Bernard–Ida relationship

The Bernard–Ida relationship is a recurring force in Bernard’s marriage to Ester: he visits his mother about once a month, and those visits bring both domestic care and unresolved pressures into the couple’s life. Ida’s home offers attentive hospitality, but her remarks about children and Bernard’s former girlfriends make the visits difficult for Ester. Bernard’s silences and irritation leave the two women’s expectations largely unaddressed, until Ester withdraws from the visits and Bernard continues going alone.

The rhythm of the visits

Ida’s need for Bernard shapes the couple’s schedule. Sometimes he calls at the last moment to say that his mother needs him and that he will stay longer. Early in the marriage, Ester accompanied him, though she found the trips stressful. The visits were not isolated occasions: they formed a regular obligation, and their repeated journey gave Ida a continuing presence in the marriage even when Ester later stopped going.

The drive itself could become a point of friction. On the way to Ida’s, Ester once asked whether Bernard expected his brother, Conrad, to be there. Bernard did not answer at first, and much of the journey passed in silence. As they approached his mother’s house, he challenged Ester’s interest in seeing Conrad and asked whether she had changed her mind about being with him. Ester said she had not, though she privately sometimes wondered whether marrying Bernard had been a mistake. She did not see Conrad during that visit, and she stopped asking Bernard about him; he, in turn, never brought Conrad up.

Welcome and domestic care

On their first visit as a married couple, Ida greeted Bernard and Ester brightly at the door. She admired the flowers Ester had brought and put them in her best vase in the living room. She then made coffee herself, refusing Ester’s offer to help and directing her to stay where she was. The following morning, Ida brought breakfast to the couple in bed and gave Ester a magazine while lunch was being prepared. Ida would not let her wash up either.

These gestures make Ida’s welcome concrete: she receives Ester into her home and attends to her comfort. At the same time, Ida determines what Ester may do there, from helping with coffee to washing dishes. The visits therefore place Ester in a carefully defined position as guest and daughter-in-law, rather than as a participant in the household’s work. The hospitality is real, but it does not remove the strain Ester feels in Ida’s company.

Children and Bernard’s past

Ida’s questions about grandchildren turn the visits toward expectations for Bernard and Ester’s marriage. Over coffee, she asked when she could expect grandchildren. Ester did not especially want children and replied that they might not have any, believing she had already made her position known. Ida answered that Bernard wanted children and immediately invoked Andrea, whom she had recently seen with a baby boy. The exchange put Ester’s reluctance alongside Ida’s account of Bernard’s wishes, without any indication that Bernard intervened to resolve the difference.

Ida also brought other women into conversation. She told Bernard that Susanne had asked after him, and on another visit said that Therese now had three children. Ester studied Bernard’s face as Ida mentioned them. These names mattered to Ester because Ida had previously told her, in the register office toilets, that there was one girl Bernard had ever loved. Ester wondered whether one of the women Ida now mentioned was that former love. When Ester raised the disclosure with Bernard at night, he said it was probably true. The identity of the woman remains uncertain in this account, but the exchange confirms that Ida’s references to Bernard’s past touch an unsettled subject in the marriage.

On Ester’s last visit, Ida brought the pressure into the room through another young woman. Ida invited Liese to dinner; Liese came from the kitchen carrying plates of liver for Ester and Bernard. Ida introduced her as a twenty-year-old nursery nurse who was fond of children, and added that Ida herself had already been pregnant with Bernard at that age. The comparison linked youth, motherhood, and the couple’s childlessness in a pointed domestic setting. The evidence does not show Bernard answering Ida’s implication or challenging it on Ester’s behalf.

Ester’s withdrawal and Bernard’s return

Ester and Bernard always argued on the drive back to Hellhaus. Eventually, Ester suggested that Bernard visit Ida alone. At first she made excuses for staying away; later she gave no reason, and Bernard did not ask for one. The change is gradual but clear: Ester ceases participating in a ritual that had repeatedly exposed her to pressure and conflict, while Bernard continues to fulfil his monthly visits.

Whether Ester accompanies him or not, Bernard comes home in a bad mood with a pile of ironed underpants and paired socks. Ida’s practical care thus continues in his absence from Ester, and the visit leaves a domestic trace in the household he shares with his wife. Ester imagines Ida saying that it is a shame Ester is too busy to come, and wondering whether a cheap cleaner could have been hired to do Ester’s work. These are Ester’s imagined remarks, not words reported as spoken by Ida; their importance lies in how the visits continue to occupy Ester’s thoughts after she has stopped attending them.

Significance within the marriage

The relationship is presented through repeated visits and their effects on the marriage rather than through a direct account of private conversations between mother and son. Ida’s care for Bernard is expressed in attention to his needs, including the extended stays and the household provisions he brings home. Her talk of grandchildren and former girlfriends, meanwhile, exposes subjects that Bernard and Ester cannot comfortably discuss together. Bernard’s initial silence about Conrad, his sharp response to Ester’s question, and his later reluctance to discuss the woman he loved leave Ester to interpret the family history from Ida’s remarks and his reactions.

Ester’s eventual absence does not end Ida’s influence. Bernard keeps visiting, returns in a bad mood, and brings back the results of his mother’s domestic care. The relationship therefore links filial duty to marital unease: Ida remains a source of welcome and practical support for Bernard, while the same visits make Ester feel measured against expectations about work, motherhood, and Bernard’s past. The pattern changes when Ester withdraws, but the evidence offers no resolution of the underlying tensions.