Dutch · Intermediate
Read Noodlot in Dutchwith every sentence explained
English title: Footsteps of Fate
Louis Couperus · 1890
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About the book
Noodlot by Louis Couperus was first published in 1890. In Passage you read the full text in the original Dutch, marked intermediate and filed under romance and thriller and suspense. It runs to about 45,200 words.
A snowy London night. A starving old friend at the door. One act of kindness that sets fate in motion.
Frank Westhove, a young Dutchman living comfortably in a little villa near Primrose Hill, is walking home through the snow when a ragged figure steps out of the dark: Bertie van Maeren, his closest friend from boyhood, penniless and desperate. Frank takes him in without a second thought. Soon Bertie is sharing his house, his money and his days — soft-voiced, charming, indispensable.
Then, on a summer journey through Norway, Frank meets the bright, spirited Eve and her father, Sir Archibald. Love comes quickly and simply. But Bertie has grown used to the easy life Frank gives him, and he has no intention of losing it…
Short, tense and full of foreboding, Footsteps of Fate (1890) shows Louis Couperus at his most gripping: a psychological thriller about friendship, jealousy and the dark forces that drive us. It was filmed in 1927.
- Author
- Louis Couperus
- First published
- 1890
- Language
- Dutch
- Level
- Intermediate
- Genre
- Romance, Thriller and Suspense
- Length
- About 45,200 words
How it opens
De handen in de zakken, den kraag van zijn pels op, ging Frank door het stuiven der sneeuw voort, langs den eenzamen Adelaïde-Road, in den avond. Toen hij het villa-tje naderde, waar hij woonde,—White-Rose, geheel gedoken, gedompeld, verzonken in de blankheid der sneeuw, als een nestje in watten,—zag hij iemand op zich afkomen, van Primrose-Hill. Hij richtte zijn blik vast op het gelaat van den man, die hem blijkbaar wilde aanspreken; niet wetende wat deze in zijn schild voerde in dien eenzamen sneeuwnacht, en hij was zeer verbaasd, toen hij in het Hollandsch hoorde:
Reading Noodlot in Passage
Passage sets the book as a quiet, paginated reader in Dutch. Read at your own pace, and when a sentence stops you, tap it. You get:
- a natural translation of that exact sentence,
- a short note on the grammar, in plain words,
- the key words, which you can save with the sentence they came from,
- all of it in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish or Portuguese, whichever you read best.
It's marked intermediate: comfortable once everyday Dutch feels familiar, with the harder sentences one tap away. The words you save come back later in short review games, so the book keeps teaching after you close it.
