"What are you afraid of?"
"I have sad thoughts."
"That is sheer melancholy."
"A melancholy which is a presentiment . . . on days like these . . ."
"And everything is well."
"Only the material things."
"Be happy in that your life is so richly filled, both yours and Hans'. . . . It's a life of the richest security . . . with all that you do."
"With all that we do? We do nothing!"
"You do a great deal . . . for people who are small!" he smiled.
"For small souls! . . . Do we do enough?"
"You do a great deal."
She shook her head:
"I don't. . . . Hans does: he is good."
"Just simply good. . . . Tell me, is it merely because of the weather that things don't seem to run smoothly?"
"No, material things aren't everything."
"Is it because of Addie?"
"Perhaps. I can't say. I feel an oppression, here." She put both her hands to her heart. "It's always liable to come, a day . . ."
"Yes."
"A day of sorrow, illness, wretchedness . . . of misfortune . . . of disaster."
"Why should you think that?"
"I often think it: now there's a misfortune coming, a disaster. . . . I sit and wait for it. . . Oh, I've been waiting for it for months! . . . . The children look at me, ask me what's the matter, whether anything has happened . . . with Mathilde. . . . No, nothing ever happens. . . . There is no sympathy between us . . . but I, I am
