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170 "What are you afraid of?"

"I have sad thoughts."

"That is sheer melancholy."

"A melancholy which is a presentiment . . . on days like these . . ."

"And everything is well."

"Only the material things."

"Be happy in that your life is so richly filled, both yours and Hans'. . . . It's a life of the richest security . . . with all that you do."

"With all that we do? We do nothing!"

"You do a great deal . . . for people who are small!" he smiled.

"For small souls! . . . Do we do enough?"

"You do a great deal."

She shook her head:

"I don't. . . . Hans does: he is good."

"Just simply good. . . . Tell me, is it merely because of the weather that things don't seem to run smoothly?"

"No, material things aren't everything."

"Is it because of Addie?"

"Perhaps. I can't say. I feel an oppression, here." She put both her hands to her heart. "It's always liable to come, a day . . ."

"Yes."

"A day of sorrow, illness, wretchedness . . . of misfortune . . . of disaster."

"Why should you think that?"

"I often think it: now there's a misfortune coming, a disaster. . . . I sit and wait for it. . . Oh, I've been waiting for it for months! . . . . The children look at me, ask me what's the matter, whether anything has happened . . . with Mathilde. . . . No, nothing ever happens. . . . There is no sympathy between us . . . but I, I am