"I would gladly submit to all this if I were only liked at home; but all I do, and all I say, is hateful to him; and I do no harm. Am I not frugal and industrious, and ready to work still harder? But up here we are as if in a grave." These thoughts made Annele start up, and as she stood beside her child's cradle, she recalled a dream of the past night. On this occasion she had not dreamt of agreeable drives, or of visiting a pleasant inn; she thought she was standing beside her open grave. She saw it quite distinctly, and the clods of earth from the heap that had been dug out. "A bad omen," said she aloud, and stood long immovable and trembling.
At last she shook off this feeling of depression, and thought, "I will not die yet, I have not yet lived out my life, either at home or here."
She wept in pity for herself, and her thoughts wandered years back, when she had imagined it would be so delightful to live with a husband she loved in solitude, knowing nothing of the busy life of the world, for she was sick of the constant tumult of an inn, where she could not help suspecting, though she did not know it for a fact, that the whole extravagant mode of going on rested on a very tottering foundation. It was the fault of her husband, that she longed for a more profitable business to employ her dormant talents.
"He is like his musical clocks; they play their own melodies, but are incapable of listening to those of others."
In the midst of her depression, she could not resist smiling at this comparison. Her thoughts strayed farther; she would gladly have been submissive to a husband who showed the world that he had courage to be master, but not to one who did nothing all day but stick in pegs.
"But you knew well what he was," whispered conscience.
"Yes; but not exactly," was her answer; "not exactly."
"But has he not a good heart?"
"Yes, towards men in general, but not towards me. No one has ever been domesticated with him, so no one knows how full of odd humours he is, and how wild and strange he can be. But this can go on no longer; as we cannot gain a livelihood by clockmaking, we must by something else."
This was always Annele's grand conclusion, and her thoughts incessantly revolved round this point. She wished to employ her experience as a landlady in a well frequented inn, to which people would flock from far and near; and then, when she had plenty to occupy her, and was daily making money, and had other people to order about, quiet hours and happy days would return.