As to Lillie, with her simple, gushing nature, she tries to write lightly and cheerfully, but one divines her tears between the lines.  She wishes me every happiness, and assures me she will take Malthe under her motherly wing.

“He is quiet and taciturn, but fortunately much engrossed with his plans for the new hospital which will keep him in Denmark for some years to come.”

His work absorbs him; he is young enough to forget.

As to the long accounts of deaths, accidents and scandals, a year or two ago they might have stirred me in much the same way as the sight of a fire or a play.  Now it amuses me quite as much to watch the smoke from my chimney, as it ascends and seems to get caught in the tops of the trees.

Richard is still travelling with his grief, and entertains me scrupulously with accounts of all the sights he sees and of his lonely sleepless nights.  Are they always as lonely as he makes out?

As in the past, he bores me with his interminable descriptions and his whole middle-class outlook.  Yet for many years he dominated my senses, which gives him a certain hold over me still.  I cannot make up my mind to take the brutal step which would free me once and for all from him.  I must let him go on believing that our life together was happy.

Why did I read all these letters?  What did I expect to find?  A certain vague hope stirred within me that if I opened them I should discover something unexpected.

The one remaining letter—­shall I ever find courage to open it?  I will not know what he has written.  He does not write well I know.  He is not a good talker; his writing would probably be worse.  And yet, I look upon that sealed letter as a treasure.

Merely touching it, I feel as though I was in the same room with him.

* * * * *

Lillie’s letter has really done me good; her regal serenity makes itself apparent beneath all she undertakes.  It is wonderful that she does not preach at me like the others.  “You must know what is right for yourself better than anybody else,” she says.  These words, coming from her, have brought me unspeakable strength and comfort, even though I feel that she can have no idea of what is actually taking place within me.

Life for Lillie can be summed up in the words, “the serene passage of the days.”  Happy Lillie.  She glides into old age just as she glided into marriage, smiling, tranquil, and contented.  Nobody, nothing, can disturb her quietude.

It is so when both body and soul find their repose and happiness in the same identical surroundings.

* * * * *

Jeanne, with some embarrassment, asked permission to use the bathroom.  I gave her leave.  It is quite possible that living in the basement is not to her taste.  To put a bathroom down there would take nearly a fortnight, and during that time I shall be deprived of my own, for I cannot share my bathroom or my bedroom with anyone, least of all a woman....