Van de koele meren des doods
Frederik Willem van Eeden
 The novel relates the story of Hedwig Marga de Fontayne, the scion of a wealthy family, whose sexual frustration manifests itself as a death drive. sexually frustrated, Hedwig marries but then runs off to England with a piano player. A child is born but dies quickly, and Hedwig goes to Paris, where she becomes a prostitute to support her morphine addiction. Destitute and descending into madness, she is admitted to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, to the psychiatric ward where a friendly nurse helps her beat her addiction. She returns to the Netherlands, and spends her last years with a family that formerly farmed on the family's lands.