You know that she has
not been herself ever since.... So this evening she--who has been so
awfully silent: for weeks-began to talk all at once. She said that she
did not want to reproach me; that I had my character as she had her own;
that she did not want to pry into my affairs or even into my thoughts;
for her part, she had never had anything to conceal from her
children...cruel things to listen to. And all this in her quiet voice,
with that poor, wasted face as calm as a stone. It was unbearable."
Miss Haldin talked in an undertone and more rapidly than I had ever
heard her speak before. That in itself was disturbing. The ante-room
being strongly lighted, I could see under the veil the heightened colour
of her face. She stood erect, her left hand was resting lightly on a
small table. The other hung by her side without stirring. Now and then
she caught her breath slightly.
"It was too startling. Just fancy! She thought that I was making
preparations to leave her without saying anything. I knelt by the side
of her chair and entreated her to think of what she was saying! She put
her hand on my head, but she persists in her delusion all the same. She
had always thought that she was worthy of her children's confidence, but
apparently it was not so. Her son could not trust her love nor yet her
understanding--and now I was planning to abandon her in the same cruel
and unjust manner, and so on, and so on.
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