I ought to have been more severe, more prudent.

But what would you have?
Ruin is at hand.

I have always been too weak a mother.

And do you now understand in what anguish I live?
I ever have the thought that if I die Gerard will not even possess enough to live on, for he is incapable of effecting the miracle which I renew each day, in order to keep the house up on a decent footing....

Ah! I know him, so supine, so sickly, in spite of his proud bearing, unable to do anything, even conduct himself.
And so what will become of him; will he not fall into the most dire distress ?" Then her tears flowed freely, her heart opened and bled, for she foresaw what must happen after her death: the collapse of her race and of a whole world in the person of that big child.