Jeanne laughed, brimful of happiness. The world appeared to her beautiful and good, full of love. And she thought of Frans!
They had seated themselves on a bench, and Jeanne ventured to ask— [[154]]
“But how about yourself, Mathilde? You are always talking about your mamma, but never about yourself.”
Mathilde looked up with something like a shiver.
“About myself? I do my best to forget about myself. ’Tis only to the children that I am still of any use; for them I live and think. If they were not here, I should be dead.”
In her words there resounded the memory of a dull grief, faded away long ago into a placid resignation.
“If you have imagined yourself very happy, happy through and with one, for whose sake you would have sacrificed body and soul, and you observe—But ah! why speak about that?”
“Does the thought of that cause you such suffering then?”
“Oh no; I have suffered. There was a time when I thought I should have gone mad, and I cursed the name of God; but that bitter sorrow has been transformed into a lethargy that is past. I never think of it, I only think of my four little darlings. And that thought fills my mind sufficiently, so that I need not become a living mummy. You know, until now I have been teaching them myself; but ’tis getting time for Tina and Jo to go to school. Otto says so at least; but I should miss them very much, and mamma, of course, sides with me there. Darlings!”
Perhaps she only fancied it, but Jeanne thought that in that dull resignation she could detect a tone of suppressed bitterness, and she could not help taking Mathilde’s hand in hers and whispering pityingly—