and when my head-ache is gone, I shall start all this work over again.”
They were silent, hand in hand; for a moment they had found each other again, were like two sisters. Then Bertha went on:
“When I lie here like this, with my head-aches, I always think of my children. . . . Yes, it was nice of you to come, Connie. Was Addie out with Henri, did you say? Isn’t it morbid of Henri to be so melancholy? But my children are so dependent on one another, almost more than on their parents. Otto and Louise are always together; and then Frances is jealous. The two boys at Leiden are always together; and Henri was always with his sisters too; and Marianne misses Emilie. And still, notwithstanding that feeling for one another, notwithstanding that we do everything for them, notwithstanding that all our thoughts are for them, notwithstanding all we spend on them and for them, my children are not happy. Not one of them has received—what shall I say?—the gift of happiness. It is strange; it is as if life lay heavy upon all of them and as if they were too small, too weak to bear the burden of it. Tell me, Constance, what is your boy like?”
“I don’t think he is like that.”
“But then he is old for his years, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but he is very sensible.”
“Yes, he is a little man.”
“He is strong, in mind as well as in body. I was going to say that he is just as though he were not
