arrange that.”

“How soon can Ottilie be here?”

“She can take the night-boat this evening.”

“Yes, she’s sure to do that. She suspects …
she suspects it all; she was very fond of the old man
and he of her.”

“I must go, Harold. Would you mind telling
Dr. Roelofsz?”

“I’ll do that certainly. If I can be of any further
use …”

“No, thank you.”

“Let us meet at Mother’s this afternoon. We
must warn the family as far as possible not to drop
the least hint before Mamma; we must keep it from
her. The shock would kill her….”

And Harold thought to himself that, if only she
were dead, then the Thing would be past; but they
had no right to murder her.

When Steyn opened the door, he ran against Ina
in the passage. She had been at the window and
seen him come; and, curious to know what he
wanted to talk about with her father, she had crept
upstairs and listened casually.

“Good-morning, Steyn,” she said: she did not
call him uncle because of the very slight difference between
their ages. “Has anything happened?”
She knew before she asked.

“Old Mr. Takma is dead.”

“Ina,” said her father, “be sure not to say a
word to Grandmamma. We want to keep it from
her. It is such a blow for the old lady that it might
be the death of her….”

“Yes,” said Ina, “we won’t say anything to
Grandmamma. Mr. Takma was well off, wasn’t he?
I suppose Elly will get everything? …”

“I don’t know,” said Steyn. “Probably.”

“Lot and Elly have become rich all of a sudden.”

“Remember, Ina, won’t you?” said her father.

He shook hands with Steyn and went straight
off to Roelofsz’.

“Did he die during the night?” asked Ina.

Steyn gave the details. He let out that he had
telegraphed to Lot and to his wife, Aunt Ottilie.

“Why Aunt Ottilie?”

“Because …” said Steyn, hesitating, regretting
his slip of the tongue. “It’s better she should
be there.”

Ina understood. Aunt Ottilie was old Takma’s
daughter: she was sure to get a legacy too.

“How much do you think the old man will leave?
… Haven’t you any idea? Oh, not that it interests
me to know: other people’s money-matters
are le moindre de mes soucis! … Don’t you
think Papa very depressed, Steyn? He has been so
depressed since he saw Uncle Daan again….
Steyn, don’t you know why Uncle Daan has come
to Holland?”

She was still yearning with curiosity and remained
ever unsatisfied. She went about with her
gnawing hunger for days and weeks on end; she
did not know to whom to turn. The craving to know
was constantly with her. It had spoilt her sleep
lately. She had tried to start the subject once more
with Aunt Stefanie, to get behind it at all costs;
but Aunt Stefanie had told her firmly that she—whatever
it might be—refused to know, because
she did not want to have anything to do with old
sins and things that were not proper; even though
they had to do with her mother, they did not concern
her. It was Hell lying in wait for them;
and, after Aunt Stefanie’s penitential homily, Ina
knew that she would get nothing out of her aunt,
not even the hazy recollection that might have
loomed for a moment before her aunt’s eyes. What
was it, what could it be that Papa had known for
sixty years, that Uncle Daan had learnt quite lately
and that had brought him to Holland? Oh, to
whom, to whom was she to turn?

No, Steyn knew nothing and was surprised at
her question, thinking that Daan must have had
business to discuss with Harold, as usual. And he
went away, hurried off to Stefanie, to Anton, to
Daan and Floor, to the Van Welys; and he impressed
upon all of them that the old man’s death
must be kept from Mamma. They all promised,
feeling one and the same need, as children, to keep
from their mother the death of the man to whom
she had remained so long attached, whom she had
seen sitting opposite her, almost every day, on a
chair by the window. And Steyn arranged with
all of them merely to say that Mr. Takma was unwell
and not allowed out … and to keep it
up, however difficult it might be in the long run.

Then Steyn went to Aunt Adèle; and she asked:

“Couldn’t we tidy up those papers in the old
gentleman’s study, Steyn? It’s such a litter.
They’re all lying just as he left them.”

“I’d rather wait till Lot and Elly are back,” said
Steyn. “All you have to do is to lock the door of
the room. There’s no need to seal anything up.
I’ve spoken to the solicitor.”

He went away; and Aunt Adèle was left alone
in the house of death, behind the closed shutters.
The old lady, over in the Nassaulaan, so close by,
never saw any one except her children and grandchildren:
she would not be told. Monday was the
funeral. Lot and Elly could not be expected home
before Wednesday. It was hard on them, poor
children, to be disturbed like that in Italy, in the
midst of their work. But still Elly was—to the outside
world—the old man’s only relation; and she was
his heiress….

Aunt Adèle was not grasping. The old man was
sure to have left her a handsome legacy: she felt
certain of that. What would upset her was to have
to leave the big house: she had lived there so long,
had looked after it so very long for the old gentleman.
She was fond of it, was fond of every piece
of furniture in it…. Or would Elly keep the
house on? She thought not: Elly considered it
gloomy; and it would be too big, thought Aunt
Adèle, for Elly was no doubt sharing the money
with Ottilie Steyn…. Of course, people would
talk, though perhaps not so very much; the old
gentleman had, so to speak, become dead to the
outside world, with the exception of the Dercksz
family; and, except Dr. Roelofsz, all his contemporaries
were dead. The only survivors of
his period were the old lady and the doctor….
Yes, she, Aunt Adèle, would certainly have to leave
the house; and the thought brought tears to her
eyes. How beautifully it was kept, for such an old
place! What she regretted was that Steyn had not
consented to tidy up the papers in the study. He
had locked the door and given her the key. That
was the only room, in all the tidy house, with litter
and dust in it. Next to the study, in his bedroom,
lay the old gentleman: he was to be put into his
coffin that evening; Steyn and Dr. Thielens would
be there then. The whole house was quiet and
tidy around the dead man, except for the dust and
litter in the study. The thought irritated Aunt
Adèle. And, that afternoon, she took the key and
went in. The room had remained as it was when
they lifted the old gentleman out of his chair—so
light, oh, so light!—and laid him on his bed and
undressed him….

Aunt Adèle opened the windows: the cold wintry
air entered and she drew her woollen cape closer
over her shoulders. She stood at a loss for a moment,
with her duster in her hand, not knowing
where to begin. One of the drawers of the writing-table
had been left open; there were papers on the
table; a waste-paper-basket stood close by; papers
lay on the ground. No, she couldn’t leave things like
that; instead of a crime, it was a kindness to the old
man who lay waiting in the next room, lifeless, to
put a little order into it all. She collected what she
found on the table and tucked it into a letter-wallet.
She dusted the desk, arranged everything neatly,
pushed the open drawer to and locked it. She picked
up what lay on the floor; and she gave a start, for
she saw that it was a letter torn across the middle, a
letter torn in two. The old gentleman had been
tearing up letters: she could see that from the paperbasket,
in which the little, torn pieces made white
patches. This letter had evidently dropped from
his hand at the last moment of all, when death
came and tapped him on the heart and head. He
had not had the strength to tear up into smaller
pieces the letter already torn in two; the two halves
had slipped from his fingers and he himself had slid
out of life. It touched Aunt Adèle very much;
tears came to her eyes. She remained staring irresolutely,
with the two pieces in her hand. Should
she tear them up? Should she put them away, in
the wallet, for Steyn? Better tear them up: the
old gentleman had intended to tear them up. And
she tore the two pieces in four….

At that moment, an irresistible impulse forced
her to glance at the uppermost piece. It was hardly
curiosity, for she did not even think that she was
holding in her hand anything more than a very innocent
letter—the old gentleman kept so many—a
letter, among a hundred others, which he had
gradually come to the conclusion that he would do
well to destroy. It was hardly curiosity: it was a
pressure from without, an impulse from outside
herself, a force compelling her against her honest
conviction. She did not resist it: she read; and, as
she read, the idea rose clearly within her to finish
tearing up the letter and drop the pieces in the
basket.

Yet she did not do so: she read on. She turned
pale. She was a simple-minded, placid woman, who
had reached years of maturity calmly, with healthy,
unstirred blood, foreign to all violent passion.
Reading had left her soul untouched; and burning
sentences, she thought, were invented by the authors
for the sake of fine writing. The fact that words
could be written down such as she now read, on
paper yellow with age, in ink pale-red with age,
struck her with consternation, as though a red
flame had burst forth from smouldering ashes which
she was raking. She never knew that such a thing
could be. She did not know that those violent
glowing words could be uttered just like that. They
hypnotized her. She had sunk into the old man’s
chair and she read, unable to do anything but read.
She read of burning things, of passion which she
had never suspected, of a melting together of body
and soul, a fusion of souls, a fusion of bodies, only
to forget, at all costs to forget. She read, in a
frenzy of words, of a purple madness exciting itself
in order to plunge and annihilate two people in each
other’s soul and, with undiscovered kisses, to burn
away and melt away in oblivion, in oblivion….
To melt into each other and never to be apart
again…. To be together for ever…. To
be inseparable for ever in unquenchable passion.
… To remain so and to forget…. Especially
to forget, O God, to forget … that
one night, that night! … And through the first
passionate purple words there now began to flow
the purple of blood…. Through the words
of passionate love there now flowed words of passionate
hatred…. The frenzied joy that this
hatred had cooled after all…. The jubilant
assurance that, if that night could ever recur, the
hatred would cool a second time! The mad words
deceived themselves, for, immediately after, they
again writhed in despair and declared that nevertheless,
in spite of satisfied passion, the memory was
as a spectre, a bloody spectre, that never left you.
… Oh, the hatred would always cool like that,
for a third time, for a fourth time … but yet
the bloody spectre remained horrible! … It
was maddening…. It was maddening….
And the letter ended with an entreaty that he would
come, come speedily, to blend with her in soul and
body and, in the rapture of it, to forget and no
longer to behold the spectre. At the bottom of the
letter were the words, “Tear this up at once,” and
the name:

“OTTILIE.”

Aunt Adèle remained sitting motionless, with the
four pieces in her hand. She had read the letter:
it was irrevocable. She wished that she had not
read it. But it was too late now. And she
knew….

The letter was dated from Tegal, sixty years ago.
Flames no longer flickered out of the words, now
that Aunt Adèle had read them, but the scarlet
quivered before her terrified eyes. She sat huddled
and trembling and her eyes stared at that quivering
scarlet. She felt her knees shake; they would not
let her rise from her chair. And she know. Through
a welter of hatred, passion, jubilation, madness, passionate
love and passionate remorse, the letter was
clear and conjured up—as in an unconscious impulse
to tell everything, to feel everything over again, to
describe everything in crimson clearness—a night of
years and years ago, a night in silent mountains,
by a dark jungle, by a river in flood, a night in a
lonely pasangrahan, a night of love, a night of
hatred, of surprise, of self-defence, of not knowing
how, of rising terror, of despair to the pitch of
madness…. And the words conjured up a
scene of struggle and bloodshed in a bedroom,
conjured up a group of three people who carried a
corpse towards that river in flood, not knowing
what else to do, while the pouring rain streamed
and clattered down…. All this the words
conjured up, as though suggested by a force from
the outside, an impulse irresistible, a mystic violence
compelling the writer to say what, logically speaking,
she should have kept hidden all her life long;
to describe in black on white the thing that was a
crime, until her letter became an accusation; to
scream it all out and to paint in bright colours the
thing which it would have been safest to keep buried
in a remorseful soul and to erase, so that not a
trace remained to betray it….

And the simple, placid woman, grown to mature
years in calmness of blood, sat dismayed at what
had been revealed to her. At first, her dismay had
shone red in front of her, dismay at an evocation
of hatred and passionate love; and now, suddenly,
there rose before her eyes the drawing-room of an
old woman and the woman herself sitting at a
window, brittle with the lasting years, and, opposite
her, Takma, both silently awaiting the passing. The
old woman sat there still; yonder, in the next room,
lay the old man and he too awaited the morrow and
the last honours: for to-day everything was
past….

O God, so that was the secret of their two old
lives! So vehemently had they loved, so violently
hated, so tragic and ever-secret a crime had they
committed in that lonely mountain night and such
blood-red memories had they dragged with them,
always and always, all their long, long lives! And
now, suddenly, she alone knew what nobody knew!
… She alone knew, she thought; and she shuddered
with dread. What was she to do with that
knowledge, what was she to do with those four
pieces of yellow paper, covered with pale-red ink
as though with faded letters of blood?
What was she to do, what was she to do with it
all? … Her fingers refused to tear those four
pieces into smaller pieces and to drop them into
the paper-basket. It would make her seem an accomplice.
And what was she to do with her knowledge,
with what she alone knew? … That
tragic knowledge would oppress her, the simple-minded
woman, to stifling-point! …

Now at last she rose, shivering. It was very
cold in the aired room. She went to the window to
close it and felt her feet tottering, her knees knocking
together. Her eyes staring in dismay, she shook
her head to and fro, to and fro. Mechanically, with
her duster in her hand, she dusted here and there,
absent-mindedly, constantly returning to the same
place, dusting two and three times over. Mechanically
she put the chairs straight; and her habit of
neatness was such that, when she left the room, she
was still trembling, but the room was tidy. She had
locked up the torn letter. She could not destroy it.
And suddenly she was seized with a fresh curiosity,
a fresh impulse from without, a strange feeling that
compelled her: she wanted to see the old man.
… And she entered the death-chamber on the
tips of her slippered toes. In the pale dim light,
the old man’s head lay white on the white pillow,
on the bed with its white counterpane. The eyelids
were closed; the face had fallen away on either
side of the nose and mouth in loose wrinkles of
discoloured parchment; there were a few scanty
grey hairs near the ears, like a dull silver wreath.
And Aunt Adèle looked down upon him, with eyes
starting from their sockets, and shook her head to
and fro in dismay. There he lay, dead. She had
known him and looked after him for years. She
had never suspected that. There he lay, dead; and
in his dead relics lay all the past passionate love and
hatred; surely too the past remorse and remembrance.
Or was there a hereafter yet to come, with
more struggling and more remorse and penitence
… and punishment perhaps? …

Whatever he might have suffered within himself,
he had not been fully punished here on earth. His
life, outwardly, had flowed long and calmly. He
had achieved consideration, almost riches. He had
not had an ailing old age. On the contrary, his
senses had remained unimpaired; and she remembered
that he even used often to complain, laughing
in his genial manner—which was too pronounced
to be sincere—that he heard everything and was
far from growing deaf with age, that in fact he
heard voices which did not exist. What voices
had he heard, what voice had he heard calling?
What voice had called to him when the letter, half-destroyed
and too long preserved, dropped from
the hand that played him false? … No, in this
world he had not been fully punished, unless indeed
his whole life was a punishment…. A cold
shiver passed through Aunt Adèle: that a person
could live for years beside another and not know
him and know nothing about him! How long was
it? For twenty-three years, she, the poor relation,
had lived with him like that! … And the old
woman also lived like that….

Shaking her head in stupefaction, Aunt Adèle
moved away. She clasped her hands together, gently,
with an old maid’s gesture. She saw the old woman
in her imagination. The old woman was sitting,
dignified and majestic, frail and thin, in her high-backed
chair. She had once been the woman who
was able to write that letter full of words red
with passion and hatred and madness and the wish
to forget, in a fusion of the senses with him, with
him who lay there so insignificant, so small, so old,
dead now, after years and years. She had once been
able to write like that!

The words still burnt before the eyes of the stupefied
elderly woman, placid in soul and blood. That
such things were, that such things could be!……
Her head kept shaking to and fro…..

Nguồn: Wikisource English — Old People and the Things that Pass/Chapter XXII. Văn bản được nhập và định dạng lại; CC BY-SA 4.0, có thể áp dụng điều khoản bổ sung của tác phẩm.