appy. In return for all our trouble and worry, for all this
rushing about and weariness, for all the money we spend, we do want to
see our children just a little happy. And then, oh, when I"--her eyes
filled with tears--"when I see Otto and Frances: Otto discontented and
Frances ill; Louise sad because of Otto, whom she is so fond of; Emilie
married now--but how married, poor thing, and why?--and Marianne all
nerves and not knowing what she wants; and Henri too so melancholy: then
I say to myself, 'Why have we all these children, for whom we live and
think and contrive? And wouldn't it be better not to have them? And
isn't it better to have as little as possible in one's life and to make
that life as small and simple and quiet as possible, once we have to
live? Oh, Constance, all this aimlessness and uselessness amid which
people like ourselves, women in our position, our environment, our set,
turn and turn like humming-tops or fools: isn't it enough sometimes to
tempt one to run away from it all and to go and sit on a mountain
somewhere and look out over the sea? Women like ourselves marry as young
girls, knowing nothing and having only a vague presentiment of our
lives, that they will be like the lives of our mothers before us; and
all that futility seems most important, until, one fine day, we find
that we have grown old and tired and have lived for nothing at all: for
visits, dresses, dinners, things which we thought were necessary, all
sorts of interests among which we were born and brought up and grew old
and which we cannot escape and which are worth nothing, nothing,
nothing! And then, when we think that we have lived for our children and
slaved and schemed and contrived for them, then it all comes to nothing,
nothing, nothing; and not one of them is happy....' You see, Constance,
I have talked to you now; but what's the good of it? Why say all that I
have said? You'll go away presently and think, 'What a fit of depression
Bertha had!' And that is all it was: a fit of depression. For, when I
have had a couple of days' rest, why, then life will go on as before: I
shall have two charwomen in at once; the whole house has to be done,
after the wedding and because of the spring-cleaning. Well, then, was it
really worth while to speak out? Oh, no, talking leads to so little; and
it's best simply to do all the little duties that fall to one's share."

"I am very glad though, Bertha, that you have let yourself go. I did n