I think differently now in many ways about mother. In any case, father was most to blame. In those days it used to seem to me as if he kept mother here against her will. I even wanted her to separate from him.
Ida.
But, your mother surely couldn’t—
William.
She didn’t see it as I did. She hadn’t the courage. Well, what father used to look like in my eyes, you can perhaps imagine.
Ida.
But William! Perhaps you too, were not quite just to your father—a man—
William (without noticing Ida’s interruption.)
Once I committed the folly of bringing a friend—nonsense! not a friend, a chance acquaintance, a musical fellow. I brought him here with me. That was quite refreshing for mother; she played duets with him every day for a whole week, and then—frightful!—as true as I’m here he—not the shadow of a possibility! Yet at the end of the week even the servants flung it in her face!