the spectacle of a mother wasting her time like that and wasting
her children's time like that.

Rosalie's mother did everything in the house and she was always
doing something in the house--for somebody else. She never rested
and she was always worried. Her brows were always wrinkled with
the feverish concentration of one anxiously doing one thing while
anxiously thinking of another thing waiting to be done. She had a
driven and a hunted look.

Now Rosalie's father had a driving and a hunting look.

Rosalie's father in his youth threw away everything. Rosalie's mother
throughout the whole of her life gave away everything. Rosalie's
father was a tragic figure dwelling in a house of bondage; but he
was at least a tragic king, ruling his house and venting his griefs
upon his house. Rosalie's mother was a tragic figure and she was a
tragic slave in the house of bondage. The life of Rosalie's father
was a tragedy, but a tragedy in some measure relieved because he
knew it was a tragedy and could wave his arms and shout and smash
things and hurl beefsteaks through the air because of the tragedy
of it. But the life of Rosalie's mother was an infinitely deeper
tragedy because she never knew or suspected that it was a tragedy.

Still, that is so often the difference between the tragedy of a
woman and the tragedy of a man.