At this scene hot tears for the first time filled Karla’s eyes. She was only now affected by domestic bliss when deprived of all means of winning it for herself. Now for the first time she understood the meaning of domestic happiness, and in watching those frolicking children she seemed to eye a paradise from which she was for ever debarred. In this penetrating warmth she completely forgot the inclement weather she had endured, and gazed so long and fondly at those beaming merry childish faces that she could have kissed them as though she were their own mother.
What had hitherto never spoken to her heart now made itself felt when she was bereft of everything. As if at the touch of an enchanter’s wand the scales fell from her eyes and what all her instructors failed to awaken in her, now began to speak with a hundred tongues.
The name of family had hitherto struck her ear, as only an empty formula, now she seemed to hear a fountain which bubbled from the ground.
From the kitchen they did not observe Karla. They were too much occupied with one another, too full of what we call happiness: the mother at the sight of her children, the children in the consciousness of having their mother with them. That look sated Karla like the scent of fruit and flowers, she felt there was spring in the world only that she had never been touched by its warmth. The icy crust which had hitherto surrounded her life melted at the sight: she felt how greatly impoverished she had been hitherto as to all the sentiments of bliss, she comprehended what bliss is, but that bliss was no more her own but others.
The smell of the dishes awakened the child in her arms and it began to wail. The children exclaimed that some woman was outside and their mother closed the door.
This sickened Karla. What had she done to them that they grudged her even a sight of themselves? Were they the poorer because some one looked at them and envied their happiness? And she had never begged for anything; the door had been opened because the heat oppressed them and Karla appropriated no more of that heat than the wall by the door would have absorbed. Did the looks she cast on them outrage them and did it disturb their tranquillity by resting with pleasure on the picture of their domestic happiness? Might her glances have penetrated as far as the door, and were they forbidden to cross the threshold? As a moment before felt touched and softened she now saw clearly the full extent of her misery.
