She ran up to her room. She looked in the glass, as though to read her own eyes. There she read her secret:
“God help me!” she thought. “I oughtn’t to have gone. I oughtn’t to have gone. I was too weak, too weak.... Oh, if only they had never made it up, Papa and ... he!... Oh dear! I shall never go there again. It’s the last time, the last time.... O God, help me, help me!...”
She sank into a chair and sat with her face hidden in her hands, not weeping, her happiness still shedding its dying rays around her, but with a rising agony; and she remained like that for a long time, with her eyes closed, as though she were dreaming and suffering, both.
[1] The period of the novel is about 1901.
[2] Equivalent to vous or tu.
Chapter VIII
“And who do you think’s in town?” Van Vreeswijck asked Van der Welcke, as they were walking together.
“I don’t know.”