I feel so cold, it is as if the whole house shivered. Never before has it been quite so dull, and cold, and sad. We move about like shadows. Nobody speaks aloud, and we meet as at a funeral.
When mother and I are alone in the evening, we don't talk. We sit each with our own thoughts, but I know that her thoughts are all round me.
I FEEL happier at grandmama's. As often as I can I go to her after lunch.
Through the noisy streets where the people rush and scramble in the struggle for existence—through the feverish life, which to me seems so coarse and hideous, leaving on my soul the impression of a hideous battle with hateful shrieks and despairing moaning, I fly to the little side street where grandmama lives. There I only hear the noise in a softened murmur. But when I am once safely in grandmama's sitting-room, I feel as if I have escaped a great danger.
Here it is cosy and restful, here I find peace for my sorrow, healing for my wound. Here all revolting thoughts are softened down, here are smoothed out all violent desires and sick longings.
Here grandmama sits old and full of days and of the great wisdom which does not ask and does not blame, which understands and forgives, which holds comfort for everything. I become like a child again in grandmama's room. I have my place just as when I was a little girl on a footstool at her
