Throughout that long night Tante Ilde kept miserably repeating to herself: "A child came in, a child went out," finding herself in a confusion of faith and doubt dark as the night that lay about her.
Irma was confirmed in her opinion that charity was dangerous.
VI
CORINNE
A la Sourdine
Das Herz ist ein weites Land.
But towards morning Frau Stacher's heart threw off its sorrow; she had suddenly felt its weight leaving her breast, why or how she did not know, for there in that distant house whence Carli had forever gone one she loved was still weeping. Perhaps she was done with grief,—long grief.
She was strangely all love that morning after the night of tears. Love emanated from her with a gentle radiance and played about her warmly. She loved even Irma. Even Irma who on account of her nerves couldn't bear to see that fine, soft light in her sister-in-law's eyes. An unreasonable, unseasonable light given the fact that one child had been reft away and another might as easily be taken. She should properly have been creeping about with her spirit quenched, instead of looking almost happy. It struck Irma, who was inaccessible to metaphysical changes, even as unseemly, and she proceeded to extinguish it, somewhat as a wet finger on the flame of a candle.
"Corinne today, but who's taking you tomorrow?" she asked flatly, meanly. Irma had a way, well tabulated in the family, of getting over pleasant spots at the quickest pace possible.