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Rh was still so very young, his marriage: at fault towards himself, at fault towards his wife. To let her marry him, because she was healthy and simply normal, with that idea of setting an example—see, that is what we ought all to be: normal, simple and healthy—oh, to love her, yes, but to love with only the half of himself, without ever giving her anything of the deep—things of the soul, things which he gave to all with whom he felt a soul-relationship, without counting, in a lavish prodigality: how could he have done it, he who knew things for others! More clearly than ever he perceived that he had never known them for himself; and he clearly perceived that others, his father, his mother, had suspected that he did not know for himself, that he had not known when he brought Mathilde to them as his wife: into their midst, into their house. And now, in his emotion, in this lonely silent contemplation, there awakened within him the energy to redress, oh, to redress if possible: to redress everything, everything for her! . ..

Now, suddenly, he went to her room, where she was spending a moment after dinner, before tea was brought in, where he often found her when he wished to be alone with her for a minute; and he found her now. She was sitting listlessly in a chair; and the room was dark: the children were already asleep next door. He lit the gas and looked at her with all the energy that leapt up within him like springs, the energy to redress, to redress. And, without any preamble, he said:

"Tilly . . . we'll go to the Hague."

"What do you mean?" she asked, in surprise.

"We shall go and live at the Hague. I shall do what you suggest: I shall look for a practice at the Hague."

She had him to herself now, for the first time