Two more girls were born to him, but it was not the same thing; the void left by the one who had passed away could never be filled.
Life was a hard struggle. The young wife who had once been like—like no other woman on earth, had gradually lost her glamour; the gilding had worn off the home which had once been so bright and beautiful. The children had bruised and dented their mother’s wedding presents, spoiled the beds and kicked the legs of the furniture. The stuffing of the sofa was plainly visible here and there, and the piano had not been opened for years. The noise made by the children had drowned the music and the voices had become harsh. The words of endearment had been cast off with the baby clothes, caresses had deteriorated into a sort of massage. They were growing old and weary. Papa was no longer on his knees before mama, he sat in his shabby armchair and asked her for a match when he wanted to light his pipe. Yes, they were growing old.
When papa had reached his fiftieth year, mama died. Then the past awoke and knocked at his heart. When her broken body, which the last agony had robbed of its few remaining charms, had been laid in its grave, the picture of his fourteen-year-old sweetheart arose in his memory. It was for her, whom he had lost so long ago that he mourned now, and with his yearning for her came remorse. But he had never been unkind to the old mama; he had been faithful to the fourteen-year-old vicar’s daughter whom he had worshipped on his knees but had never led to the altar, for he had married an anaemic young woman of twenty-four. If he were to be quite candid, he would have to confess that it was she for whom he mourned; it was true, he also missed the good cooking and unremitting care of the old mama, but that was a different thing.
He was on more intimate terms with his children, now; some of them had left the old nest, but others were still at home.
When he had bored his friends for a whole year with anecdotes of the deceased, an extraordinary coincidence happened. He met a young girl of eighteen, with fair hair, and a striking resemblance to his late wife, as she had been at fourteen. He saw in this coincidence the finger of a bountiful providence, willing to bestow on him at last the first one, the well-beloved. He fell in love with her because she resembled the first one. And he married her. He had got her at last.
But his children, especially the girls, resented his second marriage. They found the relationship between their father and step-mother improper; in their opinion he had been unfaithful to their mother. And they left his house and went out into the world.
He was happy! And his pride in his young wife exceeded even his happiness.
“Only the aftermath!” said his old friends.
When a year had gone by, the young wife presented him with a baby. Papa, of course, was no longer used to a baby’s crying, and wanted his night’s rest. He insisted on a separate bed-room for himself, heedless of his wife’s tears; really, women were a nuisance sometimes. And, moreover, she was jealous of his first wife. He had been fool enough to tell her of the extraordinary likeness which existed between the two and had let her read his first wife’s love-letters. She brooded over these facts now that he neglected her. She realised that she had inherited all the first one’s pet names, that she was only her understudy, as it were. It irritated her and the attempt to win him for herself led her into all sorts of mischief. But she only succeeded in boring him, and in silently comparing the two women, his verdict was entirely in favour of the first one. She had been so much more gentle than the second who exasperated him. The longing for his children, whom he had driven from their home increased his regret, and his sleep was disturbed by bad dreams for he was haunted by the idea that he had been unfaithful to his first wife.
His home was no longer a happy one. He had done a deed, which he would much better have left undone.