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| Introduction to Eline Vere |

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What follows is a brief summary of the novel's main story line. This will allow you to place the two excerpts in context.

The novel's eponymous heroine is a dreamy and wistful young woman who lives in The Hague with her sister Betsy. Whereas Betsy, with her practical outlook on life, takes after their deceased mother, Eline is much more like their father, a painter who had also died some years before without having realized his artistic dreams. The two sisters belong to a clique of well-to-do families and try to escape boredom by immersing themselves in a never-ending series of parties.

Eline's pretty smile and almond shaped eyes capture the hearts of many admirers. Four men in particular play an important part in her life: they are the opera singer Theo Fabrice, her nephew Vincent Vere, Otto van Erlevoort to whom she becomes engaged and, finally, the American Lawrence St. Clare. Yet, Eline's romantic expectations are so high that none of the men can live up to them. Eline becomes more and more convinced that she is driven towards destruction and that she lacks the power to change her fate. One evening, in a desperate effort to go to sleep she takes more than the prescribed dose of morphine and poised between peace and fear of death dies. The image is of a bronze statue of Eline Vere, the eponymous heroine of Couperus's novel. It dates from 1970 and was sculpted by Van der Nahmer

In the following sections, you will find:

• an audio version of the two extracts plus unmarked text to which you may wish to return at intervals (>link)
  
  
• a version with explanations of difficult words (>link) together with an English translation

However, before you study the text in the original Dutch, it may be useful to read an English summary (>link) of the excerpts first.

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