The Sin of Joost Avelingh. A Dutch story

Introduction

I I. ' A STRAP UNDER HIS HEART ' . . . "J II. 'SANTA CLAUS ' ..... II III. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ . . . . . 17 IV. JOOST STUDIES MEDICINE . . . . 31 V. THE ICE-PARTY ...... 39 VI. WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE . . . 5 1 VII. THE CLAIMS OP RANK 56 VIII. THE CLAIMS OP LOVE .... 62 IX. 'found wanting' 67 X. MADAME DE MONTELIMART .... 75 XI. THE CUP FLOWS OVER .... 85 XII. CHARITY ....... 92 XIII. LOOKS BACK . . . . . . 102 XIV. MONEY-MAKING MADE EASY .... 107 XV. 'ARE YOU ILL, AVELINGH?' . . . 115 XVI. THE JONKER'S LEGACY . . . . 1 26 XVII. UNDER THE SURFACE 132 XVIII. MURDER WILL OUT 1 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE xix. 'wanted' . . . . . • I52 XX. 'GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME' . . • I°3 XXI. JAN LORENTZ . . . . . • J68 XXII. THE TRIAL . . . • • • x79 XXIII. TIIE TURNING POINT . . ■ • J94 XXIV. DAS EWIG WEIBLICHE ZIEHT UNS HINAN . 200 XXV.

THE VERDICT . . . . ■ • 2I2 XXVI. AFTER THE VERDICT . . . • 213 XXVII. AVELINGH V. AVELINGH . . . . 2l8 XXVIII. LIBERTY LOST AND REGAINED . . . 228 XXIX. A ' LETTRE DE FAIRE PART ' . . . 233 XXX. DOCTOR AVELINGH 's THEORY . . . 24O XXXI. JOOST'S LABOURS FOR OTHERS BEAR FRUIT FOR HIMSELF ..... 246 XXXII. INTERVIEWING THE CANDIDATE . . 254 XXXIII. MORE ABOUT THE MAD COUNTESS . . 259 XXXIV. BLINDFOLD NOT LOVE IF LOVE BE BLIND . 267 XXXV. THE ELECTION . . . . . 274 XXXVI. JOOST SURRENDERS ..... 285 XXXVII. 'COULD WE DO ELSE?' .... 291 XXXVIII. WHAT SHOULD IT PROFIT A MAN 1 . 293 XXXIX. JOOST MEETS VAN ASVELD FOR THE LAST TIME ...... 300 XL. THE CONFESSION ..... 305 XLI. THE WORLD'S FAREWELL TO JOOST AVELINGH THE SIN OF JOOST AVELINGH

INTRODUCTION.

It had stopped raining. Had it not stopped raining ? The grumpy old fellow who keeps the small grocery store on the Hoester road crept to his door and looked out. You know the little shop, if you know the neighbourhood at all, the low house with the lollipop jars in its square-paned window. The old grocer stood shading his eyes with his hand to see better, as men will do in excess of darkness — strangely enough — as well as in excess of light. He was asking himself for the twentieth time that evening whether it was worth his while to cross the shining, slippery road and have his customary chat with his friend, the innkeeper opposite. It was not so dark but that he could see the long, straight highway vaguely stretching away on both sides in a shimmer of steaming wet beneath the glittering drip, drip of its lines of trees.

In fact, the light was coming through more and more every minute. High up among the clouds the wind was busy at his lace-weaving, lifting and spreading and intertangling puffs of black and white and grey in an ever thinner veil, for the moon to look through. And she, as if to bid him continue, was sending A forth feeble rays that crept slowly down upon the httle cluster of some half-a-dozen cottages which lie huddled like a knot in a rope— halfway down the long, lonely road between Heist and Hoest. Decidedly, the clouds must have stopped raining, even if the trees had not. The Baas came to the conclusion that crossing might be worth his while. Whether it was a craving for the innkeeper's company, or for his customary steaming ' nightcap,' that influenced his decision, it were needless, and perhaps invidious, to enquire.

He toddled through the mud towards the dim light over the way. ' Innkeeper ' is, in fact, although it has been used already, too imposing a word to apply to old Wurmers. The cottage opposite, with one narrow window beside the door, and one square window over it, is the smallest even of small Dutch public-houses. A broad hoop, painted a bright green, with ' Tappery, Slytery ' on it in golden letters, stands out above the entrance, and in the window a solitary card, the advertisement of a Bavarian Brewery, hangs before a blue wire-work screen. Within, all is stale smoke and bitters. A low box of a room, with a bar, a number of shelves full of bottles, a square deal table and two or three wicker chairs. The grocer pushed open the door ; the master of the house came shambling forward. He was old, like the other man, with faded red hair, and he walked lame. ' A bad night,' he said, ' no customers.' ' So much the better for the Temperance people,' chuckled the grocer. ' There's a meeting down at Heist to-night.

Ha ! Ha ! I know what they say : " God made water and fire, and the devil brewed fire-water out of them." ' ' God made all things,' said the other piously ; he was a pious publican, a Publican and a Pharisee, a type not unknown in Holland — nor elsewhere, for the matter of that.

INTRODUCTION.

3 ' Even gin ? ' asked the grocer, with a queer grin, as he took the glass Baas Wurmers held out to him. ' Gin more than most things,' replied the publican sen tentiously. 'At the marriage-feast of Cana, a village where it appears there were not enough wineshops — ' But the devil's reasoning on the devil's behalf was suddenly cut short. The noise of advancing wheels, to which both old cronies had been lending a vague atten tion, during the last few seconds, stopped abruptly outside. A rough voice was heard calling and swearing. Both men hurried to the door as fast as their shaky legs could carry them. A one-horse chaise was drawn up in the middle of the road, its lamps flashing in broad sweeps over the mud and dimly revealing under the hood the figures of two men, a younger one driving, and an older one at his side.

It was the older man who had cried out, and he now repeated his demand, in the same loud, blustering voice. ' A borrel,' (dram) he shouted, ' a borrel, you damned old stupid ! What else should a man stop for at your hole of a house on such a damned cold night as this ? ' The younger man sat silent. Behind, in the open dicky, was a servant, half-asleep. The gin was brought without a word of greeting. Free Dutch burghers do not like being sworn at. It was gulped down amid a multiplicity of oaths, the last at the driver for tarrying ; and then the carriage dashed off again into the darkness, its lights playing ' catch me and kiss me ' with the few moonbeams that lingered among the trees. The two men stood watching it out of sight. ' Those are not going to the Temperance meeting,' said the tavern-keeper. ' Poor young fellow,' muttered the grumpy old grocer.

And they went in. The chaise passed swiftly down the road, hoofs and wheels plashing straight through big and little puddles. Conversation there was none between the two occupants, unless an occasional muttered oath from the one, or an angry whip-cut from the other, can claim the dignity of that name. A good deal of intercourse, doubtless, may be kept up by such intermittent signs as these. The younger man sat silent, with a white face and tightly compressed lips, holding the reins firmly, and driving fast, fast. The older one, whose wrathful ejaculations had been gradually dying away in longer intervals, suddenly shook himself together and burst into a torrent of meaningless invective. His companion shrank slightly away, against the farther side of the hood, but answered never a word. And then, a few minutes later, the angry man foamed over, as it were, bubbling and spluttering and choking, till he fell back in a heap, limp, clumsy, huddled up, his voice lost in a sudden whisper, a gasp — then a prolonged gurgle, broken once or twice by a stronger effort, like a groan.

The younger man sat silent, holding the reins firmly, and driving fast, fast. And so they passed on swiftly between the dripping trees. The lights of Heist were standing out and growing larger every moment. The figure in the corner stopped its gurgling, gave a faint gasp, then another — and was still. The chaise rolled along the road for some minutes longer, then jolted over rough paving stones, between straggling oil-lamps. Suddenly the still, motionless figure fell forward; the young man sat silent, and drove on. At last, with a clash that dragged the horse down on its hindlegs and sent flakes of mud flying up over both men and right back into the hood, the chaise stopped. Without heeding his reins, the driver jumped out and

INTRODUCTION.

5 ran round to a house-door. He rang a furious peal that seemed to wake the servant in the dicky, who pulled himself together and tumbled out. The door was thrown open; there was light in the hall, streaming out to meet the carriage-lamps. A maid servant had come forward, and, immediately after her, a little old gentleman in black. ' Is the Notary in ? ' said the young man in a dead voice; and the little old gentleman in black immediately cried back from the hall : ' Why, you see that he is ! ' 'There's something wrong, I believe,' the other went on hurriedly, ' we were coming to see you. He — ' he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder — ' he is ill, I fea — fancy. He — I don't quite know.' The Notary hurried to the chaise. He touched the man lying in it, lying half off the seat, with his body falling forward over his knees.

He shook him gently at first and called to him in a voice growing shriller and more shaky every moment, then turned and impatiently summoned the young driver, motionless under the hall lamp, — turned again and addressed the groom, awake now and curious at the horse's head. Together lawyer and man-servant dragged the heavy, insensible body down out of the chaise, and laid it, all bespattered with mud as it was, on the marble floor of the bare little hall. They laid it down against the wall ; where the maid no sooner saw it, motionless, with purple face and staring eyes, than she pressed her hand against her bosom and went off into a series of smart little screams, a tribute she considered she owed to her feelings. The young man stood as if struck to stone, with his fists clenched at his side.

He did not offer to help the Notary who, rapidly taking the matter into his own hands, undid a red silk comforter tied tightly round the sick man's throat and, opening his underclothes, laid a more or less steady hand on the heart. While doing so, he cast one or two quick, cross glances at the young man under the lamp. ' How white he looks ! ' he thought, ' and how strangely he presses his teeth together ! I should not have thought him such a coward. For it can't be his love for the old man that makes him look like that.' The subject of these considerations watched every movement eagerly. The maid sat down in a heap on the stairs, and moaned, and rocked herself. The Notary, running for some brandy, stumbled over her, and abused her in passing. The groom stood staring sheepishly ; no one offered any assistance.

It was the Notary who chafed the numb hands and forehead and poured a few drops down the throat and did a number of useless, and even of unwise things, from which he at last stood up, panting, despairing. The young man broke the painful silence. 'He is ill,' he said, with the same toneless voice he had spoken in before. ' 111 ! ' cried the Notary impatiently. ' 111 ! He is dead.' The young man fell down on his knees and burst into a passion of weeping. ' God forgive me,' he cried, ' I would give the world it were not so ! ' Part I.— BEFORE

Chapter I

'a strap under his heart' ' And this,' said Agatha, as she tied a bow over one of many parcels, ' is for Joost.' * ' Poor Joost ! ' cried a chorus of voices. And then they all laughed. The ladies of the family were assembled round a table in the big living-room — the home-room, as we say in Holland — portly, self-satisfied Mevrouw van Hessel and her three unmarried daughters, Agatha, Anna, and Elisabeth, or rather, to designate them in the euphonious accents of their native tongue, Agapiet, Annemie and Bettekoo. It was the eve of Santa Claus — the 5th of December, the most important social event of the year. In an hour or so Mevrouw van Hessel's married daughter would arrive with her husband the secretary and their three young children, and then the gentlemen would come in from the smoking-room, and there would be great goings on round that big table laden with presents. * Pronounce ' Yoost ' with a ' y ' as in yoke, not joke.

S THE SIN OF JOOST A VELINGH Joost was coming too. ' Oh yes, of course ; ask Joost, had said good-natured Mynheer van Hessel, as he stood with his hand on the door-knob a day or two ago. 'But Santa Claus is a family festival,' expostulated Mevrouw, ' and Joost is not one of the family.' ' Conceptus,' began Mynheer, very slowly and impres sively, 'pro nato habetur quotiescunque de eius commodo agitur, so you see, my dear, Joost has a right to come. Send him an invitation, Agapiet,' and he opened the door and closed it behind him with wonderful rapidity. Mynheer van Hessel knew that he seldom got his own way at home ; he did not mind that as a rule, but he had also learnt long ago by experience that his only chance of gaining respect occasionally lay in puzzling his far cleverer and more imperious wife.

He remembered very little Latin out of his college days, but that little not infre quently came in useful. ' After all,' said Madame, ' men have far more opportunities than we.' She admired what she considered her husband's learning, while she somewhat despised his want of sense. But in reality Burgomaster van Hessel was a sensible man, of very slender intellectual acquirements, with a turn for what he considered wit, and his friends tomfoolery. His intellectual acquirements, by-the-bye, were the only slender thing about him. So his daughter wrote her note, and received a favour able answer. ' And this,' she said, with her hand on a little brown paper bundle, ' is for Joost.' ' What is it ? ' cried mother and sisters in a breath. Agatha smiled, blushed, looked at her parcel, looked at them, twirled it in her fingers, and laid it down again. 1 It is something new,' she said, hesitatingly. ' At least, you never hear of it here.

But I thought — ' ' What is it ? ' cried Bettekoo, who was always im patient. ' You know, I read about them in " That Charming •A STRAP UNDER HIS HEART' 9 Curate." It appears that in England they are quite a customary present to gentlemen, and so useful.' ' But what are they ? ' almost screamed Bettekoo.' ' A pair of embroidered braces.' 'Embroidered braces,' said Annemie, the beauty, slowly and sneeringly. ' Who ever heard of such a thing.' Agatha was not a beauty; she was only beautiful. At least, so all the good people thought. A fair-haired, fair-cheeked maiden of nineteen summers, with graceful, gentle features and full blue eyes that seemed to say : ' Love me, for I love others and deserve to be loved.' 'Poor Joost,' she said, 'I thought it would be quite a new kind of thing to give him, and he wants, as I shall tell him, a strap under his heart.'* ' But braces,' cried Bettekoo, ' Oh, Agapiet, to a gentleman ! ' ' We ought not to know they wear them,' remarked the beauty languidly. ' Fancy, supposing they were to begin giving us stays ! ' ' It is not the same thing at all,' cried Agatha, hotly. ' In England everybody gives everybody else embroidered braces.

I mean all the gentlemen; no, all the ladies, I mean. And the English are a very proper nation.' ' I consider it an extremely improper and indelicate selection,' said Mevrouw van Hessel. ' No Dutch maiden who respects her feelings would allude to any such article in the presence of strangers. Nor can I allow any daughter of mine to give anything of the kind to a — a man.' By this time Agatha's cheeks were crimson. She rue fully fingered her little parcel ; and the red rosebuds over which she had spent so many an hour, seemed to burn their way up through the paper and smart in her very eyes. She knew that it was no use trying to reason with Dutch idiom. her mother, who habitually found all opinions unreason able but her own. 'So few people can argue,' said Mevrouw van Hessel, meaning that, as a rule, so few people agreed with her. 'But I shall have nothing to give Joost ! ' cried poor Agatha.

Her father, entering at the moment, caught the words. ' Nothing for Joost ? ' he asked. ' How is that ? ' 'Agatha should have prepared amore appropriate gift,' answered Mevrouw. ' Some articles are not fit to be mentioned, and some subjects not fit to be discussed.' Agatha held out her parcel with a glance of mingled mirth and misery, and Mynheer van Hessel extracted the objectionable braces. He looked comically grave. 'They are very pretty,' he said, and, — 'No ; give them to him in a year or two.' ' And why in a year or two ? ' queried Madame. ' It's a pity,' continued Monsieur, ' that you did not rather choose slippers, Agapiet. That would have been harmless, and an appropriate emblem ! ' ' I do not understand you,' cut in his spouse, — which was true ; she rarely understood his smallest jokes. ' There is no reason why Agatha should give slippers, or anything else, to Joost.

I have got something for him, and so have the other girls, and Kees. Agatha is growing too old for that sort of thing. And besides, it is her own fault, surely, but girls are so unreasonable.' ' In England, — ' began Agatha. 'In England ! We are not in England, thank Heaven,' snapped Mevrouw, who was a good woman, but did not like being bothered. ' In England,' said Mynheer, ' girls talk of " inex pressibles" and yet embroider braces. In England the highest honours are a garter and a bath. Never mind ; tell him that, next year, you will give him the best present he can get, Agapiet.' 'SANTA CLAUS 11 'But then I have got nothing for this evening,' said Agapiet.

Chapter II

' SANTA CLAUS ' An hour or two later the big room was lighted up, and full of movement and conversation. A buzz of excitement round a table laden with parcels, large and small, some unwieldy, some fantastic : flowerpots, cigar-boxes, pails of water, piles of plates. It is the custom in Holland to send these Santa Claus presents, done up in so-called ' surprises,' no gift being in reality what it seems at the first moment. A book is a box. A cigar-case contains six real cigars and one imitation one with a breast-pin inside it. A plate full of food has a false bottom ; an oyster hides pearl ear-drops ; a dead mouse in a trap is caught with its neck in a diamond ring. Elaborate imitations of the most various articles are spread out in the shops, costing as much in themselves as many a hand some present, but most families prefer to spend their in genuity — and not their half-pence — in the fashioning of their own surprises, often from odds and ends, and often from household articles ' which please return,' all little incidents of the current year, individual peculiarities and family traditions, being taken into due account.

Nor are ill-natured jokes altogether unknown ; many a learned professor or pompous official has been unpleasantly re minded of his idiosyncrasies on the Eve of Santa Claus. Years have robbed the feast of much of its simplicity. There is no limit now-a-days to the present-sending from house to house, and the things themselves have grown costlier and costlier, till the whole custom threatens to become a nuisance. The thrifty Dutchman, who rarely spends a penny on ornament of any kind all the year round, overleaps all bounds at ' Sinterklass '-tide. And feasting — gorging, guzzling — plays, alas, the most important role of all ; sugar— enough to nauseate a Polyphemus —being unfortunately the chief ingredient. Great blocks and rounds of sugar (with a little fruit flavouring); chocolate letters, half-a-yard long and a couple of inches thick; almond-paste letters, still larger; ginger-bread dolls, weighing many pounds of unwholesome sweetness, — mountains of every kind of rich foreign confectionery are spread out and piled up in lines of shops, a very Paradise Row for the children.

All Holland turns out into the streets, and comes home laden with parcels. All Holland is apt to eat itself sick, and the doctors hold their feast-day on the morrow. If it may be truly said that to the intelligent foreigner (with the pictorials as his guide books) Christmas in England is all beef and plum-pudding, plus an occasional carol for the sake of old associations, it is no less certain that Santa Claus in Holland is all sugar cake and gingerbread, but then, it must be added, in common fairness, that the latter is not, and does not pre tend to be, a religious festival from the first. The van Hessels were simple old-fashioned people, but they had a large circle of friends. So their door-bell kept ringing ceaselessly on that important evening, and after each ring a maid-servant would come running in with a parcel, a stiff cap and a beaming face.

Then there were shouts and cries and questions. For whom is it? From whom is it ? the latter question often remaining unanswered, for it is an essential rule of the proceedings that all presents are from ' Santa Claus.' The festival is originally a children's one, and the good bishop, the great 'SANTA CLAUS' 13 lover of children, rides round with his African servants at night, passing down all the chimneys, as you can see for yourself, if you look into the little boots at daybreak. There is a dreadful tradition that he asks the parents if he must leave presents or a rod ? It is often mentioned during the year, but it would appear that no Dutch father has ever considered his own children so very, very naughty — whatever he might have advised if consulted about neighbour's ' Jacky ' — or else, judging by the ex emption of some little wretches, St Nicholas cannot draw the line much under parricide.

But Mevrouw van Hessel's grand-children — the little Verrooy's — though they too had been threatened with the rod at intervals lately, had never really deserved it. The two youngest still firmly believed in Santa Claus, the eldest — six, and ' no longer a child ' — was beginning to waver and confuse him with her father. Her uncle Kees's reiterated assertion that the bishop was coming presently, that she would really — now really, you know — see him herself, was nevertheless beginning to tell upon her. In the meantime all three children with sparkling eyes and burning cheeks, were skipping from one aunt to the other round the ever-increasing confusion on the table. There was a great gingerbread sweetheart for everyone, of course, and an indigestible almond letter, and parcels innumerable, boxes and papers, taking up twice as much room again in the delicious medley of unpacking.

Mevrouw van Hessel sat with a great sack of genuine potatoes before her among which she had long hunted for the hollow one ; Kees* — twenty and at college — had wanted to uncork all the bottles in his wine basket (prevented in time) before he perceived that papa had stuck a banknote in an envelope behind one of the labels. And Annemie, the beauty, had, amid much laughter, unpacked a hat on which her younger brother * Short for ' Cornelius.' Klaas* had lavished cheap green and yellow ribbons, fastened together by a tiny Greenaway brooch. That was a pardonable hit at Annemie's appreciation of her own good looks. Joost was there also. He had not so many presents, because he had not so many friends, He did not sit staring vacantly at half-a-dozen articles, wondering who ever could have sent them, and what he was to do with them now they had come.

He was not troubled by the pre-occupation of the girls van Hessel, lest they should reach a lower number than their acquaintances, and Bettekoo's repeated : ' Oh I hope we shall pass the hundred this year ! ' struck him as foolish, if it struck him at all. He had unfastened his parcels one by one as they were brought to him, and guessed at the donors. It was not so difficult under these circumstances because he scarcely had to look beyond the circle around him. His first paper had revealed a card-case with a little em broidered vignette. He had held it in his hand for a long time, wanting to say : ' Agatha,' but something that made his heart go pit-a-pat had forced out ' Bettekoo.' He was quite sorry to find he had guessed aright, and then ashamed of himself for feeling sorry. And so he had successively found out Mevrouw van Hessel, Mevrouw Verrooy, and Annemie ; and now only one parcel re mained.

This, then, surely, must be Agatha's. He took off a number of papers and disclosed a small black leather case. His hands trembled a little as he opened it and gazed down on a Meerschaum cigar-holder. He felt now instinctively that he must keep back the one word that was pushing to the front, and yet, looking round, he stammered out : ' Agatha.' There was a general laugh, and Kees, the giver of the pipe, slapped him on the back and cried ' Bravo,' and so Joost was miserable for the rest of the evening. Short for ' Nicholas.' 'SANTA CLAUS' 15 ' Agatha's present is not yet quite ready,' said Mynheer van Hessel. 'I tell her she must wait to give it you until—' 1 And here is something new,' cried Mevrouw, as the folding-doors were thrown open. A personage entered, of reverend aspect, with flowing beard of cotton-wool, robed in a crimson mantle and wear ing a bishop's mitre.

In his hand he carried a well-stuffed bag, and as he slowly advanced, he told his name and mission : St Nicholas, the good bishop, friend and patron of all good children. The two smaller Verrooy's stood staring curiously; but when the Saint asked gravely, if there were any such good children there ? the youngest promptly answered : ' Yes,' and they held out their hands for their presents and scrambled gleefully for the sweetmeats which were soon being scattered all over the floor from the Bishop's inexhaustible bag. But the eldest, ' who was no more a child,' shrank back nervously, being old enough to question, and would not take courage, till Kees, the very person who had done most to convince her, took pity and whispered : ' It was only Uncle Klaas,' thereby dispelling all belief in Saint Nicholas, in good fairies, ghosts, and good fortune — for ever.

The disappearance of Saint Nicholas heralded the departure of the children who went off, laden with more goodies than they could eat in a month, and more toys than they could comfortably break in a week. Then, all the parcels having been opened, a lull fell on the party, till Bettekoo, who was the sprightliest of the family, pro posed a new game she had recently seen played, a French game, you know, — they call it ' Combles,' — in which every player has to give his definition of some ' Combie ' selected beforehand. Le Combie de l'ennui, le Combie de la betise, le Combie de l'avarice and so forth; you agree on a special subject, and then give your idea of its non plus ultra; the best definition to gain the prize. Le Combie du pleonasme was chosen, and Mevrouw van Hessel led off with ' a reasonable argument,' at which her husband shook his head.

Then came Kees with ' unnecessary superfluity,' Annemie with ' attractive beauty' ('very bad,' said Kees) and Mynheer van Hessel with ' unreasonable woman,' accompanied by a triumphant look at his wife. And now it was Joost's turn. He had got his pleonasm ready beforehand and was burning to say ' Fair Agatha;' but at last he feared it would be considered immodest, and so he said : ' good Agatha ' instead. ' Right,' said Kees. ' Why ? ' asked Bettekoo, who was not aware that Agatha means 'good.' ' You should have said ' fair Agatha,' remarked Myn heer van Hessel. ' In my youth, when men were still gallant, every cavalier would have said " fair Agatha " ; but you youngsters cannot turn a neat compliment now a-days.' It did not comfort Joost much after this that ' good Agatha ' gained the prize. ♦ ' Goodbye,' said Agatha, at the hall-door, ' I — I had got something for you, Joost ; only mamma did not like what I had chosen, and — ' ' Ask Agatha for her present, Joost ! ' called out Myn heer van Hessel. ' I don't think mamma would like the present I should ask,' said Joost to himself, as he walked out briskly into the frosty night. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ 17