she nervously tidied something in her room and put away her clothes. When he entered, she was sitting in a big arm-chair, looking very pale. . . .
But Mathilde, angry that Addie had refused to come skating, suddenly felt a violent jealousy, a violent, dagger-sharp jealousy in her soul, because Addie had spoken of patients who expected him and because he had spoken of Marietje. And, in her room, undecided whether to go or not, whether to stay indoors and sulk or to seek her amusement without her husband, she suddenly felt an irresistible impulse to follow her husband upstairs. She went; and, in order to keep in countenance should she meet anybody, she resolved that she would pretend to be fetching a coat hanging in a wardrobe-closet next to Marietje's room. The wardrobes were used for clothes that were not worn every day. Entering the closet, she softly closed the door and held her keys in her hand: if she were surprised, she would quietly open the big wardrobe. Meanwhile she listened at the partition. And she heard the voices of her husband and Marietje as though they were sounding across a distance and an obstacle:
"How did you sleep, Marietje?"
"I haven't slept at all."
"What was the matter?"
"All night long I had a buzzing in my ears. . . . It was a roaring and roaring like the sea. . . . I wanted to get up and come downstairs . . . to Auntie, but I was afraid to . . . and I didn't want to disturb the house. . . . It was just like waves. . . . I didn't sleep at all. . . . And then I dream, I dream while I lie awake. . . . All sorts of things flash out before me, like visions. . . . And it makes the night so long, so endless. . . . And I feel so tired now and above all so hopeless. I shall never get well."
