“Why do you speak about that?” he asked, for he knew that she suffered least when she suffered in silence. [[228]]
“So that you may feel that I understand you. And so that you may see that I live still, and must continue to live; and especially to show you that all the grief on earth is not yours exclusively. Perhaps that idea may comfort you a little.”
“Oh!” he burst out sobbing, and he clung close to her, and tremblingly handed her the letter. “There, read! read!” he cried.
She read the letter, and stroked his hair as if he had been a child. Yes, that was as it should be, now he no longer forced himself to control his feelings, now he felt not ashamed, in his obstinate manliness, of his copious tears. And while she read, she thought of Eline.
“Did she know what she was throwing away?” she mused. “What would she do if she saw him thus? Is she not worthy of you, my Otto, my own brother? or is it only that she is unhappy, unhappy as we are?”
Madame van Erlevoort came in with Frédérique. They had heard the news from Henk.
Mathilde lifted up his head.
“There is mamma!” she said simply, as though she would no longer retain him, now that another demanded his attention. But when he saw his gentle mother, melting away as it were in his grief, deepest pity filled his soul. He must comfort her.
“Mother, mother, do not cry like that! ’Tis not so terrible!” he cried out in despair.
Frédérique remained standing, leaning against one of the folding doors. Of her they took no notice whatever. Mathilde, mamma, could soothe and comfort him, but she, she was of no use to him at all; she was silly, childish, and would not know what to say to him. She remembered how, one day, long before his engagement, she had spoken to him about Eline; but now she had nothing to say, absolutely nothing. For, of course, she did not understand what sorrow was, she herself had never suffered, she had no feeling, she was a stone.