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Rh husband, in the house also of Addie, who was the cleverest of them all and who, he felt certain, did hear and see the souls, for he often spared them. . . . He now stared at the cards and thought of the rubbers at Mamma's in the Alexanderstraat, when he used to go there on Sundays in the old days. . . . Strange, that everything changed, that nothing remained, he thought. . . . It was no longer the Hague now: it was Driebergen; it was Van der Welcke's house and Gerrit's children: Gerrit, how rough, how very rough he used to be, but even so not exactly wicked and depraved! And the cards as they were played one after the other fell from the fingers of Van der Welcke, Gerdy, Alex and Marietje. The same game; only life changed; the game did not change nor did the souls, the poor souls, ever and ever suffering around him, linking themselves to his soul with dragging chains. . . . He sat in silence and followed the play of the hand, understood it, nodded his approval of Van der Welcke's careful game. . ..

Mathilde had come in; so had Addie, for a moment, before going upstairs to work; and they met as husband and wife who, after dinner, in a bustling house, seek each other out for a moment to exchange a word or two. Mathilde's eyes were red, Addie looked serious; and they all noticed it; it struck them, it saddened them, while they heard the wind flapping like a sagging sail and the panes lightly creaking and the windows lightly rattling in their frames. . . . Constance wondered what had happened and thought that it must be Mathilde, always urging him to move to the Hague; and Addie would be quite willing, for his wife's sake, but then the money-question would crop up and remain insoluble, because Mathilde would not be economical. . . . And that indeed was how it was;