Harald Kaas was sixty.
He had given up his free, uncriticised bachelor life; his yacht was no
longer seen off the coast in summer; his tours to England and the south
had ceased; nay, he was rarely to be found even at his club in
Christiania. His gigantic figure was never seen in the doorways; he was
failing.
Bandy-legged he had always been, but this defect had increased; his
herculean back was rounded, and he stooped a little. His forehead,
always of the broadest--no one else's hat would fit him--was now one of
the highest, that is to say, he had lost all his hair, except a ragged
lock over each ear and a thin fringe behind. He was beginning also to
lose his teeth, which were strong though small, and blackened by
tobacco; and now, instead of "deuce take it" he said "deush take it."
He had always held his hands half closed as though grasping something;
now they had stiffened so that he could never open them fully. The
little finger of his left hand had been bitten off "in gratitude" by an
adversary whom he had knocked down: according to Harald's version of
the story, he had compelled the fellow to swallow the piece on the spot.
He was fond of caressing the stump, and it often served as an
introduction to the history of his exploits, which became greater and
greater as he grew older and quieter.
His small sharp eyes were deep set and looked at one with great
intensity. There was power in his individuality, and, besides shrewd
sense, he possessed a considerable gift for mechanics. His boundless
self-esteem was not devoid of greatness, and the emphasis with which
both body and soul proclaimed themselves made him one of the originals
of the country.
Why was he nothing more?
He lived on his estate, Hellebergene, whose large woods skirted the
coast, while numerous leasehold farms lay along the course of the
river. At one time this estate had belonged to the Kurt family, and had
now come back to them, in so far as that Harald's father, as every one
knew, was not a Kaas at all, but a Kurt; it was he who had got the
estate together again; a book might be written about the ways and means
that he had employed.
The house looked out over a bay studded with islands; farther out were
more islands and the open sea. An immensely long building, raised on an
old and massive foundation, its eastern wing barely half furnished, the
western inhabited by Harald Kaas, who lived his curious life here.
These wings were connected by two covered galleries, one above the
other, with stairs at each end.
Curiously enough, these galleries did not face the sea, that is, the
south, but the fields and woods to the north. The portion of the house
between the two wings was a neutral territory--namely, a large
dining-room with a ballroom above it, neither of which was used in
later years.
Harald Kaas's suite of rooms was distinguished from without by a mighty
elk's head with its enormous antlers, which was set up over the gallery.
In the gallery itself were heads of bear, wolf, fox and lynx, with
stuffed birds from land and sea. Skins and guns hung on the walls of
the anteroom, the inner rooms were also full of skins and impregnated
with the smell of wild animals and tobacco-smoke. Harald himself called
it "Man-smell;" no one who had once put his nose inside could ever
forget it.
Valuable and beautiful skins hung on the walls and covered the floors;
his very bed was nothing else; Harald Kaas lay, and sat, and walked on
skins, and each one of them was a welcome subject of conversation, for
he had shot and flayed every single animal himself. To be sure, there
were those who hinted that most of the skins had been bought from Brand
and Company, of Bergen, and that only the stories were shot and flayed
at home.
I for my part think that this was an exaggeration; but be that as it
may, the effect was equally thrilling when Harald Kaas, seated in his
log chair by the fireside, his feet on the bearskin, opened his shirt
to show us the scars on his hairy chest (and what scars they were!)
which had been made by the bear's teeth, when he had driven his knife,
right up to the haft, into the monster's heart. All the queer tankards,
and cupboards, and carved chairs listened with their wonted
impassiveness.
Harald Kaas was sixty, when, in the month of July, he sailed into the
bay accompanied by four ladies whom he had brought from the steamer--an
elderly lady and three young ones, all related to him. They were to
stay with him until August.
They occupied the upper storey. From it they could hear him walking
about and grunting below them. They began to feel a little nervous.
Indeed, three of them had had serious misgivings about accepting the
invitation; and these misgivings were not diminished when, next
morning, they saw Kaas composedly strolling up from the sea stark naked!
They screamed, and, gathering together, still in their nightgowns, held
a council of war as to the advisability of leaving at once; but when
one of them cried "You should not have called us, Aunt, and then we
should not have seen him," they could not help laughing, and therewith
the whole affair ended. Certainly they were a little stiff at
breakfast; but when Harold Kaas began a story about an old black mare
of his which was in love with a young brown horse over at the Dean's,
and which plunged madly if any other horse came near her, but, on the
other hand, put her head coaxingly on one side and whinnied "like a
dainty girl" whenever the parson's horse came that way--well, at that
they had to give in, as well first as last.
If they had strayed here out of curiosity they must just put up with
the "NIGHT side of nature," as Harald Kaas expressed it, with the
stress on the first word.
For all that they were nearly frightened out of their wits the very
next night, when he discharged his gun right under their windows. The
aunt even asserted that he had shot through her open casement. She
screamed loudly, and the others, starting from their sleep, were out on
the floor before they knew where they were. Then they crouched in the
windows and peeped out, although their aunt declared that they would
certainly be shot--they really must see what it was.
Yes! there they saw him among the cherry and apple trees, gun in hand,
and they could hear him swearing. In the greatest trepidation they
crept back into bed again. Next morning they learned that he had shot
at some night prowlers, one of whom had got "half the charge in his
leg, that he had, Deush take him! It ain't the prowling I mind, but
that he should prowl here. We bachelors will have no one poaching on
our preserves."
The four ladies sat as stiff as four church candles, till at length one
of them sprang up with a scream, the others joining in chorus.
The visitors were not bored; Harald Kaas dealt too much in the
unexpected for that. There was a charm, too, in the great woods, where
there had been no felling since he had come into the property, and
there were merry walks by the riverside and plenty of fish in the river.
They bathed, they took delightful sails in the cutter and drives about
the neighbourhood, though certainly the turn-out was none of the
smartest.
The youngest of the girls, Kristen Ravn, presently became less eager to
join in these expeditions. She had fallen in love with the disused east
wing of the house, and there she spent many a long hour, alone by the
open window, gazing out at the great lime-trees which stood straggling,
gaunt, and mysterious.
"You ought to build a balcony here, out towards the sea," she said.
"Look how the water glitters between the limes."
When once she had hit upon a plan, Kristen Ravn never relinquished it,
and when she had suggested it some four or five times, he promised that
it should be done. But on the heels of this scheme came another.
"Below the first balcony there must be another wider one," said she in
her soft voice, "and it must have steps at each end down to the
lawn--the lawn is so lovely just here."
The unheard-of presumption of her demand inoculated him with the idea,
and at length he consented to this as well.
"The rooms must be refurnished," she gravely commanded. "The one next
to the balcony which is to be built under here shall be in yellow pine,
and the floor must be polished." She pointed with her long delicate
hand. "ALL the floors must be polished. I will give you the design for
the room above, I have thought it carefully out." And in imagination
she papered the walls, arranged the furniture, and hung up curtains of
wondrous patterns.
"I know, too, how the other rooms are to be done," she added. And she
went from one to the other, remaining a little while in each. He
followed, like an old horse led by the bridle.
Before their visit was half over he most coolly neglected three out of
his four guests.
His deep-set eyes twinkled with the liveliest admiration whenever she
approached. He sought in the faces of the others the admiration which
he himself felt: he would amble round her like an old photographic
camera which had the power of setting itself up.
But from the day when she took down from his bookshelf a French work on
mechanics, a subject with which she was evidently acquainted and for
which she declared that she had a natural aptitude, it was all over
with him. From that day forward, if she were present, he effaced
himself both in word and action.
In the mornings when he met her in one of her characteristic costumes
he laughed softly, or gazed and gazed at her, and then glanced towards
the others. She did not talk much, but every word that she uttered
aroused his admiration. But he was most of all captivated when she sat
quietly apart, heedless of every one: at such times he resembled an old
parrot expectant of sugar.
His linen had always been snowy white, but beyond this he had taken no
special pains with his toilet; but now he strutted about in a Tussore
silk coat, which he had bought in Algiers, but had at once put aside
because it was too tight--he looked like a clipt box hedge in it.
Now, who was this lion-tamer of twenty-one, who, without in the least
wishing to do so, unconsciously even (she was the quietest of the
party), had made the monarch of the forest crouch at her feet and gaze
at her in abject humility?
Look at her, as she sits there, with her loose shining hair of the
prettiest shade of dark red; look at her broad forehead and prominent
nose, but more than all at those large wondering eyes; look at her
throat and neck, her tall slight figure; notice especially the
Renaissance dress which she wears, its style and colour, and your
curiosity will still remain unsatisfied, for she has an individuality
all her own.
Kristen Ravn had lost her mother at her birth and her father when she
was five years old. The latter left her a handsome fortune, with the
express condition that the investments should not be changed, and that
the income should be for her own use whether she married or not. He
hoped by this means to form her character. She was brought up by three
different members of her wide-branching family, a family which might
more properly be termed a clan, although they had no common
characteristics beyond a desire to go their own way.
When two Ravns meet they, as a rule, differ on every subject; but as a
race they hold religiously together--indeed, in their eyes there is no
other family which is "amusing," the favourite adjective of the Ravns.
Kristen had a receptive nature; she read everything, and remembered
what she read; that is say, she had a logical mind, for a retentive
memory implies an orderly brain. She was consequently NUMBER ONE in
everything which she took up. This, coupled with the fact that she
lived among those who regarded her somewhat as a speculation, and
consequently flattered her, had early made an impression on her nature,
quite as great, indeed, as the possession of money.
She was by no means proud, it was not in the Ravn nature to be so; but
at ten years old she had left off playing; she preferred to wander in
the woods and compose ballads. At twelve she insisted on wearing silk
dresses, and, in the teeth of an aunt all curls and lace and with a
terrible flow of words, she carried her point. She held herself erect
and prim in her silks, and still remained NUMBER ONE. She composed
verses about Sir Adge and Maid Else, about birds and flowers and sad
things.
On reaching the age at which other girls, who have the means, begin to
wear silk dresses, she left them off. She was tired, she said, of the
"smooth and glossy."
She now grew enthusiastic for fine wool and expensive velvet of every
shade. Dresses in the Renaissance style became her favourites, and the
subject of her studies. She puffed out her bodices like those in
Leonardo's and Rafael's portraits of women, and tried in other ways as
well to resemble them.
She left off writing verses, and wrote stories instead; the style was
good, though they were anything rather than spontaneous.
They were short, with a more or less clear pointe. Stories by a girl of
eighteen do not as a general rule make a sensation, but these were
particularly audacious. It was evident that their only object was to
scandalise. Instead of her own name she used the nom-de-plume of
"Puss." This, however, was only to postpone the announcement that the
author who scandalised her readers most, and that at a time when every
author strove to do so, was a girl of eighteen belonging to one of the
first families in the country.
Soon every one knew that "Puss" was she of the tumbled red locks, "the
tall Renaissance figure with the Titian hair."
Her hair was abundant, glossy, and slightly curling; she still wore it
hanging loose over her neck and shoulders, as she had done as a child.
Her great eyes seemed to look out upon a new world; but one felt that
the lower part of her face was scarcely in harmony with the upper. The
cheeks fell in a little; the prominent nose made the mouth look smaller
than it actually was; her neck seemed only to lead the eye downward to
her bosom, which almost appeared to caress her throat, especially when
her head was bent forward, as was generally the case. And very
beautiful the throat was, delicate in colour, superb in contour, and
admirably set upon the bust. For this reason she could never find in
her heart to hide this full white neck, but always kept it uncovered.
Her finely moulded bust surmounting a slender waist and small hips, her
rounded arms, her long hands, her graceful carriage, in her
tightly-fitting dress, formed such a striking picture that one did more
than look--one was obliged to study her, When the elegance and beauty
of her dress were taken into account, one realised how much
intelligence and artistic taste had here been exercised.
She was friendly in society, natural and composed, always occupied with
something, always with that wondering expression. She spoke very
little, but her words were always well chosen.
All this, and her general disposition, made people chary of opposing
her, more especially those who knew how intelligent she was and how
much knowledge she possessed.
She had no friends of her own, but her innumerable relations supplied
her with society, gossip, and flattery, and were at once her friends
and body-guard. She would have had to go abroad to be alone.
Among these relations she was a princess: they not only paid her
homage, but had sworn by "Life and Death" that she must marry without
more ado, which was absolutely against her wish.
From her childhood she had been laying by money, but the amount of her
savings was far less than her relations supposed. This rather mythical
fortune contributed not a little to the fact that "every one" was in
love with her. Not only the bachelors of the family, that was a matter
of course, but artists and amateurs, even the most blase, swarmed round
her, la jeunesse doree (which is homely enough in Norway), without an
exception. A living work of art, worth more or less money, piquante and
admired, how each longed to carry her home, to gloat over her, to call
her his own!
There was surely more intensity of feeling near her than near others, a
losing of oneself in one only; that unattainable dream of the
world-weary.
With her one could lead a thoroughly stylish life, full of art and
taste and comfort. She was highly cultivated, and absolutely
emancipated--our little country did not, in those days, possess a more
alluring expression.
When face to face with her they were uncertain how to act, whether to
approach her diffidently or boldly, smile or look serious, talk or be
silent.
What these idle wooers gleaned from her stories, her characteristic
dress, her wondering eyes, and her quiet dreaminess, was not the
highest, but they expended their energy thereon; so that their
unbounded discomfiture may be imagined when, in the autumn, the news
spread that Fruken Kristen Ravn was married to Harald Kaas.
They burst into peals of derisive laughter they scoffed, they
exclaimed; the only explanation they could offer was that they had too
long hesitated to try their fortune.
There were others, who both knew and admired her, who were no less
dismayed. They were more than disappointed--the word is too weak; to
many of them it seemed simply deplorable. How on earth could it have
happened? Every one, herself excepted, knew that it would ruin her life.
On Kristen Ravn's independent position, her strong character, her rare
courage, on her knowledge, gifts, and energy, many, especially women,
had built up a future for the cause of Woman. Had she not already
written fearlessly for it? Her tendency towards eccentricity and
paradox would soon have worn off, they thought, as the struggle carried
her forward, and at last she might have become one of the first
champions of the cause. All that was noblest and best in Kristen must
predominate in the end.
And now the few who seek to explain life's perplexities rather than to
condemn them discovered--Some of them, that the defiant tone of her
writings and her love of opposition bespoke a degree of vanity
sufficient to have led her into fallacy. Others maintained that hers
was essentially a romantic nature which might cause her to form a false
estimate both of her own powers and of the circumstances of life.
Others, again, had heard something of how this husband and wife lived,
one in each wing of the house, with different staffs of servants, and
with separate incomes; that she had furnished her side in her own way,
at her own expense, and had apparently conceived the idea of a new kind
of married life. Some people declared that the great lime-trees near
the mansion at Hellebergene were alone responsible for the marriage.
They soughed so wondrously in the summer evenings, and the sea beneath
their branches told such enthralling stories. Those grand old woods,
the like of which were hardly to be found in impoverished Norway, were
far dearer to her than was her husband. Her imagination had been taken
captive by the trees, and thus Harald Kaas had taken HER. The estate,
the climate, the exclusive possession of her part of the house: this
was the bait which she had chosen. Harald Kaas was only a kind of Puck
who had to be taken along with it. But it is doubtful whether this
conjecture was any nearer the truth. No one ever really knew. She was
not one of those whom it is easy to catechise.
Every one wearies at last of trying to solve even the most interesting
of enigmas. No one could tolerate the sound of her name when, four
months after her marriage, she was seen in a stall at the Christiania
Theatre just as in old days, though looking perhaps a little paler.
Every opera-glass was levelled at her. She wore a light, almost white,
dress, cut square as usual. She did not hide her face behind her fan.
She looked about her with her wondering eyes, as though she was quite
unconscious that there were other people in the theatre or that any one
could be looking at her. Even the most pertinacious were forced to
concede that she was both physically and mentally unique, with a charm
all her own.
But just as she had become once more the subject of general
conversation, she disappeared. It afterwards transpired that her
husband had fetched her away, though hardly any one had seen him. It
was concluded that they must have had their first quarrel over it.
Accurate information about their joint life was never obtained. The
attempts of her relations to force themselves upon them were quite
without result, except that they found out that she was enceinte,
notwithstanding her utmost efforts to conceal the fact.
She sent neither letter nor announcement; but in the summer, when she
was next seen in Christiania, she was wheeling a perambulator along
Karl Johan Street, her eyes as wondering as though some one had just
put it between her hands. She looked handsomer and more blooming than
ever.
In the perambulator lay a boy with his mother's broad forehead, his
mother's red hair. The child was charmingly dressed, and he, as well as
the perambulator, was so daintily equipped, so completely in harmony
with herself, that every one understood the reply that she gave, when,
after the usual congratulations, her acquaintances inquired, "Shall we
soon have a new story from you?"--she answered, "A new story? Here it
is!"
But, notwithstanding the unalloyed happiness which she displayed here,
it could no longer be concealed that more often than not she was absent
from home, and that she never mentioned her husband's name. If any one
spoke of him to her, she changed the subject. By the time that the boy
was a year old, it had become evident that she contemplated leaving
Hellebergene entirely. She had been in Christiania for some time and
had gone home to make arrangements, saying that she should come back in
a few days.
But she never did so.
The day after her return home, while the numerous servants at
Hellebergene, as well as the labourers with their wives and children,
were all assembled at the potato digging, Harald Kaas appeared,
carrying his wife under his left arm like a sack. He held her round the
waist, feet first, her face downwards and hidden by her hair, her hands
convulsively clutching his left thigh, her legs sometimes hanging down,
sometimes straight out. He walked composedly out with her, holding in
his right hand a bunch of long fresh birch twigs. A little way from the
gallery he paused, and laying her across his left knee, he tore off
some of her clothes, and beat her until the blood flowed. She never
uttered a sound. When he put her from him, she tremblingly
rearranged--first her hair, thus displaying her face just as the blood
flowed back from it, leaving it deadly white. Tears of pain and shame
rolled down her cheeks; but still not a sound. She tried to rearrange
her dress, but her tattered garments trailed behind her as she went
back to the house. She shut the door after her, but had to open it
again; her torn clothes had caught fast in it.
The women stood aghast; some of the children screamed with fright: this
infected the rest, and there was a chorus of sobs. The men, most of
whom had been sitting smoking their pipes, but who had sprung to their
feet again, stood filled with shame and indignation.
It had not been without a pang that Harald Kaas had done this, his face
and manner had shown it for a long time and still did so; but he had
expected that a roar of laughter would greet his extraordinary vagary.
This was evident from the composure with which he had carried his wife
out; and still more from the glance of gratified revenge with which he
looked round him afterwards. But there was only dead stillness,
succeeded by weeping, sobbing, and indignation. He stood there for a
moment, quite overcome, then went indoors again, a defeated, utterly
broken man.
In every encounter with this delicate creature the giant had been
worsted.
After this, however, she never went beyond the grounds. For the first
few years she was only seen by the people about the estate, and by them
but seldom. Sometimes she would take her boy out in his little
carriage, or, as time went on, would lead him by the hand, sometimes
she was alone. She was generally wrapped in a big shawl, a different
one for each dress she wore, and which she always held tightly round
her. This was so characteristic of her that to this day I hear people
from the neighbourhood talk about it as though she were never seen
otherwise.
What then did she do? She studied; she had given up writing: for more
than one reason it had become distasteful to her. She had changed roles
with her husband, giving herself up to mathematics, chemistry, and
physics, she made calculations and analyses--sending for books and
materials for these objects. The people on the estate saw nothing
extraordinary in all this. From the first they had admired her delicacy
and beauty. Every one admired her; it was only the manner and degree
that varied.
Little by little she came to be regarded as one whose life and thoughts
were beyond their comprehension.
She sought no one, but to those who came to her she never refused
help--more or less. She made herself well acquainted with the facts of
each case; no one could ever deceive her. Whether she gave much or
little, she imposed no conditions, she never lectured them. Her opinion
was expressed by the amount that she gave.
Her husband's behaviour towards her was such that, had she not been
very popular, she could not have remained at Hellebergene; that is to
say, he opposed and thwarted her in every way he could; but every one
took her part.
The boy! Could not he have been a bond of union? On the contrary, there
were those who declared that it was from the time of his birth that
things had gone amiss between the parents. The first time that his
father saw him the nurse reported that he "came in like a lord and went
out like a beggar!" The mother lay down again and laughed; the nurse
had never seen the like of it before. Had he expected that his child
must of necessity resemble him, only to find it the image of its mother?
When the boy was old enough he loved to wander across to his father's
rooms where there were so many curious things to see; his father always
received him kindly, talking in a way suited to his childish
intelligence, but he would take occasion to cut away a quantity of his
hair. His mother let it grow free and long like her own, and his father
perpetually cut it. The boy would have been glad enough to be rid of
it, but when he grew a little older, he comprehended his father's
motive, and thenceforth he was on his guard.
When the people on the estate had told him something of his father's
highly-coloured histories of his feats of strength and his achievements
by land and water, the boy began to feel a shy admiration for him, but
at the same time he felt all the more strongly the intolerable yoke
which he laid upon them--upon every living being on the estate. It
became a secret religion with him to oppose his father and help his
mother, for it was she who suffered. He would resemble her even to his
hair, he would protect her, he would make it all up to her. It was a
positive delight to him when his father made him suffer: he absolutely
felt proud when he called him Rafaella, instead of Rafael, the name
which his mother had chosen for him; it was the one that she loved best.
No one was allowed to use the boats or the carriage, no one might walk
through the woods, which had been fenced in, the horses were never
taken out. No repairs were undertaken; if Fru Kaas attempted to have
anything done at her own expense, the workmen were ordered off: there
could no longer be any doubt about it, he wished everything to go to
rack and ruin. The property went from bad to worse, and the
woods--well! It was no secret, every one on the place talked about
it--the timber was being utterly ruined. The best and largest trees
were already rotten; by degrees the rest would become so.
At twelve years of age Rafael began to receive religious teaching from
the Dean: the only subject in which his mother did not instruct him. He
shared these lessons with Helene, the Dean's only child, who was four
years younger than Rafael and of whom he was devotedly fond.
The Dean told them the story of David. The narrative was unfolded with
additions and explanations; the boy made a picture of it to himself;
his mother had taught him everything in this way.
Assyrian warriors with pointed beards, oblique eyes, and oblong
shields, had to represent the Israelites; they marched by in an endless
procession. He saw the blue-green of the vineyards on the hillside, the
shadow of the dusty palm-trees upon the dusty road. Then a wood of
aromatic trees into which all the warriors fled.
Then followed the story of Absalom.
"Absalom rebelled against his father, what a dreadful thing to think
of," said the Dean. "A grown-up man to rebel against his father." He
chanced to look towards Rafael, who turned as red as fire.
The thought which was constantly in his mind was that when he was grown
up he should rebel against his father.
"But Absalom was punished in a marvellous manner," continued the Dean.
"He lost the battle, and as he fled through the woods, his long hair
caught in a tree, the horse ran away from under him, and he was left
hanging there until he was run through by a spear."
Rafael could see Absalom hanging there, not in the long Assyrian
garments, not with a pointed beard. No! Slender and young, in Rafael's
tight-fitting breeches and stockings, and with his own red hair! Ah!
how distinctly he saw it! The horse galloping far away--the grey one at
home which he used to ride by stealth when his father was asleep after
dinner. He could see the tall, slender lad, dangling and swaying, with
a spear through his body. Distinctly! Distinctly!
This vision, which he never mentioned to a soul, he could not get rid
of. To be left hanging there by his hair--what a strange punishment for
rebelling against his father!
Certainly he already knew the history, but till now he had paid no
special heed to it.
It was on a Friday that this great impression had been made on him, and
on the following Thursday morning he awoke to see his mother standing
over him with her most wondering expression. Her hair still as she had
plaited it for the night; one plait had touched him on the nose and
awoke him before she spoke. She stood bending over him, in her long
white nightgown with its dainty lace trimming, and with bare feet. She
would never have come in like that if something terrible had not
happened. Why did she not speak? only look and look--or was she really
frightened?
"Mother!" he cried, sitting up.
Then she bent close down to him. "THE MAN IS DEAD," she whispered. It
was his father whom she called "the man," she never spoke of him
otherwise.
Rafael did not comprehend what she said, or perhaps it paralysed him.
She repeated it again louder and louder, "The man is dead, the man is
dead."
Then she stood upright, and putting out her bare feet from under her
nightgown, she began to dance--only a few steps; and then she slipped
away through the door which stood half open. He jumped up and ran after
her; there she lay on the sofa, sobbing. She felt that he was behind
her, she raised herself quickly, and, still sobbing, pressed him to her
heart.
Even when they stood together beside the body, the hand which he had in
his shook so that he threw his arms round her, thinking that she would
fall.
Later in life, when he recalled this, he understood what she had
silently endured, what an unbending will she had brought to the
struggle, but also what it had cost her.
At the time he did not in the least comprehend it. He imagined that she
suffered from the horror of the moment as he himself did.
There lay the giant, in wretchedness and squalor! He who had once
boasted of his cleanliness, and expected the like in others, lay there,
dirty and unshaven, under dirty bed clothes, in linen so ragged and
filthy that no workman on the estate had worse. The clothes which he
had worn the day before lay on a chair beside the bed, miserably
threadbare, foul with dirt, sweat, and tobacco, and stinking like
everything else. His mouth was distorted, his hands tightly clenched;
he had died of a stroke.
And how forlorn and desolate was all around him! Why had his son never
noticed this before? Why had he never felt that his father was lonely
and forsaken? To how great an extent no words could express.
Rafael burst into tears; louder and louder grew his sobbing, until it
sounded through all the rooms. The people from the estate came in one
by one. They wished to satisfy their curiosity.
The boy's crying, unconsciously to himself, influenced them all: they
saw everything in a new light. How unfortunate, how desolate, how
helpless had he been who now lay there. Lord, have mercy on us all!
When the corpse of Harald Kaas had been laid out, the face shaved, and
the eyes closed, the distortion was less apparent. They could trace
signs of suffering, but the expression was still virile. It seemed a
handsome face to them now.