So it happened that the dyer's daughter from
Millsdorf was ever considered a stranger by all the people of Gschaid,
even after she had become the shoemaker's wife; and although they never
did her any ill, ay, even loved her on account of her beautiful ways,
yet they always seemed to keep their distance, or, if you will, showed
marked consideration for her, and never became intimate or treated her
as their equal, as men and women of Gschaid did men and women of their
own valley. Thus matters stood and remained, and were not mended by the
better dress and the lighter domestic duties of the shoemaker's wife.
At the end of the first year, she had born to her husband a son, and
several years afterward, a daughter. She believed, however, that he did
not love his children as she thought he ought to, and as she knew she
loved them herself; for his face was mostly serious and he was chiefly
concerned with his work. He rarely fondled or played with the children
and always spoke seriously to them as one does to adults. With regard to
food and clothes, and other material things, his care for them was above
reproach.
At first, the dyer's wife frequently came over to Gschaid, and the young
couple in their turn visited Millsdorf on occasion of country-fairs and
other festivities. But when the children came, circumstances were
altered. If mothers love their children and long for them, this is
frequently, and to a much higher degree, the case with grandmothers;
they occasionally long for their grandchildren with an intensity that
borders on morbidness.
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