it all work out? That is just what Addie doesn't know either. . . . Do I? No, Heaven help me, I don't know any more than he does! . . . I am fond of Johan: shall I grow fonder of him, now that I am less fond of Addie? I don't know, I don't know. . . . Oh, if only I hadn't my children! . . . As it is, I could wish, my God, how I could wish, for his sake and the children's, that I knew how to be happy at Driebergen, in that house of theirs, with all of them, and that I could go back to it! Shall I ever go back to it? . . . Shall I be Johan's wife one day, after all? . . . Oh, it is all so dark and uncertain! . . . Addie says a solution will come of itself. . . . We know nothing, he says. . . . Must I let it come as it will? . . . But how will it come? . . . Oh, even Addie, who is so wise, can find no solution! . . . There is . . . there is no solution yet! . . . Will there ever be one? . . . Oh, if I could go back . . . to the house down there! . . . Should I ever be able to? Perhaps years hence! Perhaps never! Who can tell? . . .Is Johan . . . really fond of me? Not only because he admires me . . . not only for that? . . . Oh, that was the only reason why Addie loved me! . . . I know it now, I know it: that was his one idea, to have healthy children. . . . Now we are parted: parted for ever? . . . Or shall we come together again one day? Shall we ever become husband and wife again . . . or not? . . . I do care for Johan. He is so matter-of-fact, so simple: I should have become very happy and simple with him, without all this thinking about things which I can't grasp or feel . . . and which came haunting me down there, at Driebergen, gradually. . . . Oh, if I could only force myself to live there again! . . . But perhaps I never can! Perhaps, in three
