I received your two letters and thank you for keeping me informed about how things are going.1 I think it very good that you’re permanently installed in The Hague, and hope to do as much as I can to help you until you can start earning yourself, but what I don’t like is the way you’ve contrived to leave Pa and Ma.(1)2 It’s possible that you couldn’t bear to stay there, and it’s no more than natural that you differ in your way of thinking from people who have spent their whole lives in the country 1r:2 and haven’t had the opportunity to partake of modern life, but what the devil made you so childish and so shameless as to contrive in this way to make Pa and Ma’s life miserable and nearly impossible?(2) It isn’t difficult to fight with someone who’s already weary.(3) When Pa wrote to me about it, I thought it was a misunderstanding, but you yourself say in your letter, As far as the relations between Pa and me are concerned, they can’t be put to rights so quickly.(4) Don’t you know him, and don’t you know that Pa can’t live as long as there’s bad blood between the two of you?(5) It’s your duty to set things straight at all costs, and I assure you that some day you’ll mightily regret having handled this matter so harshly.(6) Now you have Mauve who attracts you, and because you carry things too far, anyone who isn’t like him doesn’t appeal to you, because you’re looking for the same qualities in everyone.(7) Is it not hard for Pa to see himself reduced to nothing by someone who professes to be more free-thinking(8) than him, and whom he probably occasionally envies deep down for his keener perception?(9) Does his life 1v:3 count for nothing?(10) I don’t understand you.(11)