Fausch was sitting in his dark, dingy living room. It was already
almost night. The smith had long ago left off working, and the table
was already set for him and the boy. Fausch did not light the lamp. He
liked to sit in the dark, which grew gradually deeper in the room,
until his heavy form was no longer recognizable, but only a red point,
the glow and the smoke of his pipe, and his heavy breathing betrayed
his presence. Then Katharine opened the door. "The boy has not got home
yet," said she. Her breath came short.
"He will soon come," answered Stephen.
But Cain did not come, although he ought to have been home from school
hours ago.
Another hour passed. Stephen Fausch's pipe went out. He was half
dozing. Then Katharine came in again, for she could find no peace.
"He--some one ought to go and look for him," she said.
Stephen waked up. "Bring in the soup. If he does not come at the right
time, he can go to bed hungry," he grumbled.
The old woman obeyed, and brought in the soup, but her hands and knees
were trembling. She meant to hurry over to the village herself
afterward, to see what had become of the boy.
Meanwhile the smith had lighted the lamp on the table. He sat down at
his own place. The red light of the lamp shone on his black woolly
head. Just then footsteps were heard on the outer stairs.
Katharine ran out to the landing. "Boy," she called out in the
darkness.
"Yes!" came the answer. He was there. Slowly he came up the steps. His
heavy shoes usually made no noise, for he stepped very lightly. They
clattered now, as if he were stumbling. The maid lifted up the light.
"Jesus Christ!" she exclaimed.
The boy's face was as white as snow, his clothes were torn and in
disorder, but even now they were noticeably clean.
"What has happened to you," asked the maid, quickly and anxiously.
Instead of answering, the boy asked whether his father was in the room.
"Yes, yes," she answered, and opened the door for him herself. With
uncertain steps, as if feeling his way, the boy walked in. He was now
thirteen years old, and both slender and strong.
"Well!" asked Stephen Fausch, taking a spoonful of soup.
Cain stepped forward into the ruddy light of the lamp. His pallor
showed strikingly in the light; his eyes seemed to glow and looked very
dark.
"We had a fight," he began in a breathless tone, as if he had but just
shaken off a couple of his enemies. "And then I stayed in the woods a
long time."
Katharine stood in the doorway, leaning forward to hear what would
happen next. Fausch looked sharply at the boy. "Tell me about it," said
he. As he spoke, it seemed as if Cain's appearance caught his eye more
than ever.
"The other boys have been telling me why I am named Cain," he gasped
out. He took hold of the back of a chair and looked Stephen in the
face. It was not hard to see that something had stirred him to the
depths. "They say it is because my mother was a bad woman," he went on.
"But--then--I--I cannot help what my mother did--"
"Eat your supper now," said Stephen Fausch.
Cain did not hear. "I thought it over a long time in the woods," he
went on in short, broken phrases. "If I am such a shameful creature--I
must have done something--but--I--"
Suddenly he was quite overcome. He threw himself down with his head and
shoulders on the table and wept. He looked up once. "Why must I have
that name, Father? Can't I have a name like other people's?"
Stephen had laid down his spoon. He made a grimace, as if he did not
know what to say. Then he swore, and then he growled: "They had better
leave you alone, the vermin."
Cain regained his self-control now. He dried his eyes. Then he stood up
once more by the table, slender and pale. "Whether they are talking
impudence to me or not," said he in a low tone, "it always seems to me
as if they are pointing their fingers at me. It is like that wherever I
go."
As he spoke, he looked about him, as if he saw scornful glances aimed
at him.
"You mustn't trouble yourself about the others," said Stephen.
The boy could not at first think of any answer. As he stood there
seeming so lost and confused, he had a look of helplessness that would
have touched one's heart. Suddenly he begged, in a trembling voice:
"Couldn't you give me another name?"
Fausch's brow still kept its obstinate look. But he said in an
unaccustomed, almost friendly tone: "Sit down now and eat something.
One can, very likely, shut the mouths of the boys in the village."
Cain started to turn away. Then he changed his mind. Some idea seemed
to calm him. He put his clothes in order and sat down at his own place.
His big strong father meant to take his part! In spite of himself, this
thought did him good. He began to eat.
Up to this time Katharine had stood at the door. She now left the room.
Fausch finished his supper, got up and sat down by the window, where it
was dark. He lit his pipe again, and secretly observed the boy, who was
sitting at the table. Meanwhile they went on talking, in brief,
fragmentary sentences: How the fight among the school boys had gone?
Which boys had taunted him? Had such things often happened before?
Cain only looked up from his plate when he was obliged to answer, the
rest of the time he ate slowly and thoughtfully. Once he wiped a tear
from his eyes. Stephen Fausch puffed at his pipe, from which but little
smoke rose, as if it were drawing poorly. He had very keen sight, in
spite of having but one eye. Thus no feature of the boy's face escaped
him: the delicate straight lines of the profile, the brow, the nose,
the chin. Most of all he noticed the whiteness of the forehead. As he
gazed, he spoke less and less, and finally was silent altogether. All
kinds of thoughts passed through his mind, and he became more and more
absorbed in them. Perhaps this was the first time in his life that the
strong man was troubled with painful thoughts, which he could not put
down and strangle, as it were, by the force of his resolute will.
After a while Cain rose, still looking very pale. "I have to study," he
said. "Good-night, Father."
"Good-night," answered Stephen.
Then the boy left the room. But the smith sat buried in thought. He
scarcely noticed Katharine, as she went to and fro, clearing the table.
He could still see the boy's white forehead. And then it seemed to him
as if an ugly spot were burning on it, and something within him seemed
to say: "You branded him with that sign of shame!" For a moment facts
and thoughts seemed to become confused. Then he drew his brows together
and thought more intently, and saw everything clearly, as it really
was: Not only had he burdened Maria's boy with that name, that shameful
name, but he had marked him with the shame itself; for the name
awakened the memory of the stain that clung to him from his birth. And
if the village children, when they were simple, innocent little things,
had made fun of Cain because he had a queer name, unlike anybody
else's, now that they had grown bigger just as he had, and already knew
more than was good for them, they pointed scornfully at him, not
because his name was Cain, but because they knew why he bore that name.
But had not he, Stephen Fausch, chosen that it should be so? The
injustice that had been done him, he had chosen to nail firmly and
solidly in place, and firm and solid it should remain!
Two different forces were struggling in Fausch. There was his
obstinacy, his untamed will, that he had never curbed in all his life,
and together with that, something else, that was quite new, something
like pity for the boy, or--who can guess what suddenly arose in revolt
against his iron will. These two forces wrestled together, as it were,
breast to breast, neither would yield, and there they stood, equal in
strength. Fausch's dark brow flushed, he rocked back and forth in his
chair, and his pipe went out. This inward strife gave him a grim hour.
No inner commotion had ever before made the slow, heavy man outwardly
so restless. The lamp was already burning low and threatening to go
out, and Katharine had some time since finished her work in the
kitchen, when he rose. He put out the smoking light, but he did not go
to his own room near by. He took off his shoes as usual, carried them
into the kitchen, and when he came back into the passageway, he stood
still and listened. Nothing was stirring in the house. Then, in his
bare feet, he went up the stairs to the attic, without noticing that
Katharine's door still stood open, and slipped along, as quietly as he
could, to the boy's little room. There he listened again. Then he
pressed the latch, opened the door, and looked in.
Katharine came to her door half dressed. She had heard him feeling his
way upstairs. She could now see him plainly, framed by Cain's doorway.
A pale gray light filled the room. Her heart beat. What was the Master
going to do? Surely he would not--Had he a grudge against the boy, on
account of the fight?
Fausch looked over to the boy's bed. Then he drew a long breath. The
lad was asleep. The smith had thought that Cain might still be crying.
That was why he had come upstairs. He now closed the door again
carefully.
Katharine involuntarily stepped back into her room, out of sight. She
heard Fausch pass, taking care to tread softly, and go downstairs
again. He went into the living room, and then she plainly heard him go
into the next room. The thumping of her heart, that had almost taken
away her breath subsided. But she lay awake a long time, wondering what
the smith had come up for.
Katharine might wonder as long as she chose. Fausch never betrayed by
any word, what he had been looking for in the boy's room that night.
Neither did he show any change in his bearing, but remained sullen and
reserved as always, and seemed at first to have forgotten that he had
half promised the boy his protection against the persecution of the
Waltheim lads. Nevertheless, the two powers were still struggling
within him, and neither got the upper hand, because both were equally
strong. However, one day, and soon after a second and a third time, the
Waltheimers were surprised to see Stephen Fausch appear on the
principal street of the village, by broad daylight, on a week day
during working hours. He had on his leather apron, and was bareheaded,
dark and grimy as usual, so that every one could see that he had just
left his anvil. He looked so unfriendly, that those who met him did not
care to accost him. It was about the time in the forenoon when the
Waltheim children were let out of school. He walked past the
schoolhouse, which stood in an open square in the middle of the
village, as if some errand took him further, but he stopped in a side
street or behind a neighboring house and waited, with his bare arms
folded across his chest.
An acquaintance asked him what he was doing.
"Waiting, if you want to know," he answered.
When the school children suddenly came streaming out of the
schoolhouse, he watched for Cain, and when he had spied him, looked
after him for a while, until the boy had left the village behind, and
was walking toward the wood that separated the smithy from the village.
Then indeed, he stepped into one of the ale houses, which are numerous
in Waltheim, as in every village, took his morning drink, but said
nothing here, either, about what had brought him to town, and then took
himself off homeward, as surly as he had come.
"He's watching his boy," said the Waltheimers, and thought themselves
very clever to have found this out. "He seems to have some kind of
suspicion about the boy. The poor fellow must have a pretty hard time
at home with a harsh, bristly chap like Fausch."
When the smith stood on guard for the third time, the villagers found
out their mistake. This time he had slipped into the village unnoticed,
from somewhere in the environs, and had taken his stand in a narrow
space between some houses, that was not really a street, directly
opposite the schoolhouse. Just as the clock had struck eleven, a great
noise was heard from the schoolhouse, as usual, the door flew open and
the children rushed out. The smallest and most turbulent came first.
The older girls and boys, among whom Cain belonged, came out of the
building more slowly and gently, with a sort of dignity. Cain Fausch
was alone, as always. The smith had for some time noticed that
something was wrong with the children, because Cain was always alone
and the others seemed to avoid him. Today he was among the first of the
older ones to leave the building. He walked slowly across the open
space, looking neat and slender; he had been for a good while carrying
his books under his arm instead of in a hempen satchel. He carried his
head not merely erect, but slightly thrown backward, perhaps he
involuntarily carried it higher since he had realized that there was
ill-will against him in the village and that people stared at him. As
the little crowd of smaller children began to scatter, a few looked
after him. Two little scamps were standing close to the smith. Probably
they had but just begun to go to school. "Do you know what his name
is?" one of them, who could not long have been old enough to speak
plainly, asked his companion slily, and with a childishly important
air. Then they mentioned the name "Cain" and giggled and looked after
the blacksmith's boy who was slowly walking away. The children did not
know the meaning of the name, but only laughed at its oddity. Meanwhile
Cain's comrades, big strong fellows, had also come out into the open
square. They were putting their heads together, as if planning some
trick. Two of them came forward and looked after Cain, who was now
walking down the village street.
"There he is, running away again," said one of them, the son of the
tavern-keeper at the "Star," a big, large-limbed fellow, fifteen years
old, speaking over his shoulder to the others.
"He's always running away, the coward," called out the others. Then the
tavern-keeper's son, Adolph, shouted down the street, "Cain." He gave
the name a shrill, ugly sound.
"Leave him alone," said one of those who were further behind.
"Bah, what does he matter?" blustered Adolph, "a child of sin like
him!" And once again he called out sharply and scornfully, "Cain!"
Suddenly he saw the others fall back from something, that passed before
his eyes like a great black shadow. He had no time to see what it was;
for some one seized him by the clothes over his chest and lifted him,
heavy as he was, high in the air and shook him, so that his shirt and
waistcoat and coat tore. Then the man let him down, took him by the
collar, held him in one hand as if in a vise and hit him blow after
blow, the big tall fellow, just as one punishes little children, such
blows that his cries brought the people running, and two or three
voices called out: "Let him go, Fausch! Do you want to kill him?" Some
of the men caught the smith by the arm. Finally he let go of Adolph and
shook off the hands of those who were interfering. His dark face looked
gray. On his wrinkled forehead a swollen vein showed, as thick as a
cord.
"There," said he breathing heavily, "if any one else wants some of the
same sort, he only needs to torment the boy." Having spoken thus, he
thrust his hands into his pockets and walked away with his head thrust
forward like that of an ox that is pulling. "It is all the same to me,
half-grown or full-grown," he growled over his shoulder.
Among those who were looking after him, and the others who were grouped
around Adolph where he was writhing on the ground with pain and rage,
there was not one who had any fancy for a taste of the smith's fists.
After this day the Waltheimers had something more to complain of.
"The smith doesn't want his boy to be jeered at. Then what did he give
him such a name for?"
The landlord of the "Star" at first talked as if he would bring suit
against the smith; but finally, when he reflected that his own young
scapegrace was considerably to blame for the punishment he had
received, he dropped the subject. But although the Waltheimers kept on
gossiping, they were prudently quiet about it; for there were very few
among them who were not afraid of Stephen Fausch. Even those who teased
or tormented the smith's boy, or talked about him, and people always
will have something to talk about, became cautious, but whispered and
talked in secret all the more. For Cain Fausch could not get rid of his
name nor wash away the stain upon his birth. The boy grew more and more
quiet and reserved. He made no more complaints at home, but any one
with sharp eyes could see that something weighed upon him. He gradually
came to see that people had a certain right to despise him. This
sharpened his hearing and made him notice how people busied themselves
about him, with glances, words and gestures, whenever he came in sight.
This made him grow serious quite early, and gave him a certain timidity
with people. But he was inwardly sound and strong. Perhaps he had
Katharine to thank for this, for in keeping his outward appearance
always so neat and dainty, she might have unconsciously brought him up
with a sort of inner purity and refinement. Thus it did not occur to
him, since he was himself the cause of his own solitude, to seek, as he
easily might have done, evil or at least lightminded distractions, to
console himself for the fact that he was not of equal standing with
others. Instead of this, he learned to love work, first such as he
found in his schoolbooks, but later that which he found in his father's
workshop. During the boy's leisure hours, Stephen Fausch began to avail
himself of his help, and Cain took as much pleasure in this activity,
which brought bodily fatigue, as in the other, which occupied his mind,
and found the change from the one to the other refreshing and not
wearing. But he retained the peculiarity, that he would not permit the
traces of his work to remain upon him after he had left the workshop.
He would then change his clothes, wash and make himself tidy, so that
he still kept that bright, clear-colored look, which made so striking a
contrast with his father's dark and grimy aspect. Precisely this
peculiarity seemed to give the smith pleasure, and without his
realizing it, his sympathy for Cain grew; perhaps it also grew from the
consciousness that he himself had put upon the innocent child a mark of
shame which probably he would never be able to shake off. But one day,
when Stephen Fausch himself became aware that a feeling for Cain began
to stir within him, such as he had never known since the days when he
used to take long, swift walks for Maria's sake, he laughed, in the
midst of his work, a loud, harsh laugh, as the thought came over him.
His laughter was at his own folly: "Fool, it isn't possible. Not a drop
of your blood is in the boy's veins. They slipped him into your nest."
On this day he was unusually surly and impatient with Cain; his face
often wore an expression almost of hatred, when he looked at the lad.
But this hatred was not real. He said to himself: "It is against nature
that you should be fond of the boy! You ought to have sent him out of
the house, the child of shame!" Then again the other power would
struggle with this one, the thought: "Is it the boy's fault? You have
branded him, and he didn't deserve it!" And his affection for Cain was
there, no matter how he tried to argue it down. The inner conflict,
that Stephen Fausch carried about with him, was increasing.
And withal time still came and went. One year followed the others and
another followed that. Fausch knew as well as anybody else that people
left Cain no peace. The boy had gone through the secondary school at
Waltheim, and was now learning the blacksmith's trade with his father.
Thus he was free from the jeers and teasing of his schoolmates, but yet
the smith saw that the disgrace clung to him. Stephen noticed that many
of his customers glanced at each other, when Cain was present or was
mentioned, he saw the looks that followed the boy, if they appeared
together anywhere; he saw how people nudged each other, and heard how
one would say: "His name is Cain. Isn't that a foolish name for a man?"
and then the other: "Do you know why the boy was named Cain?" Stephen
Fausch saw that the disgrace clung to him, and his standing up for the
boy now did no good, whether he threatened or even struck those whom he
heard insulting him. He could not kill the thousand tongued brood of
scandal-mongers. Slowly, slowly--the process took years--the smith
himself began to suffer from everything that hurt the boy. Oftener and
oftener his gaze rested on Cain's face and form, while new thoughts
stirred within him; Did he not look like Maria, as she was, long ago,
when he used to run miles to see her? Good Lord, how he had loved the
girl! And he was just like Maria--was Cain!
Stephen showed no trace of what was going on within him. His rough
manner did not change, for it had become a second nature to him. But in
this strange and shut-in nature, something that was like a flame awoke;
this was the love of his dead wife, the love that he had had for her
long ago in the days of their courtship. But this love was not for the
dead--although he perhaps did not know it himself--he began to love his
wife in her son, in Cain, the brand of shame upon his house.