"The best thing will be not to say anything."
"Yes, it's best not to say anything to Mamma."
"Lord, what a day!... And to have to ride for an hour in this weather at a foot's pace ... behind the body of an undergraduate who has been sent down from Leiden and must needs run away to Paris with his sister and become a circus-clown...."
"And go getting murdered into the bargain! But we mustn't tell anybody that. No, no, we won't speak about it. We'll merely say that he was taken ill. After all, it's a rotten incident ... for us."
"Yes, it's very rotten for us."
"Lord, Lord, how people will jabber!"
"Of course they will."
"Of course they will."
"If things con-tin-ue like this ... I shall leave the Hague," said Karel. "Ca-teau said so too."
He copied his wife's voice: he always copied her voice, unconsciously, when he talked about her.